Dr. Mayssa Hachem joined Khalifa University as an Assistant Professor in January 2021. She graduated from the National Institute of Applied Sciences ‘INSA’, Lyon, France with a PhD in Biochemistry and a distinction Award for higher education in Biochemistry. During her doctoral studies, she conducted research at the Cardiovascular, Metabolism, Diabetology and Nutrition ‘CarMeN’ research unit within the Engineering and Function of Lipids and Lipoproteins ‘InFoLiP’ team. She also served as a lecturer at the Biotechnology and Biochemistry Department at INSA.
After her PhD, she undertook postdoctoral work at Sorbonne University, University of Technology of Compiegne ‘UTC’, France within the Enzymatic and Cellular Engineering research center ‘GEC’ Royallieu. She joined Amity University Dubai in 2017 as an Assistant Professor and Research Coordinator in the Forensic Science Department where she was extensively involved in the development of the Forensic Science undergraduate program. In 2020, she joined the Faculty of Health Sciences at the Higher College of Technology, UAE before moving to KU.
During her academic career, she has supervised a number of BSc, MSc, and PhD research projects and served on various academic and professional committees. Her main research interests concern lipid biochemistry, drug targeting, and forensic science.
Dr. Mayssa’s areas of expertise are lipid biochemistry, drug targeting and forensic science.
Over the last ten years, her main research has focused on the formulation and study of the cerebral uptake (in vitro, in vivo and ex-vivo) of potential drugs with docosahexaenoic acid (DHA, 22:6n-3). The work has potential in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases including Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. DHA is a marine polyunsaturated fatty acid of primary importance to the brain where it is highly enriched in neural membranes. Deficiencies in DHA have been associated with neurodegenerative diseases in humans so targeting the brain with DHA is an encouraging approach in the improvement of precautionary and therapeutic approaches for neurodegenerative diseases.
In the forensic science field, her research interests focus on the development of biochemical approaches for estimation of post-mortem interval PMI, or time since death TSD, with a special focus on lipids and proteins as biomarkers.
