Mentor: Hong Wen, Ph.D.

Research Focus: Characterization of how chromatin reader SP140 regulates gene expression

Experience: Before graduate school, Elshaimaa was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to pursue her master’s degree in Connecticut, where she studied BRD4 activation in primary neurons and completed a summer internship at UConn Health using ChIP-seq to study eye development. In Egypt, she worked on enhancing cytotoxicity in hepatocellular carcinoma. Currently, as a Ph.D. student at Van Andel Institute Graduate School, Elshaimaa studies SP140, an immune-restricted chromatin reader implicated in autoimmune diseases and cancer. Her research combines biochemical assays, structural modeling and gene expression analysis to uncover the molecular mechanisms by which SP140 regulates chromatin and impacts immune-related disease.

Undergraduate Institution: Alexandria University

Masters Institution: University of Connecticut

Hometown: Alexandra, Egypt