A thin, gold-colored chip at AUC’s Center of Nanoelectronics and Devices, is etched with microscopic electrical sensors and a small chamber designed to hold a drop of biological fluid. The idea behind it is deceptively simple: Instead of sending every patient to a hospital for a battery of expensive tests, what if a disposable piece chip could perform an initial screening in seconds?

Researchers at AUC have developed an artificial intelligence-enabled biochip that could provide rapid, low-cost pre-screening for deadly diseases, including leukemia, liver disorders, hepatitis C and malaria. While currently a proof of concept, the project demonstrates significant diagnostic efficacy within a rapidly advancing, AI-driven precision medicine landscape.

The interdisciplinary research began around a decade ago and has since involved tens of thousands of samples. The team drew on expertise across AUC and collaborate with medical institutions that provide biological samples for testing, including Ain Shams University Hospital, Children’s Cancer Hospital 57357 and Zewail City of Science, Technology and Innovation in Egypt, as well as Khalifa University in the United Arab Emirates and Carnegie Mellon University Africa in Rwanda which performed the majority of AI tests. 

"If we have affordable methods, we can screen, monitor and provide medical services for anyone from a rural area to outside a village."

Led by Yehea Ismail, chair of the Department of Electronics and Communications Engineering and director of AUC’s Center for Nanoelectronics and Devices, the technology combines microelectronic sensors, microfluidics and artificial intelligence to identify physical and electrical characteristics of cells.

A New Approach to Disease Screening

Unlike conventional diagnostic systems that may require large and expensive laboratory equipment, the AUC biochip is designed as a small, disposable platform that could eventually be manufactured at low cost and used closer to where patients receive care.

“After COVID 19, the whole world realized the importance of rapid tests. Rapid tests are very important in airports, rural areas and central capitals,” said Reda Abdelbaset, co-principal investigator and research fellow at AUC. “Even Egypt spent many years suffering from high percentages of viruses and liver disorders such as liver cancer. If we have affordable methods, we can screen, monitor and provide medical services for anyone from a rural area to outside a village.”

The technology has attracted interest beyond academia. During an entrepreneurship workshop at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the project drew the attention of potential investors and entrepreneurs, leading to an offer involving millions of dollars to pursue its development and commercialization.

“There are sensors, there is electronics design, there is AI, there are dielectrophoresis—modeling itself and simulating these multi-physics systems with fluid dynamics, cells, electromagnetics. At AUC we have built the tool suite to do this."

The chip uses electrical signals and artificial intelligence to identify patterns in cells that may indicate disease. Rather than detecting tumors in medical scans, it measures physical and electrical properties of cells as they pass through microscopic structures on its surface. These properties, including cell size, mass, movement and electrical conductivity, alter the signals in measurable ways.

Machine-learning models analyze these changes to distinguish between healthy and potentially diseased samples and identify patterns associated with particular conditions. “We feed these features into an AI training algorithm, which analyzes large numbers of samples and builds a neural network capable of distinguishing between cancerous and non-cancerous conditions, as well as identifying different types of cancer, such as lung or skin cancer. The data comes from sensors that detect physical characteristics rather than chemical properties. As the AI is trained on more samples, its ability to make accurate diagnoses improves,” said Ismail.

Without AI researchers achieved around 80% accuracy. With AI, they achieved around 91% of accuracy for blood serum samples, according to Abdelbaset.

The team has also explored using AI to distinguish between healthy samples and samples associated with different stages of metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), a condition linked to an increased risk of liver cancer. The system is designed as a pre-screening tool, not a replacement for clinical diagnosis. Its models prioritize sensitivity over specificity, favoring false positives over false negatives so that uncertain or potentially diseased samples can be referred for further testing rather than incorrectly classified as healthy.

Developing the technology requires expertise across several disciplines, including sensor development, electronics, AI and dielectrophoresis: a technique that uses electric fields to manipulate cells. “There are sensors, there is electronics design, there is AI, there are dielectrophoresis—modeling itself and simulating these multi-physics systems with fluid dynamics, cells, electromagnetics. At AUC we have built the tool suite to do this,” said Ismail.

Laboratory Research Paired with Artificial Intelligence

The potential value of the technology lies partly in its ability to bring preliminary screening closer to patients.

In many health systems, advanced diagnostic equipment is concentrated in major hospitals and specialized laboratories. A low-cost screening platform could eventually help identify patients who require additional testing while reducing unnecessary referrals and easing pressure on centralized diagnostic services.

Egypt faces an exceptionally high burden of liver cancer. Precise diagnostic instruments serve as the indispensable first line of defense in reducing patient mortality across Egypt. Africa bears the overwhelming majority of the global malaria burden, accounting for approximately 94% to 96% of all malaria cases and 95% to 97% of all malaria deaths worldwide. 

“The stage of malaria someone has can jump from mild to severe within just one day. Any delays in a day will incur additional costs and lead to a very simple disease developing to a severe stage of malaria,” said Abdelbaset.

