April 13, 2023

About the speaker

Dr. El-Sherif is a new tenure-track assistant professor in the Department of Biology at UTRGV, having joined the team in Spring 2023. He holds a Bachelor's (2004) and Master's (2008) degree in Electronics and Communications Engineering, specializing in computer vision, from Cairo University in Egypt. During his master's program, he developed a system that adaptively identifies the simplest machine learning classifier to solve computer vision problems, resulting in reduced computational time. Dr. El-Sherif later earned his PhD in Genetics (2013) from Kansas State University in the United States, where he employed experimental and computational modeling approaches to explore the systems biology of embryonic patterning and gene regulation in living organisms. His research during this time led to significant discoveries about the development and operation of embryonic pattern formation systems. Following his PhD, Dr. El-Sherif conducted postdoctoral research in Michael Levine's lab at the University of California Berkeley. Using advanced live imaging techniques in the fruit fly Drosophila, he studied how enhancers synergize to orchestrate embryonic development. In 2015, he became a junior group leader at the Division of Developmental Biology at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), Germany. There, he established an independent and unique line of research, for which he secured competitive funding, resulting in impactful publications in PNAS, eLife, PLOS Genetics, and Dev Bio. His work introduced novel mechanisms for embryonic patterning and evolution, including the "speed regulation" and "enhancer switching" models, which were supported by imaging and genetic experiments, quantitative analyses, and computational modeling. In addition to his research, he developed and taught courses on microscopy, image analysis, systems biology of development and gene regulation, and computational modeling. Dr. El-Sherif mentored several students during his time at FAU, including two PhD, five Master's, and two Bachelor's students. Dr. El-Sherif's research at FAU was funded by a Humboldt fellowship, a DFG grant, an "Emergent Talent Initiative" grant, and a fellowship for one of his PhD students. He has also guest edited the special issue "Systems Biology of Pattern Formation" in the journal Developmental Biology.

How genes make embryos, and how to model that in silico

Neurons form complex networks in the brain that allow us to process sensory information and make decisions based on that information. Similarly, genes also form networks within cells that help to regulate the various biological processes necessary for the development of an organism. Mathematicians, computational modelers, and biophysicists have played an important role in understanding gene networks, by developing models that can predict the behavior of these networks. In this talk, I will give an overview of my approach to tackle this problem using both experiments and computational modelling.