Mohamed Shoeb

Research interests

Starting from hematopoetic stem cells, the crucial process of blood formation is tightly orchestrated by a set of gene programs that gives rise to a remarkable diversity of cell types. Under malignant conditions, this process is disrupted — abnormal cell states emerge, and genes are co-opted from unrelated programs. My research focuses on applying and developing computational genomics methods to characterize the onset, nature, and magnitude of cellular transformation, extracting biological order from this malignant complexity. As a postdoc at the Ludwig Institute, I am using this approach to understand how acute myeloid leukemia (AML) arises in patients with myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs), a group of chronic blood disorders. This work aims to uncover risk factors and therapeutic targets that could improve clinical outcomes for these patients.

Background 

I completed my PhD in the lab of Dr. Florian Halbritter at St.Anna Children’s Cancer Research Institute in Vienna, where I developing integrative computational approaches using single-cell multimodal data to study haematopoiesis under both normal and malignant conditions. I was able to uncover conserved genes underlying neutrophil maturations across species (Kirchberger S, Shoeb MR et al. 2024), and characterize gene regulatory networks driving aberrant differentiation in a rare subtype of paediatric leukaemia (Shoeb MR et al. 2025). I defended my PhD in 2025 and earned my degree from the Medical University of Vienna. Prior to my PhD, I worked as a Research Assistant in the Lab of Dr. Ahmed Sayedß at 57357 Children’s Cancer Hospital in Cairo, where I focused on understanding microbial antibiotic resistance using metagenomics approach. I have earned my Bachelor’s in Pharmaceutical Sciences from Helwan University.