The researchers estimate that a mass-produced chip could potentially cost between 10 and 50 cents to manufacture, with packaging bringing the total cost to approximately $1. The system would also require a separate reader capable of processing the chip’s electrical signals and transmitting results to a computer, phone or physician.

AUC’s research infrastructure has played an important role in developing and testing the technology. The University has provided laboratory equipment, measurement facilities, academic computer-aided design tools and support for undergraduate research projects, including a malaria-focused biochip project supported by AUC’s Bartlet undergraduate research grant.

Despite its progress, the biochip remains a proof of concept rather than a production-ready medical device. Additional research is needed to establish reliability across different temperatures and manufacturing conditions, demonstrate repeatability, expand the available datasets and complete the testing required for regulatory approval. “For industry and mass production, we care about many things like protecting our devices from different environments, temperature, high temperature, maybe electromagnetics,” said Abdelbaset.

Commercialization would also require sustained funding, a dedicated development team and expertise in manufacturing and business development. 

For Ismail, Abdelbaset and their collaborators, the research demonstrates the potential of combining nanoelectronics and artificial intelligence to address major challenges in global health.

The long-term vision is a diagnostic platform that is small, inexpensive and accessible enough to bring sophisticated disease screening beyond centralized laboratories — while connecting patients who need definitive diagnoses with the hospitals and specialists equipped to provide them.

Our world runs on wireless networks. Millions of people and devices require strong connections to communicate phone calls and fire alarms. But how do networks prevent calls from dropping on the airwaves? The secret is communications engineers: the brains behind the algorithms that keep our world connected.

Karim Seddik, professor of electronics and communications engineering and associate dean for graduate studies and research in the School of Sciences and Engineering, researches how we can apply AI and machine learning to keep calls online while managing interference between the millions of signals networks handle every day.

Staying Connected

Wireless communications work like this: When you make a call, send a message or use mobile data, your device sends a signal in the form of a radio wave to a base station, which processes this data and routes the signal back to its intended destination. With millions of devices connected to mobile networks, this process requires significant amounts of energy, and base stations can get overloaded by the high demand. 

“One of the major challenges of mobile operators worldwide, not just in Egypt, is energy consumption,” Seddik explained. “The energy bill for mobile operators is one of the most expensive parts of their operation, so energy efficiency is key.”

The challenge is that managing this energy use is not yet automated. Mobile operators have to track and monitor thousands of cells across a network, with varying levels of demand. Traditionally, communications engineers have relied on classical mathematical models to find an optimal solution. But this has proven difficult with the growing scale of modern mobile networks. 

To address this issue, Seddik researches how to make base stations energy-efficient by using machine learning to manage these cells. He and his team, including AUC students, worked with Vodafone Egypt to apply machine learning algorithms on real network data from New Cairo to reduce energy consumption and effectively manage network congestion. “Using AI and machine learning, we can have automated, real-time, data-driven tools that are built into the network. We have tested some of these solutions, with machine learning at the core of our algorithm, to make sure that the quality of service and user experience are not negatively affected,” Seddik said. 

“Communications, it's everywhere. You cannot live without your cell phone or access to the internet”

Their research created an algorithmic tool to manage a network’s energy load. For example, if there is a smaller number of users on a certain cell, the tool could choose to offload those users to adjacent cells and turn off the current one to save energy. This load-balancing could determine whether your phone has service in crowded areas.

Networks need to support multiple types of traffic, from enhanced broadband to devices communicating without human initiation. As a result, communications engineers use multiple access methods to prevent signal interference on increasingly high-traffic wireless networks. This is crucial to keeping people connected and ensuring reliable communications for critical systems, such as emergency scenarios.

Seddik is investigating an access method called Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access (NOMA) that could save resources, including time and bandwidth for networks. NOMA allows multiple users to send signals simultaneously with controlled interference. Seddik’s research involves programming intelligent reflecting surface algorithms to reduce signal interference and leverage the reflected signal to enhance NOMA performance.

 “Using AI and machine learning, we can have automated, real-time, data-driven tools that are built into the network. We have tested some of these solutions, with machine learning at the core of our algorithm, to make sure that the quality of service and user experience are not negatively affected”

“Communications, it's everywhere. You cannot live without your cell phone or access to the internet,” Seddik said.

Energy Efficient Future

If you want to watch the future of communications, Seddik says to keep an eye on virtual reality and online gaming. These fields require large amounts of data to be transmitted without delay, and the next step is the expansion of AI-native 6G networks as the new backbone of communications.

“Right now, we are very satisfied with megabytes per second, but in the future, we will be talking about gigabytes per second — huge data rates,” Seddik said.

Open radio access networks (O-RANs) are another potential evolution in the business of telecommunications. Mobile networks rely on vendors for network equipment, which is often sold as “black boxes” that limit operator access to network data that could optimize energy use. O-RANs allow operators to build a network combining hardware and software from different vendors — like a Lego set — to improve network performance and energy efficiency. “This could open up new access for startups to specialize in different equipment, diversifying the market for new ideas and investment,” said Seddik.

