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Headshot of Maya nicloas, Post Doctoral Assistant Professor, Core

Maya Nicolas

  • Position: Assistant Professor
  • Department: Institute of Global Health and Human Ecology
  • Email: [email protected]
Brief Biography

Maya Nicolas is an assistant professor at the Institute of Global Health and Human Ecology (IGGHE) and the director of the Scientific Thinking course in the Core Curriculum at The American University in Cairo (AUC). Nicolas holds a PhD in biomedical sciences with a specialization in molecular and developmental genetics from KU Leuven, Belgium. During her PhD, Nicolas aimed to characterize the molecular function of the Amyloid Precursor Protein (APP), a protein related to Alzheimer's disease. In the course of her research, she also identified novel genes important for axonal outgrowth during development and in axonal regeneration post-traumatic brain injury in the fly brain.

Nicolas augmented her academic pursuits with commercial experience by moving to the pharmaceutical industry. She started as a medical science liaison and then a medical manager at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in the United Arab Emirates. In her roles, she critically appraised clinical papers and conducted trainings to healthcare professionals about diseases and the science behind the medications. 

Research Interest
  • Parkinson disease
  • Alzheimer's disease
Education
  • PhD, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, 2015

  • Adel, E.; Nicolas, M. Potential Regulation of the Long Non-Coding RNA Metastasis- Associated Lung Adenocarcinoma Transcript1 by Estrogen in Parkinson’s Disease. Life 2024, 14, 1662. 

  • Moustafa, S., Gaballah, N., Heikal, S., Nicolas, M., Salama, M.*(2024). Impact of family support on the cognitive functions of Egyptian older population. Handbook of neurodegenerative disorders.

  • Mourad, L., Salama, M., Nicolas, M.* (2023). In vitro systems for modeling neurodegeneration. Handbook of neurodegenerative disorders.
  • Liu, T., Zhang, T., Nicolas, M., Boussicault, L., Rice, H., Soldano, A., Claeys, A., Petrova, I., Fradkin, L., Strooper, B. D., Potier, M.-C. & Hassan, B. A. (2021). The amyloid precursor protein is a conserved Wnt receptor. ELife, 10, e69199.
  • Koch M, Nicolas M, Zschaetzsch M, De Geest N, Claeys A, Morgan M, Erfurth ML, Holt M, Schmucker D, Hassan BA. A Fat-Facets-Dscam1-JNK Pathway Enhances Axonal Growth in Development and after Injury. Front. Cell. Neurosci. (2018).
  • Nicolas, M. and B. A. Hassan (2014). Amyloid precursor protein and neural development. Development 141 (13): 2543-2548.