Najib El-Sayed

Najib El-Sayed is a professor of cell biology and molecular genetics with a joint appointment in the Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology.

In 1998, he joined The Institute for Genomic Research in Rockville, Md., where he led the sequencing, annotation, and comparative and functional genomic analyses of several human pathogens. El-Sayed has been at the University of Maryland since 2006. He currently directs the Next-Generation Sequencing Core at the university.

El-Sayed’s research program is focused on the study of the biology of parasitism and host-pathogen interactions using genomic and bioinformatics approaches with the ultimate goal of better understanding infection and survival mechanisms. These approaches include the development and application of molecular, computational and genomic tools. In the long term, his research will contribute to better diagnosis, prevention and therapeutics of parasite- and bacteria-caused diseases in humans, animals and plants.

He has published more than 70 research papers and serves on the editorial boards of BMC Genomics and PLoS One. El-Sayed also serves on National Institute of Health’s Genomics, Computational Biology and Technology study section, as well as on the Scientific Advisory Board for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ Genome Sequencing Centers for Infectious Diseases.

He received his doctorate in molecular parasitology from Yale University and trained as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute post-doctoral fellow in the laboratory of John Donelson at the University of Iowa.

Go here to view El-Sayed's academic publications on Google Scholar.