Even with these changes in his field, what remains important for Seddik is continuing to build the next generation of Egyptian engineers. “I’m always proud of my students,” Seddik said. “When I see that some of them right now are professors abroad and researchers in top companies in the U.S., Europe and everywhere, I feel that I have done something, and this is what keeps me going.”

When Ebram Raafat Thabet stepped on campus four years ago, he felt he had very little exposure to different types of people. “I was simply someone who loved computer science and wanted to study it at the best university in Egypt,” he said.

Now a computer science senior, Thabet has studied abroad, ranked among the top 10% of students in his major, received the AUC Exemplary Student Award and earned recognition in multiple sustainability competitions. He is also a valued member of the AUC chess team, an internationally rated chess player, and has completed internships in AI and software engineering.  “I became much more socially adept and proactive in seeking out new opportunities,” he reflected. “I grew into a more intellectual person and stronger leader.”

Thabet knew from an early age that he wanted to study computer science, and his passion for the field grew over time. “I loved transitioning from being a standard computer user to becoming a creator,” he said.

The Change Leaders Scholarship gave Thabet the opportunity to pursue his interests at the University. “I was able to discover internships and new opportunities at AUC, even connecting with scholarship graduates who came back to share their experiences — from getting into master's programs to launching their own startups,” he said.

Thabet is also involved in several research projects, including one sponsored by Microsoft and another AUC project focused on urban air mobility, in collaboration with The University of Osaka. During his studies, Thabet also had the opportunity to study abroad in the United States, spending time at Temple University in Pennsylvania. “I got to visit a place that truly feels like a cultural melting pot, which allowed me to get to know so many different cultures up close,” Thabet said. “I lived in the same apartment with people from Asia, Africa and the U.S., and each of them brought a completely different perspective and lifestyle,” he said.

A Top 10 finalist and grant recipient in the USAID Social and Green Entrepreneurship Program for Methmelt, an initiative he worked on to help reduce methane gas emissions. Thabet won first place in AUC’s Sustainability and Climate Resilience Competition. “Sustainability and climate impact are causes close to my heart,” Thabet said. “People are usually blamed for causing climate change and environmental damage, but I think we forget that people are also the key to solving this. A good example is how the ozone layer has been recovering, largely because of human effort and action. We shouldn’t lose sight of that.”

“Many people who need this kind of content don’t have the money to pay for it, so having it available for free in their own language makes a real difference.”

Between research, competitions and his studies, you might think Thabet would have his hands full. Yet he has also interned as an AI developer, building large language model agents for enterprise clients, and as a software engineer for Hassan Allam Properties. He taught programming to children and youth through iSchool, served as a data science lead at Google Developer Student Clubs and currently works with International Schooling as a programming tutor for more than 80 international students. Thabet is also an ambassador for the International Computer Science Competition, mentoring peers in competitive programming.

“Teaching feels like one of the most meaningful ways to give back to a community,” Thabet said. “I've always wanted to have a positive impact on people’s lives, and teaching allows me to do that.”

Thabet’s commitment to teaching extends beyond the classroom. He started a YouTube channel called Be Tech Bo, where he explains AI and programming concepts in Arabic to more than a million viewers. “Tech is a fast-moving field, and Arabic speakers often don't have easy access to up-to-date information,” Thabet said. “Many people who need this kind of content don't have the money to pay for it, so having it available for free in their own language makes a real difference.” Even when a video doesn’t perform as well, Thabet said it’s rewarding when viewers comment that a tutorial helped them or ask for more.

Reflecting on his most memorable moment at AUC, Thabet recalled receiving the Exemplary Student Award for balancing academics and cocurriculars. “It was the first time my family ever came to visit the University, and having them there with me along with my friends meant so much,” he said. “Hearing my name called was completely unexpected, and that’s what made it so unforgettable. I thank God for that.”

For Thabet, making the most of the AUC experience is all about being open to what the University has to offer. He encourages students to build genuine connections; seek out internships; try something new, whether through clubs, activities or unique sports such as padel; and make use of University resources, including the Career Center and Writing Center. He also recommends taking advantage of opportunities to study abroad through an exchange semester. Above all, his advice is simple: “Keep trying, and keep trying again,” he affirmed.

Maryam Taghavi’s art is traveling around the world, but her creative journey began as she drew with chalk on a backyard wall in Tehran.

“I was making things; I was scribbling. I didn't even know what I was doing, but I was doing things I love,” said Taghavi, associate professor of practice in AUC’s Department of the Arts, who was named one of Newcity’s Artists’ Artists in 2023. Her first solo museum exhibition, Nothing Is, opened at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago that year and is currently touring Canada before its final stop in London in 2026.

Nothing Is examines distance: the space between letters, a person and a language; the distance between an individual and a home they know; and the gap between the intention of a word and its received meaning — themes drawn from her life as an Iranian artist living in the diaspora for more than 23 years.

