ProfessorAmin Hajitou

Professor Amin Hajitou obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Liège in Belgium. His Ph.D. training involved the use of retroviral vectors for the transfer and expression of oncogenes in normal mammary cells to investigate the pathways leading to cellular transformation of murine and human mammary cells. After his Ph.D. thesis, Dr Hajitou enhanced his skills in vector technologies by using adenoviral vectors to systemically deliver inhibitors of tumour angiogenesis to tumour-bearing mice to assess therapy relevance. His interests extended to the elucidation of the biology implicated in cancer phenotypes. In 2002, Dr Hajitou joined the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center (MDACC of the University of Texas, USA). There, he acquired substantial expertise in bacteriophage (phage) technologies. Most importantly, he designed and developed a new generation of targeted hybrid viral vectors for targeted systemic gene delivery to cancer. Since 2008, Dr Hajitou has established his own research group, as a Lecturer, at Imperial College London, he became Senior Lecturer in 2013, Reader in 2016 and full Professor in 2019.