About Me
Welcome to Mohamed marzouk’s “ モハメド マルゾーク” website.
My story begins in 2005, when I enrolled in the Faculty of Science at Ain Shams University in Cairo, Egypt. In my first year as an undergraduate, I studied chemistry, physics, mathematics, and biology. Meanwhile, my grandfather died after a long battle with cancer, which was one of the primary reasons I chose biophysics as my B.Sc. major. Since then, I've known that I want to devote my life to cancer research in order to one day help others all over the world in their fight against this fatal disease. In 2009, I graduated as the top biophysics student and the top physics department student, with a graduation project on Intensity-modulated radiation therapy, one of the most advanced types of radiation therapy used to treat cancer ( IMRT).
My academic career began in 2010 when the biophysics group in the physics department hired me as a demonstrator to help students with their laboratory work and physics assignments. I started my M.Sc. at Ain Shams University in 2012, where I learned laboratory molecular genetics techniques like ( PCR) and ( RT-PCR), which improved my understanding of DNA and protein structure and dynamics. I realized at the time that experimental research moves slowly, whereas computational research moves faster. Rather than conducting experimental research, I believed that computational biology could help me realize my dream of assisting millions of cancer patients around the world. As a result, I decided to study computational molecular dynamics for a Ph.D.
The Egypt-Japan Education Partnership ( EJEP) awarded me a scholarship in 2019 to begin my Ph.D. at School of Life Sciences and Technology , Tokyo Institute of Technology . In my Ph.D. research, I used one of the enhanced sampling techniques called parallel cascade selection molecular dynamics ( PaCS-MD) in combination with the Markov state model ( MSM) to investigate biological slow processes such as binding/unbinding (for protein-DNA and protein-ligand) and open/close for protein binding pockets.
After graduation in 2022, I began working as a postdoctoral researcher in the Molecular Modeling and Simulation ( MMS) Team at the National Institute of Quantum Science and Technology ( QST) in Chiba, Japan. I am currently working on a project to quantify protein stability and predict the effect of mutations, which has important implications for protein engineering and drug design. Specifically, the effect of addition/deletion mutations and salt bridges mutations on protein stability was investigated using alchemical transformation and one of the enhanced sampling techniques known as replica exchange with solute tempering ( REST) in combination with free-energy perturbation ( FEP) to predict the stability indicator free energy difference (∆∆G).
Away from my academic life, my passion for sports and active living has done wonders for my physical health. On weekends, I enjoy swimming, and I recently began playing tennis, which has been one of my lifelong passions. I am also a fantastic football player who plays once a week with QST institute researchers.