“There are all these things about language that really amaze me, and I really wanted to make art that goes beyond this semantic meaning, something you hold,” she said.

“I’m interested in words and letters as visual forms. They can be read, but they can also be seen, or touched and held as sculptures.”

The Noghte and Nothing

The Persian and Arabic diacritic of the noghte is the thematic center of Nothing Is. Translated as “dot,” the presence or absence of a noghte in Persian script changes the sound of letters, words and sentences. In Nothing Is, Taghavi explores this small diamond shape as it appears in calligraphy. 
“I’m interested in words and letters as visual forms," said Taghavi. "They can be read, but they can also be seen, or touched and held as sculptures.”

Taken outside its grammatical context and displayed far from the land where it originated, the noghte takes on new meaning throughout the exhibition. In “Horizon,” a line of noghtes cuts across airbrushed gradients, inviting viewers to consider distance and the vanishing horizon.

The exhibit also incorporates different aspects of Persian calligraphy, architecture and language. In “Hashti,” the exhibition space transforms into a 12-sided dodecagon, referencing the geometric hashti, or the intermediate space found across Persian architecture.

Consider Taghavi’s “Heechi,” a sculpture of the Farsi word for “nothingness” that references Iranian sculptor Parviz Tanavoli’s Heech series. By transforming heech into heechi, Taghavi shifts its meaning from spiritual fulfillment to emptiness, made tangible in waterjet-cut Indiana limestone.

“I am not practicing calligraphy. I am not practicing this perfection,” she said in her exhibition text. “I am far away from the context that it comes from. I do have this thread to this language, to this culture, but it’s really hard to preserve it. … with the distance that I have from it [and] with the time that we are living in.”

How It All Began

Taghavi grew up in Tehran in a creative household, with a father who sang around the house and a mother who taught dance lessons at home. When her family decided to move to Canada, she faced the possibility of repeating 11th grade.

Knowing this, she convinced her parents to allow her a year dedicated to studying art instead of regular school. She described the experience as pivotal for her growth as a young artist. “This made my commitment deeper to my work. I knew that this is what I want to study, which made me dedicate myself more to it,” Taghavi said. “I remember I was making stacks of drawings when I went to see my teacher. I would always go to the street, cafés and different parts of the city to make sketches.”

Upon moving to Vancouver, 16-year old Taghavi encountered a new physical distance from Iran, the Persian language and now the English she spoke every day. Her interest in calligraphy grew through moments of scribbling in Persian during class at Emily Carr University of Art + Design, with these doodles eventually evolving into larger drawings.

“I think a part of what I was intentional about is to maintain my relationship to reading, to writing, to communicating in Farsi, and even to spending time with certain words,” she said.

Taghavi later earned a Master of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she would later go on to lecture. Her larger body of work explores how language forms perception through her experience of diaspora.

Having lived in Canada, the United States and now Egypt, distance has never stopped Taghavi from creating art that always finds its way back to questions of home, language and belonging.

Cairo and AUC have provided Taghavi with a new environment to experiment. The innovative work Taghavi continues to develop in Egypt draws on a Persian philosophical tradition that explores the subjectivity and intelligence of plants.

“The city has influenced me a lot. I mean how could it not influence anyone? I think the chaos is making me think things are not as precious, so you just move on. You can’t get too attached to something; you have to keep moving forward,” Taghavi said.

Stepping into the heart of Historic Cairo feels like entering another era. Medieval minarets rise above the landscape, carved details texturing the layered tapestry of the neighborhood. Look closely, and those designs reveal something more than ornament: intricate motifs that tell the story of the city’s past, present and future.

Patterns of Cairo, an initiative by architectural practice Megawra with funding from the Embassy of the Netherlands in Egypt, documents these designs and the stories behind them. Ehsan Abushadi ’15, the project’s coordinator, and Yumna Moussa ’19, ’25, its lead researcher, help connect local and international communities with Cairo’s rich design heritage while preserving the patterns as a living tradition. The project database has been accessed by communities across Egypt’s 27 governorates and in more than 100 countries.

“Cairo is tied to so many parts of the world, and our patterns reflect that,” explained Moussa. “We want to limit any barriers for artists across the globe to having designs inspired by our heritage.”

The Path to Patterns of Cairo 

Both alumnae found their way to Patterns of Cairo through Megawra. Moussa first encountered the organization through AUC’s Core Curriculum, an experience that inspired her to pursue a master’s in Islamic art and architecture. Abushadi, an architecture graduate, met Megawra founder May al-Ibrashy during her fourth semester. Throughout her time as a student, she worked with Megawra in a number of capacities — from focus groups and research to cultural programming — and following a gap year after graduation, she was eventually invited to come on as an architect and coordinator. After a break to pursue her master's degree, she returned to lead the Patterns of Cairo project.

“Each pattern is a micro history. ... The curated database is as representative as possible of material, time periods, techniques and influences. It’s a one-stop platform for all types of patterns, which can serve as an invaluable resource for designers and researchers.”

