Ayman El-Guindy

Chief Scientific Officer at Viracta Pharmaceuticals

Ayman El-Guindy, Ph.D., ­has over 23 years of experience studying the role of viruses in cancer and spent the last decade as a faculty member at Yale University School of Medicine, most recently as an Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics, Section of Infectious Disease, and the Department of Pathology. At Yale, Dr. El-Guindy ran a laboratory focused on the involvement of herpesviruses in the etiology and prognosis of cancer. His group studied the fundamental role of herpesvirus protein kinases in viral pathogenesis and as potential targets for drug development. Additionally, he made seminal contributions to the understanding of oncogenic herpesvirus reactivation from latent to lytic state, the process of viral DNA replication, role of virally encoded cytokines in mediating cell proliferation, and temporal regulation of viral gene expression during infection. He has been awarded numerous grants from organizations such as the American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute to study the mechanisms regulating EBV gene expression and the role of viruses in cancer as both a Principal and Co-Investigator. Dr. El-Guindy has authored over two dozen peer-reviewed publications and serves in editorial roles at the scientific journals Pathogens and Frontiers in Microbiology. He also serves as a reviewer for multiple journals including PloS Pathogens and the Journal of Virology. He received his Ph.D. and M.Ph. in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University and his M.Sc. in Biochemistry from Ain-Shams University (Egypt).


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