| As scientists around the world celebrate 2011 as the International Year of Chemistry, bug expert Zeinab Abou El-Naga is traveling the globe to promote not just women in chemistry, but a renaissance for science in Egypt |
| By Rana Kamaly |
| Empty walls and vast clear tables, with a handful of test tubes and lone pieces of equipment in an otherwise empty room. Welcome to the Mansoura University lab, where Dr. Zeinab Abou El-Naga has built up considerable expertise in the distinctly unsexy topic of bugs. It’s an unpopular field in an unpopular profession, but Abou El-Naga, whose research on natural insecticides has captured respect and interest from around the world and gained her a “Women in Science” award from Wiley-VCH in July, is determined to stay and contribute to Egypt despite offers to work abroad. It is a daunting challenge, explains Abou El-Naga, noting with a concerned smile the hectic work pace, lack of equipment and resources, the negative team energy among her peers as well as social barriers. In the classroom, Abou El-Naga is an entomologist at Mansoura University’s Zoology Department. In the lab, she is a chemist, combining zoology, botany and chemistry to develop environmentally friendly insecticides from natural compounds found in local plants. “Chemistry alone is not enough. You only extract compounds whose benefits and uses are not defined,” she explains, “but zoology gives my discovery a social value, as it helps me identify the uses of these compounds. Through this, society would be able to better understand, appreciate and use the advancements.” Abou El-Naga takes a green approach to her research. “We have to go back to nature in our food, medicine and even when we fight insects that God created — we have to fight them with God’s creation too, not something chemical that we invented. God didn’t create any useless plants or animals,” she elaborates. “We can’t keep violating the laws of nature by using chemicals. We have to find a way to secure ourselves in ways that don’t harm the coming generations.” In 2008, she and her PhD supervisors, professors Mohamed Abou El-Dahb, Abed El-Raaof Salam and Mamdouh Abd El-Megid, extracted oils from a number of plants, including a very rare one growing in Sinai called Ipecacuanha. While parts of this plant are used for medicinal purposes, “it was the first time for someone to extract a compound from it,” Abou El-Naga notes. “But due to the lack of technology and the limited research tools in our labs, we weren’t able to analyze its chemical structure nor define its uses.” Undeterred, she contacted Professor Nikolai Kuhnert from Jacob’s University in Bremen, Germany and sent him samples of the compound. Intrigued, Kuhnert conducted the analysis that she needed at his own expense, confirming that this compound is a natural insecticide against mosquitoes and flour weevils. Upon further examination, the German scientists discovered that after some modification, the compound could also be useful in some cancer drugs. The team is currently trying to modify the extracted compound and believe it could be used to cure leukemia. Impressed with Abou El-Naga’s dissertation on chemical insect pest management, which was recognized as best thesis of the year at Mansoura University, Kuhnert invited the up-and-coming scientist to do her post-doctoral research at his university. “He gave me the chance to do my research in a very advanced lab with technology that isn’t available in Egypt,” Abou El-Naga says. With initial funding from Egypt’s Ministry of Higher Education and later funding from the German Academic Exchange Service (Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst, DAAD), she has since made several research trips to Germany. It wasn’t long before Kuhnert asked her to come work for his team, but Abou El-Naga immediately said no. Why? “Because I love Egypt,” she answers, recalling that her colleagues were shocked at her for turning down the offer, noting that German universities rarely offer anyone a job. Abou El-Naga admits that, “sometimes when challenges increase from the mentality of the people around me, the lack of equipment and the awful team spirit in the Egyptian labs, I feel like I am suffocating. I want to accept the offer […] to go teach in a German university and complete my research, but my love for Egypt, my family and students stops me.”Mountainous Challenges Abou El-Naga’s dedication to Mansoura University, where she earned her academic degrees, and to Egypt is admirable considering the many obstacles she faces as a scientist and a woman. Many of her peers lament the lack of research facilities, inadequate technology and chemical resources and painfully low research budgets. “It’s very hard to do any complete research here. I only cover 50 percent, the biological part and the extraction, only then I either have to stop or transfer to an international lab,” Abou El-Naga explains. All her post-doctoral research has been in collaboration with either German universities or Saudi Arabia’s King Abdulaziz University. Professional jealousy is another barrier. “Here we are fighting each other, we are not building, especially in the universities,” Abou El-Naga says. “Many people just want to bring others down or stop them from moving faster than them.” In Germany, Abou El-Naga came to realize that fierce competition among scientists holds everyone back. “In the Egyptian lab, everyone is keeping secrets, and I thought this is how it should be,” she explains, “but in the German lab we are all one team learning from each other and working toward a common goal even though each of us has a different religion, nationality, language and ethnicity.” Abou El-Naga has also had to overcome deeply held gender biases. “The Egyptian culture doesn’t allow a woman to be better than a man in any way,” Abou El-Naga says, noting that despite being top of her class, she was not hired at Mansoura University immediately after graduation. “The head of the department told me, ‘if you were a man I would have appointed you.’ When I asked why, he said, ‘When I appoint women they get married, pregnant, take lots of vacations and I don’t get any work from them.’” She has proven the department head wrong — but at a cost. Abou El-Naga’s nine-year-old daughter spends much of her time with her grandparents due to her mother’s extended travels and long hours in the lab, says the scientist, painfully recalling how she “once returned home after long days of work and found a sticky note from my daughter saying, ‘I love you, I miss you.’” On top of everything else, Mansoura is virtually invisible on the research map. “My career would have been a bit easier if I was in Cairo because in Egypt we have centralization. The spotlight is on Cairo and Alexandria, and abroad people only know those two universities. Mansoura became known only after Dr. Mohamed El-Ghonimy put his home city on the map, medically. And now I am trying to do the same for my hometown in science.” As a child, Abou El-Naga found school could not satisfy her scientific curiosity, so she turned to television. “I recall following Dr. Mostafa Mahmud’s program “El-Ilm wa El-Iman” [Science and faith],” Abou El-Naga recalls. “It used to appeal to me because of his special way of presenting and also the amazing discoveries.” Although Abou El-Naga knew she wanted to be a scientist, her family and friends told her the field was hard and had no future in this country, unlike the prestigious fields of medicine or engineering. So first she went to medical school, but eventually transferred to the faculty of science, where, she says, “I found myself.” Now she wants to help Egypt find itself. Abou El-Naga is confident that post-revolution things will change, but slowly, and will need a lot of effort and sacrifice from everyone. “I believe that Egypt will not advance without science; science must be the backbone of Egypt, as it is the backbone of all the leading countries,” she says. Even before the revolution, however, she has been trying to strengthen that backbone. Through her German connections, Abou El-Naga has helped convince DAAD to increase funding for scientific research in Egypt. Cooperating with Braunschweig University of Technology in Germany, she has worked on projects that provide needed equipment for Egyptian laboratories and promote student and staff exchanges. Here at home, Abou El-Naga is involved in a DAAD-funded water resource management project in Egypt that tries to remove pesticides from farm wastewater to reuse it in irrigation. “I hope I can be a building block in Egypt by using my research for the well-being of others and the environment.” |
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