The idea originated with Dina Hafez ’09, who as a designer saw the need for a resource connecting contemporary designers with heritage, reliable drawings and information. In parallel, through its work in conservation and in developing the creative industries grounded in heritage, Megawra had also identified a similar gap. Hafez reached out to Megawra for its capacity to bring the idea to life.

The database brings to light a wealth of patterns and their histories since the city’s design language is unique, diverse and full of stories, Moussa explained. “Cairo is a historically and geographically unique location,” she shared. “The patterns here reflect how this city has always been a melting pot, from Chinese clouds appearing in tiles to Persian and Italian influences merging together.” 

Each documented pattern began with a field survey of buildings, where they found a fusion of Egyptian and world cultures — from Central Asia to the Iberian Peninsula — within the decorative patterns, giving buildings their uniquely Cairene character. Since 2022, a team of architects, graphic designers, photographers and researchers has documented patterns across Historic Cairo, pairing each design with historical research, vector drawings and downloadable resources for artisans and designers through the Patterns of Cairo website (www.patternsofcairo.com), which combines narratives, a pattern gallery and glossary. 

“Each pattern is a micro-history,” explained Abushadi. “For some, we focus on craft and materiality. Others are related to migration and trade, and yet others look at the symbolism behind certain motifs.”

Beyond the digital archive, the team also hosted Dutch-Egyptian exchange workshops that invited graphic, fashion, textile and product designers to reinterpret historic patterns in contemporary work. Those collaborations helped mark the website’s launch in July 2025 with an exhibition of the prototype designs.

“The curated database is as representative as possible of material, time periods, techniques and influences,” Abushadi explained. “It’s a one-stop platform for all types of patterns, which can serve as an invaluable resource for designers and researchers.”

After documenting Historic Cairo in its first phase, the project is now expanding into its second phase to cover 19th- to mid-20th century architecture across central Cairo. By the end of the second phase, the database will feature 275 unique patterns, each accompanied by its historical context.

Patterns as Storytelling

For the Patterns of Cairo researchers, a tile is not merely a design; it tells the story of the neighborhood, its people, and the cultures and histories that have shaped the city for centuries. The patterns reveal stories of everyday life in Cairo: how different cultures assimilated, how motifs endured for centuries and how artistic elements were adapted into an evolving Egyptian identity. Contemporary designers exist within this continuum, using what came before to create what comes next.

Patterns of Cairo hopes to facilitate the process of developing heritage-based patterns for designers, providing easy-to-access digital resources. “The advantage of the website is that it gives designers more confidence in approaching heritage as a resource for creativity,” Moussa said. 

That heritage is also a record of Cairo's cultural diversity. “These patterns show how Cairo has always been a city of different religions, cultures and artistic traditions. Artisans from all over the world came to Cairo to create, and their impact is still visible on all these buildings,” added Moussa.

Echoing the same sentiment, Abushadi affirmed, “Patterns are a living heritage. The Fatimid, Mamluk and Ottoman periods aren’t separate like we’ve been taught; they exist in a continuum. We see this in Mamluk-inspired designs in the Ottoman period or Ottoman-inspired designs in the Khedival period. Contemporary craftsmen draw inspiration from the past and therefore become a part of the same living tradition. We are all connected to this continuum, and Patterns of Cairo seeks to help designers fully realize their place in this living history.”

For much of modern genomics, Egypt has been missing from the picture. Global genomic databases have grown around populations in North America and Western Europe, leaving the Middle East and North Africa severely underrepresented. For Ahmed Moustafa, professor of bioinformatics and genomics at AUC and a member of the scientific committee of the Egypt Genome Project, that absence became increasingly difficult to ignore.

Moustafa began studying computer science at Alexandria University just as the international Human Genome Project was nearing completion in the early 2000s, when biology was becoming increasingly dependent on computation. He went on to earn a PhD in computational genetics at the University of Iowa and complete a postdoctoral fellowship at the J. Craig Venter Institute before returning to Egypt. Working with global genomic databases, he saw firsthand what that absence means for Egypt, the most populous country in the Middle East and North Africa and home to one of the world’s longest continuous records of human habitation.

“The Egypt Genome Project is not the discovery of something entirely new, but the completion of part of a record that had been left blank"

“It is not only an academic problem,” Moustafa explained. “It has direct clinical consequences for Egyptian patients, from the interpretation of their test results to the medicines they are prescribed.”

The Egypt Genome Project, a presidential initiative aligned with Egypt's Vision 2030, was launched in part to address that gap. With the Egypt Center for Research and Regenerative Medicine (ECRRM) as its executive center and Dr. Khaled Amer, professor of general surgery at the Military Medical Academy and former CEO of ECRRM, as its principal investigator, the project aims to build a genomic reference for Egyptians.

