Afaf El-Sagheer

Afaf El-Sagheer is an Assistant Professor in Chemistry at the University of Southampton. She holds a PhD from Southampton University under Prof. John Mellor and previously served as Professor of Bio-Organic Chemistry at Suez University. Since 2006, she has collaborated extensively with Prof. Tom Brown on nucleic acid chemistry. Her research focuses on synthetic methods for DNA/RNA constructs, therapeutic oligonucleotides, and mRNA modifications. She leads projects in the Institute for Life Sciences and Organic Chemistry departments, with over 150 publications and patents.

• Current role: Assistant Professor in Chemistry (since 2023)
• PhD: Southampton University, supervised by Prof. John Mellor
• Key collaborations: Prof. Tom Brown (Southampton/Oxford)
• Research groups: Organic Chemistry, ChemLife Network

Her work pioneers click chemistry applications for gene editing and therapeutics. Recent projects include mRNA priming modifications and cathepsin B-mediated drug delivery systems. Publications span journals like Nature Structural & Molecular Biology and Journal of the American Chemical Society.