UH-GAF’s School of Life and Medical Sciences faculty member is chosen among World’s Top 2% Scientists

Dr AbdulAziz Mohsen, Associate Professor in UH-GAF’s School of Life and Medical Sciences, has been chosen among the World’s Top 2% Scientists’ List, according to Standford University. With a current h-index of 14, Dr AbdulAziz has joined UH-GAF in September 2021 and has published several articles during his career path. In this interview, Dr. AbdulAziz shares his experience with publishing his work and reaching grand accomplishments. He also gives valuable advice to future pharmacologist and pharmacists.

Congratulations, Professor AbdulAziz, on this marvelous achievement! We are all excited about this wonderful milestone and we would like to learn more about it from you.  

Thank you for your kind words. Sure, my pleasure.  

Can you please give us some background on your academic journey? And when did you join UH-GAF?  

I started my academic journey after graduating from the school of Pharmacy in Cairo University (2007), then I started working on my Master’s and PhD thesis. I received my PhD from Cairo University in 2014 and I was promoted to Associate Professor in 2019. I started working in UH-GAF in 2021, so for around one year.

What module or field of study do you teach here at UH?

Well, my specialty is pharmaceutics and industrial pharmacy. Therefore, I’m teaching the modules that involve these disciplines. To be more specific, I’m teaching a module titled “Dosage Form: Design and Manufacture”, “Introduction to Medicines and Pharmacy Practice” and “Essential Medicines and Clinical Practice”.  

Can you please tell us more about the World’s Top 2% Scientists list by Stanford University? How did you find out that you were chosen for that list?  

Each year, Stanford University publishes a list of scientists who are picked as the top 2% in different specialties. As I mentioned, my specialty is Pharmacology and Pharmacy. The procedure goes as follows: a team of experts resorts to Scopus, a citation database, and from that database they explore which scientist has contributed to more publications. They also look at the citations of these publications throughout a particular year. I was chosen to be one of the top 2% in Pharmacology and Pharmacy for the year 2021. The process takes time as they go through a lot of complex calculations, that’s why last year’s list is published this year, 2022.

Can you tell us more about the articles you published during your career path and in which areas of study were they mainly focused on?  

So far, I’ve published around 35 articles in the pharmaceutics field. My specialty is utilizing nanotechnology to enhance drug delivery. For example, the delivery of some oral medicines or some topical medicines.

Have you previously received any awards for your work? And did this help get you chosen for the list?  

Well, yes, I have. In the year 2020, I was awarded the “State Encouragement Prize” in Medical Sciences. However, this is not related to Stanford’s list, as it is a national award while the list is an international one. For the State Encouragement Prize, they review five of the researcher’s articles, they investigate the overall profile of each researcher, and for research credibility, they look into the H-index of the researchers. H-index is a metric that indicates whether productivity of a researcher is highly cited or not. The Stanford recognition, however, mainly relies on the researcher’s H index, the total number of publications, and most importantly, the number of citations in a particular year.  

Is there any advice that you would like to give pharmacists or chemists who are trying to accomplish this recognition?  

Well, I always advise my colleagues and students, pharmacists or chemists, to participate in more research projects in order to get the chance to publish more articles. And of course, it is very highly recommended to link these research articles with the industry or practice. This will certainly help them achieve this goal.

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