In the project’s first major study titled EGP1K, Moustafa led the bioinformatics analysis of whole genomes from 1,024 Egyptians recruited across 21 of Egypt’s 27 governorates. The researchers identified more than 51 million genetic variants, about 17 million of which were absent from dbSNP, a major international variant catalog.

The numbers reflect more than a scientific milestone. They represent the beginning of a reference that could make genetic information more meaningful for Egyptians. Its long-term impact could extend to better healthcare, including sharper premarital screening, shorter paths to the diagnosis of rare diseases, advances in precision medicine, and improved treatment for cancer and cardiovascular illnesses.

Yet the project’s broader significance may lie in strengthening Egypt’s scientific independence. By building its own genomic reference, Egypt could generate its own diagnostics, pharmaceutical research and clinical guidelines rather than relying on imported data produced elsewhere.

 “It has direct clinical consequences for Egyptian patients, from the interpretation of their test results to the medicines they are prescribed.”

Why does this matter? Because a genetic variant can appear rare in a database dominated by European populations even if it is relatively common among Egyptians, potentially triggering a false alarm and sending a patient through unnecessary diagnostic procedures or treatment. Similar problems can arise with polygenic risk scores, which are typically calibrated using European-derived data. “The problem is with the reference data, not with the population,” Moustafa said.

The Egypt Genome Project is designed around three interconnected research arms: healthy population genomics, disease genetics and ancient Egyptian DNA. The healthy population arm establishes the baseline against which disease-related variation can be understood. The disease arm investigates rare inherited diseases, cancers and pharmacogenomics, while the ancient DNA arm opens a different window onto how Egypt’s genetic landscape has changed across thousands of years.

That final component is particularly significant. Ancient DNA cannot simply be used to make sweeping claims about the ancestry of modern-day Egyptians, Moustafa cautioned. The EGP1K findings come from contemporary Egyptians and cannot on their own establish direct genetic continuity with any particular ancient population. That is precisely the question the ancient DNA arm is designed to investigate.

The work is considerably more difficult than sequencing modern DNA. Ancient samples suffer fragmentation, chemical damage and contamination, while Egypt’s heat and humidity make DNA preservation especially challenging. Researchers need specialized clean rooms, protective equipment and computational methods designed specifically for ancient material.

By comparison, modern samples follow a more predictable path. Volunteers provide blood samples through participating centers after informed consent and ethical approval. The samples are transported to ECRRM, where DNA is extracted, sequenced and analyzed. The resulting data remains inside Egypt under controlled access and Egyptian governance.

For students and young researchers in Egypt, the project has opened a field that previously required them to rely on the data of other populations. Now the country has a national dataset generated in Egypt, about Egyptians, along with infrastructure and expertise in large-scale sequencing, population genetics and bioinformatics. 

But Moustafa views the people behind the project as its most important legacy. “More than a thousand Egyptians gave blood samples for a project whose benefit most of them will never see personally. Every number in that study rests on someone’s decision to take part,” Moustafa said, noting that the project’s goal is to reach 100,000 genomes by 2032. 

That legacy also extends to the young Egyptian researchers carrying out the daily work in ECRRM’s wet laboratory and bioinformatics group, several of whom are AUC graduates. “In my view, this is how a university contributes to a national project. Its contribution comes through the people it trains,” Moustafa affirmed. 

The Egypt Genome Project is not simply about placing the country on the genomic map. It is about ensuring future generations of Egyptian patients and scientists will no longer have to navigate a medical and scientific landscape built almost entirely around data from other populations.

“The Egypt Genome Project is not the discovery of something entirely new, but the completion of part of a record that had been left blank. Its practical impact could eventually be seen in better interpretation of genetic tests, safer drug dosing, population-specific screening and the development of a research resource that Egyptian scientists can build on for years to come,” Moustafa said.

What happens when a smart waste bin gets it wrong? For all their ability to identify and sort waste by material, many existing systems still struggle with the realities of what ends up in the recycling stream. Recognizing these gaps, three AUC data science majors set out to develop a smarter waste management solution: an artificial intelligence-powered bin called Greeno, designed specifically for Egyptian waste conditions.

Malak Walaa ’26, Nour Kahky ’26 and Omar Moustafa’26 developed the prototype as part of their data science graduation project.

The students began the project with a broader interest in sustainability and environmental challenges. Rather than limiting their work to existing research, they wanted to understand the realities of waste management beyond the classroom. They studied current technologies, explored the industry and spoke with sustainability professionals at Nestlé, where they began to identify challenges that existing systems often overlook. “It’s only after this conversation that we realized we can do something big and wanted to bring it to life,” Moustafa said.  

“An artificial intelligence system is only as reliable as the data it learns from.”

A plastic bottle containing leftover liquid, for example, can contaminate an entire batch of recyclable materials, increasing processing costs and reducing the quality of recycled output. Similarly, everyday items made from multiple materials, such as a paper coffee cup with a plastic lid, can be incorrectly classified because existing systems often identify only the dominant material rather than whether the item can be effectively recycled. “These challenges are critical because they directly affect whether waste can actually be recycled, not just whether it is sorted correctly,” Moustafa said.

