The sane scientist

Mohamed Raouf Hamed:
The sane scientist
Profile by Samia Abdennour
The cinematic stereotype of the scientist is a ferocious looking man with a mop of unruly hair, replying to questions in grunts, wearing disheveled clothes and peering through thick glasses into a microscope at the wiggling creatures trapped beneath the lens. In the cages that surround him, mice squeak and monkeys gibber. This picture has nothing to do with Raouf Hamed. He is calm, very civil, well dressed -- and, incidentally, bald.
Hamed was born and bred in Cairo, yet in 1966, the bureaucratic entity responsible for assigning students to various departments enrolled him at Alexandria University's Faculty of Pharmacology. He had wanted to study medicine, but his father dissuaded him from doing so. His second choice was a little different -- enrolling at the Cinema Institute -- but here too he was discouraged, this time by actor Mahmoud El-Meligui. Pharmacology was his third choice, and the fact that he was sent to Alexandria compensated immensely for his inability to take either of the two paths dearest to his heart. In that seaside city he enjoyed the independence he longed for, and set about making the best of the situation. He divided his time between studies and leisure, attending concerts, poetry readings and films when he was not dabbling (briefly) in politics. Reviewing the different specialisations his faculty afforded, he narrowed his choices to either pharmaceutical engineering -- i.e. making medicine -- or pharmacology -- the effect of medicines on the human body. After careful consideration, he chose the latter.
Upon graduation in 1970, he found employment at the National Organisation for Drug Control and Research (NODC&R) in Cairo, his main interest being drug safety and efficacy. In 1972, he started the Teratology Unit, devoted to the scientific study of malformation in developing embryos, to study the effect of drugs on foetuses. "This was a new and interesting field, which developed after the disaster in Europe of congenital abnormalities produced by Thalidomide," Hamed says. "I collected and studied all the literature I could lay my hands on, and went to Poland on a four-month training course to broaden my research abilities in this field. As a result of my developed ideas, I was offered a scholarship to study for a doctorate." This was an unexpected blessing, and upon his request the Polish Ministry of Health also offered a scholarship to his colleague and fiancée, Salwa, to study for a doctorate in pharmacokinetics or the study of drugs in the body: their absorption, distribution, metabolism and elimination. Salwa came to Warsaw and the couple was joined in a simple wedding ceremony. A year later they were blessed by the birth of Murad.
Apart from his studies, Hamed enjoyed a very active life. He started a regular newsletter, Sawt Misr (The Voice of Egypt), inviting the 60 or 70 Egyptian students scattered throughout Poland to write and share their news, achievements and problems. He was a regular fixture at the state university library, where he read voraciously, ploughing his way through all the available literature on the ideological approach to science and its applications. It was also there and then that the idea of exponential growth originated in his mind -- an idea that was to result in the publication of a groundbreaking work in 1990.
He became a member of the Polish delegation that attended conferences abroad and at one of these events, held in Czechoslovakia, he presented a paper entitled "Dose/Response Relationship in Teratology," introducing the new element of time to his findings.
The paper was very well received, and during recess he was approached by an agent who offered him a lucrative job in the US. "I was not interested, and without a second thought I turned him down. I understood later from some colleagues that it was standard procedure to pick out promising scientists from Third World countries, contributing to the brain drain from the nation," says Hamed. Egypt, and specifically dreams of its renaissance, was foremost in his mind, however.
He obtained his degree in 1977, but Salwa had two more years to go before obtaining hers. Knowing that if he returned to Egypt he would not have the means to visit her often, he accepted a teaching job at the newly established Faculty of Pharmacology in Tripoli, Libya. While he had no teaching experience, he was unequivocal in his rejection of the traditional methods "whereby we obediently took notes and regurgitated them at test time." He therefore plunged into the study of modern teaching methods, desiring above all things to impart his knowledge to his students in an attractive way. Among the skills he taught his 40 students was critical thinking; he insisted that they look up references and not be satisfied with his lectures. There were also open-book and take-home exams, which encouraged independent investigation as opposed to rote learning. The students were elated with this new approach, and requested permission to continue their studies and research work during the summer vacation, instead of training in pharmacies as their curriculum dictated.
