Wesley College student to present biomedical research to members of Congress

Osama Mahmoud, a senior at Wesley College in Dover, has been selected to present his research on Capitol Hill at the Council on Undergraduate Research’s 2020 Posters on the Hill event in April, the university reports.

Mahmoud is a recipient of biomedical research funds from the IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE) program, administered through the National Institute of General Medical Sciences for the National Institutes of Health. He will be the second Wesley student to present at Posters on the Hill, where undergraduates present research to members of Congress. The first, Ghada Alabed, presented in 2010.

From the Wesley College posting:

Mahmoud worked at Green Clinics Lab [in Dover] on a research project with [the lab’s cofounder] Dr. [Fady] Gerges dealing with anal cancer. Human papilloma virus (HPV) can stimulate anal cancer, as it does cervical cancer. In a pilot study Gerges and Mahmoud developed the first clinical protocol to catch anal intraepithelial neoplasia (AIN), a precursor to anal cancer, within high-risk populations. The protocol uses color-coded protein markers on biopsied lesion material to indicate whether a person has AIN caused by HPV and the degree of severity of AIN.

There’s not been much research into this condition. “There was no firm clinical procedure before,” says Mahmoud. “Our research is significant because we developed the first clinical procedure giving an incidence rate” for HPV-caused AIN.