The team also explored Egypt’s unique waste management landscape and the role played by the informal sector. Known as the Zabbaleen, Cairo’s informal recyclers have developed a system over generations in which families take on different stages of the process, from collecting and transporting household waste to sorting, processing and recycling materials. In communities such as Manshiyat Naser, waste is brought home and manually separated into materials including plastic, metal, cardboard and fabric, with further sorting and processing carried out by other families.

Understanding this established ecosystem shaped the way the students approached Greeno. As Walaa explained, collectors operate within established territories, and the waste they gather is brought back to their communities for sorting, making a publicly placed smart bin potentially disruptive to an existing network. Instead, the team is targeting controlled environments such as universities, offices and malls, where waste can be sorted before entering the wider recycling chain.

Unlike existing smart bins that primarily classify waste by material, the new system performs multiple checks before sorting an item. A camera captures an image of the waste, then the system identifies liquid and multiple-component items. After these checkpoints, the bin classifies the waste into categories, including recyclable plastic, paper, organic waste, other waste material and non-recyclable waste.

Developing the technology required the students to overcome another major obstacle: creating an AI model adapted to the characteristics of waste found in Egypt. “Existing international waste datasets are usually collected in controlled environments, with clean backgrounds, good lighting and waste items that don’t necessarily represent what we see in Egypt,” Walaa said.

Because Egyptian waste differs in packaging, local brands and disposal habits, the team needed data that reflected the environment where the technology would be used. Through their partnership with Egyptian waste management company Dawar, the students collected images of real Egyptian waste and manually labeled thousands of samples to build their own dataset. According to Walaa, this allowed their models to better understand local conditions, achieving 92.4% external validation accuracy on previously unseen samples of Egyptian waste.

“An artificial intelligence system is only as reliable as the data it learns from,” said Noha Youssef, assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics and Actuarial Science and thesis supervisor. “By testing their system on real waste from Egypt, the students made sure Greeno works where it is actually meant to be used. Technology has to be adapted to our own realities before it can truly serve them.”

“Technology shouldn’t exist just because it’s impressive; it should solve problems that matter to society.”

Without an existing roadmap to follow, the team relied on experimentation, research and mentorship to overcome challenges, spending countless hours refining datasets and retraining models. “There were moments when we felt that this is so much harder than what we expected,” Kahky recalled.

The project’s success ultimately stemmed from its multidisciplinary approach. Students working in artificial intelligence and data science developed the computer vision models, trained the algorithms and created the decision-making system, while mechanical engineering classmates transformed those predictions into a functioning prototype through hardware, sensors and sorting mechanisms.

Industry partnerships were also essential. Dawar provided practical knowledge and access to real-world waste data, while Nestlé’s support helped the students move from an AI model to a physical prototype. At AUC, the Eltoukhy Learning Factory provided the facilities and technical resources needed to design, build and test the system.

“What makes this project stand out is that it did not stop at a model on a laptop,” said Youssef. “Data science students built and trained the models, graduates working at the Eltoukhy Learning Factory turned those predictions into a working bin, and industry partners brought real data and real problems. AUC gave them the mentorship and facilities to bring these pieces together. This is what we hope every student learns: The statistics and machine learning they study in class can become real solutions to problems that matter.”

Every item thrown away carries a question: Could it have been reused, recycled or recovered? By looking 
closer at what enters the waste stream, the students hope their system can help make that question less complicated to answer.

While their smart bin is still evolving, the team hopes it can eventually move beyond an academic project and become a scalable waste management solution. “Technology shouldn’t exist just because it’s impressive; it should solve problems that matter to society,” Walaa affirmed.

As a girl, Merna Soliman ’26 pictured marriage the way many do: two people falling in love and deciding to build a life together. Today, the 22-year-old political science graduate approaches marriage differently. “I think I will have 100 to 200 stipulations, minimum,” she said of her future marriage contract.

As an undergraduate, Soliman worked with two local NGOs supporting incarcerated and vulnerable women and took classes on women’s rights and Egyptian law at the University. Among these courses was Women and Gender in Egyptian Courts, offered as part of the Core Curriculum and taught by Mohamed Serag, professor in the Sheikh Hassan Abbas Sharbatly Department of Arab and Islamic Civilizations.

These experiences transformed Soliman’s views on marriage. What she once perceived primarily as a personal commitment, she now views as a legal contract that can shape her rights and responsibilities long after saying “I do.”

Marriage is often considered a private matter; however, the expectations surrounding it — who provides, who decides and what happens when things fall apart — are reinforced by Egypt’s century-old Personal Status Law. Currently, proposed amendments to a controversial article 355 of the law are making their way through Parliament. If passed, the amendments would alter many aspects of family life, from custody arrangements and divorce requirements to grandparent visitation rights.

