The Third Coast Center for AIDS Research (TC CFAR) welcomes its new senior faculty member, Mohamed Abdel-Mohsen, PhD, associate professor of Medicine (Infectious Diseases) at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. His research focuses on understanding how the host immune system responds to HIV infection.
In August 2024, Abdel-Mohsen joined the faculty at Northwestern University where he is also a senior member of the Center for Human Immunobiology (CHI) and the Potocsnak Longevity Institute. His laboratory’s expertise in translational virology and glycoimmunology will fuel discoveries relevant to their respective missions. The CHI’s mission is to discover and translate innovative science into cures for immune-regulated diseases. Through the Potocsnak Longevity Institute, scientists from across disciplines study aging of certain populations to develop future therapies and lifestyle interventions to expand people’s health span.
Additionally, the robust HIV research environments of the TC CFAR and Northwestern will enable Abdel-Mohsen’s lab to establish new collaborative research into how glycans modulate immune responses in aging with HIV. Host glycans play a pivotal role in modulating immune responses, yet their influence on HIV persistence and immunopathogenesis remains unclear. Abdel-Mohsen’s lab studies how HIV uses glycans (sugars) on infected cells to escape detection by the immune system. By understanding this, they are working on new therapies to block the virus’s ability to hide, which could be crucial for finding an HIV cure.
Abdel-Mohsen’s research team also examines how HIV alters glycan patterns in the body, especially in the blood and gut, to identify biomarkers that predict when the virus will return after stopping therapy. This could be key to developing a cure for HIV infection. In addition, they investigate how these glycan changes are linked to aging-related diseases in people with HIV, with the goal of creating strategies to slow down these health issues and improve quality of life of people living with HIV.
Prior to his position at Northwestern, Abdel-Mohsen was an associate professor in the Vaccine and Immunotherapy Center at The Wistar Institute, and served as the co-director of the Penn CFAR Virus and Reservoirs Technology Core.
“The mentorship and resources provided through UCSF and Penn CFARs were instrumental throughout my different career stages, helping me navigate innovative research areas and integrate them with established clinical, translational, and basic science infrastructures, while maintaining close involvement with community feedback,” said Abdel-Mohsen. “I am excited to contribute back to the CFAR mission through the TC CFAR, further advancing its goals and impact in the HIV research field.”
Abdel-Mohsen has made significant contributions to over 90 peer-reviewed studies and led 10 NIH grants, primarily centered on HIV research. In January 2025, Abdel-Mohsen will become director of the TC CFAR’s Virology and Immunology Technology Core.
Read Abdel-Mohsen’s Recent Research
Immunoglobulin G N-glycan Markers of Accelerated Biological Aging During Chronic HIV Infection, Nature Communications
Distinct Intestinal Microbial Signatures Linked to Accelerated Systemic and Intestinal Biological Aging, Microbiome
Siglec-9 Defines and Restrains a Natural Killer Subpopulation Highly Cytotoxic to HIV-Infected Cells, PLOS Pathogens