Dr. Mostafa al-Sayed, professor of biochemistry at the US Georgia Institute of Technology, Chemistry & Biochemistry and winner of the highest US National Medal of Science, said he would finish the final draft of the two projects he is supervising in Egypt in the field of nanotechnology during the coming few days in cooperation with the National Research Center. The two projects are related to cancer research and solar energy. Speaking to Al-Masry Al-Youm, al-Sayed said: "The first project, supervised by the Deputy Chairman of the National Research Center for Technical Affairs Dr Nihad al-Shazli, aims to use nanotechnology to build solar cells in order to get the largest amount of energy at the lowest possible price." For her part, al-Shazli said nanotechnology ensures reducing the cost of producing solar cells, as the primitive material is very cheap compared to silicon, which is currently being used in the production of solar cells.
Al-Sayed added: "The second project, supervised by the head of the National Research Center's laser laboratory Ali Shabaka, is the completion of the phase I have already started in using gold compounds to treat the cancer patients. The research team, which consists of doctors, chemists, veterinarians and pharmacists, will evaluate the effectiveness and safety of gold compounds through toxicity tests on mice and rats for two years. After that, the medicine will be tested on bigger animals and later on healthy and sick volunteers."
"I know how much people a medicine for cancer, as I receive a large number of e-mails every day from Egyptians, Arabs and Americans of Arab descent. I try to convince them that I can not help them now, as the medicine is still being tested."
I am very optimistic about the Egyptian working group, al-Sayed said, adding: "After the research team has finished the work, I hope the medicine will be tested on human beings in cooperation with the National Cancer Institute to prove that Egypt cares for human beings.
"When I met with Dr. Hani Hilal, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, he told me that there are funds for scientific research in Egypt, but there are no projects deserving funding," al-Sayed added.
He said he was happy that US President Barack Obama would increase the budget of scientific research in the United States.
"At a time when everything went down because of the financial crisis, Obama has decided to challenge this crisis by increasing the budget allocated for scientific research. I hope the Egyptian government would be able to understand this decision," he added.