Hamed took a keen interest in his students' culture, and was convinced that subjects they could relate to would encourage them to apply themselves more zealously still to their studies. To ensure their continued attentiveness, he set them research topics close to home: for instance, the study of the properties of capsaicin or red pepper (shatta), a very popular condiment among Libyans, who use it in most of their food. "Contrary to accepted assumptions, we discovered that capsaicin, taken in small doses, protects from the incidence of gastric ulcer, whether the ulcer is caused by stress or aspirin. A paper bearing the names of all the Libyan researchers was read at the international conference organised by the Fédération Internationale de Pharmacologie (FIP) in Vienna in 1979, and again in Tokyo in 1981. This discovery puzzled many attending scientists, who repeated the research and came up with the same results. It is very gratifying to note that, through the efforts of the Libyan students, this phenomenon is now recorded in medical textbooks," says Hamed with pride. Their interest in pharmacology -- kindled by Hamed's open-minded approach -- prompted eight of the 40 students to continue their higher education.
Hamed remained in Libya for five years. Salwa and Murad joined him there; there, too, their daughter Omnia first saw the light of day. At the end of his stay in Libya, before returning permanently to Egypt, he spent six months in Zurich to further his research on the effect of capsaicin, this time on its toxicity and effect on cells and mutations. Again, his research yielded very interesting results.
Back home at the NODC&R in 1984, Hamed set up a new unit of developmental pharmacology, designed to conduct research on the effect of drugs on growth and protein malnutrition. In 1990, preoccupied by the idea of social creativity, he started the Drug Bioavailability Centre, "to classify the resources, potential and requirements of our country in order to create the ambiance necessary to raise the standard of people's health awareness," as he explains. Bureaucratic problems plagued his efforts, however, crippling the project; he resigned from the centre a couple of years later, retaining his position as head of the developmental pharmacology unit.
Although Hamed is very calm, unassuming and keen to keep a low profile, one must not be fooled by appearances. He is a workaholic, very well read -- indeed, a compulsive reader -- and has a vast range of activities. He is very interested in futuristic studies and has joined his friend Ahmed Shawqi in starting a new series of books called Kurrassat Al-Mustaqbal (Future Notebooks). A member of the Scientific Cultural Committee at the Supreme Council of Culture, he has translated and written many books on science and technology. He is also a member of many international and local scientific organisations -- to name but a few, the World Health Organisation, the Academy of Scientific Research, Al-Ruwwad, the Society of Egyptian Engineers, the Society of Political Economics, and the National Society for Technological and Economical Development.
Although Hamed is a Muslim, the Coptic Evangelical Organisation for Social Services (CEOSS) has made him a member of the Committee on Interfaith Dialogue; he therefore plays an important role in deciding its policy and choosing the speakers at CEOSS conferences.
Although he only started writing on general topics in the early 1990s, he has published about 20 books -- and that prolific output does not take into account his articles on the side effects of drugs published in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Another indication of the broad range of his interests is offered by the fact that in 1989 he edited the publication issued by the World Bank and the United Nations on the disposal of hazardous waste.
Such frenzied activity notwithstanding, in the late 1980s Hamed felt that he had some spare time on his hands. Eclectic as ever, he spent three years studying at the Institute of Arabic Music.
His most recent achievement, however, dates from last year, when he obtained a diploma of higher studies in operations research. He describes this latest endeavour as stemming from a desire "to acquire the mathematical sense and method relative to mathematics and its use in scientific management." He is also on the board of editors of the prestigious magazines Sutour and Ahwal Misriya. With such a wide range of interests, and a spectrum of pursuits sufficiently diverse to satisfy even the busiest of bees, Hamed should add another specialisation to the list of his areas of expertise -- time management.
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