For Soliman, the debate has personal implications. "My financial security, child custody rights and ability to leave an abusive relationship are at risk," she said. "There are too many loopholes in the current law that can trap women in injustice."

More to Lose

Bringing together students from across disciplines, Women and Gender in Egyptian Courts examines the challenges women face in accessing justice under Egypt's Personal Status Law.

“Our department has always engaged with issues that are important to Egyptian society, and this is reflected in some of the thesis projects our students undertake,” Serag said. “This course continues that approach by helping students understand their rights and responsibilities under the Personal Status Law. Hopefully, by understanding the law and its shortcomings, they can think of solutions to some of the problems we are facing.”

For Serag, those shortcomings have been decades in the making. “Egypt's family law has steadily fallen behind many other Muslim-majority countries in protecting women's rights,” he said.

While taking Serag’s course during her final semester at AUC, Soliman was particularly troubled by legal mechanisms that reinforce marital obedience, especially in cases involving physical or emotional abuse. “If a wife flees her home because of abuse but cannot prove that the home is unsafe, and then pursues khula [a divorce initiated by women], she forfeits all financial rights she would otherwise be entitled to in a divorce,” she explained. “When it comes to ending a marriage, women have a lot more to lose than men.” 

“The greatest protection many women have isn’t the law. It’s knowing their rights before they need them.”

Serag pointed to a child support case filed in 1976 but not resolved until 2001. By then, he said, the child had grown up and married, meaning the father was no longer required to support her. Even when courts award child support or alimony, payments are often based on understated income, Serag added. “We have seen cases awarding EGP 500 per month for a wife and EGP 300 per month for a child. That amount is a joke,” he said.

Helen Rizzo, associate professor of sociology and director of AUC's Cynthia Nelson Institute for Gender and Women’s Studies, said these legal outcomes are connected to a maintenance-obedience dynamic reinforced by Egyptian family law. Under this framework, husbands are expected to provide financially for the family, while wives are expected to accept the husband’s role as head of the household, Rizzo noted.

This dynamic shapes how marriages end as much as how they function. A husband can generally end his marriage through verbal divorce without going to court. A wife, by contrast, must either pursue a judicial divorce — which can take years — or seek khula, through which she gives up alimony and returns her dowry.

These legal differences can create vulnerability for women even within stable marriages. “Because the divorce laws advantage men, the possibility of divorce, even if it is low, is always in the back of women’s minds," Rizzo said. “Divorce can completely upend their lives in ways that men, especially those who can provide financially, don’t experience.”

Don't Rock the Boat

As they continue to navigate a family court system stacked against them, women are left with limited options for protecting their rights. “The greatest protection many women have isn't the law,” said Serag. “It's knowing their rights before they need them.”

Although women can add stipulations to their marriage contracts — including the right to work, remain in the marital home after divorce and initiate divorce proceedings — Serag and Rizzo pointed out that many brides-to-be are discouraged by family and friends from doing so.

“The most controversial condition is when the bride wants to include her right to divorce,” Rizzo explained. “There is heavy pressure by both families not to include this — as it offends the groom’s family for appearing not to trust the groom, and the groom feels that it diminishes his role as head of the household and decision maker.”

Even in cases of abuse within a marriage, families may often prioritize maintaining appearances. Soliman recalled hearing about a woman experiencing marital rape and abuse who, after speaking up about what she was going through, was told by her family to “get over it because he is your husband.”

Being exposed to such stories throughout her life, Soliman has come to understand the limits of legal awareness alone. “I am educated, financially independent and able to stand up for myself,” she said. “I am just a small segment of society. In reality, most women do not have the education or financial support to do this.”

“If a wife flees her home because of abuse but cannot prove that the home is unsafe, she will forfeit all financial rights she would otherwise be entitled to in a divorce. If she pursues khula [a divorce initiated by women], she also loses all financial entitlements. When it comes to ending a marriage, women have a lot more to lose than men.”

The Road to Reform

Today, roughly 1.7 million divorce, khula, alimony, child custody and visitation cases are pending in Egyptian family courts, according to the latest statistics issued by the Public Prosecution reported by Al Masry Al Youm. The backlog, alongside concerns about women’s experiences within the system, has intensified calls for reform.

Serag believes that education is an important first step toward meaningful change. “The way a law is interpreted and applied can have a significant impact in practice,” he said. “If everyone involved is well educated, we are likely to have more equitable outcomes.”

Rizzo agrees that legal reform alone is not enough. While the proposed amendments may address specific issues, she argued that they leave intact a broader framework that treats husbands as providers and wives as dependents expected to obey. “Any proposals to amend these laws that do not address the underlying inequalities in the family will be piecemeal if they remain based on the maintenance-obedience dynamic,” she said.

As Parliament debates the proposed amendment, Soliman hopes that her eventual marriage will be built on an equal partnership rather than one defined by unequal rights and responsibilities. "According to the Quran, couples should have mercy toward each other," she said.

As the legal system continues to evolve, Soliman remains mindful of these considerations — and will keep drafting her stipulations.