Hiba Mohamed


Hiba Salah-Eldin Mohamed is a Sudanese molecular biologist who works at the University of Khartoum. She won the 2007 Royal Society Pfizer Award.

Early life and education

Mohamed studied zoology at the University of Khartoum, earning a Bachelors in 1993 and a Masters in 1998. She moved to the University of Cambridge Institute for Medical Research for her PhD in 2002. Her doctoral research, "The role of Host Genetics in Susceptibility to Kala-azar in The Sudan", was under the supervision of Jenefer Blackwell. She remained at the CIMR as a postdoctoral fellow.

Research

Mohamed was awarded a Wellcome Trust Research Development Award, and moved back to the University of Khartoum to be a professor in the Department of Molecular Biology. Her research focuses on understanding the genetics of Visceral leishmaniasis. She was awarded the 2007 Royal Society Pfizer Award for her research into the disease, which is transmitted by sandfly bites. There is no vaccine or effective treatment, and up to 350 million people are at risk worldwide. Mohamed was part of the Royal Society Africa Week celebrations in 2008. In 2010 Mohamed was appointed a Fellow of the Global Young Academy.