ISTT Young Investigator Award

Awarded for outstanding achievements by a young scientist in the field of transgenic technologies

The ISTT has established the ISTT YOUNG INVESTIGATOR AWARD presented at the Transgenic Technology (TT) Meeting. The ISTT Young Investigator Award recognizes outstanding achievements by a young scientist whose work will advance the field of transgenic technologies with new ideas and who has recently received his/her advanced professional degree. This award has been supported by Ingenious Targeting Laboratory (2011-2017) and by a generous education grant from Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (2019-2025).

The ISTT Young Investigator Award was created by Teddy Devereux.

Dr. Amr Salem will be awarded the 11th ISTT Young Investigator Award at the next 20^thTransgenic Technology Meeting in Leiden, The Netherlands, September 15-18^th, 2026.

We are convinced that he perfectly represents the spirit and objectives of the ISTT Young Investigator Award, as stated: "The ISTT Young Investigator Award recognizes outstanding achievements by a young scientist who will keep the field of transgenic technologies vibrant with new ideas and who has recently received his or her advanced professional degree." Dr. Salem obtained a PhD in Molecular Biologie/Neurobiology in 2019 at the University of Science and Technology (USTC) in China. After completion of his thesis work, he joined the laboratory of Dr. Joseph M Miano for a postdoc in Vascular/Molecular Biology at the Vascular Biology Center of Augusta University (USA). He worked in three broad areas related to mouse modeling in the field of field of vascular pathobiology.

In a collaborative effort with the lab of David Liu, Amr work was focused to optimize conditions for Prime Editing 2 (PE2) mRNA purification for generating mouse models.  He found the right mix of reagents to stabilize sufficient quantities of PE2 mRNA for subsequent microinjection into mouse zygotes. He also designed a perfect pegRNA that targeted the Tspan2 promoter where a regulatory element called a CArG box resides.  He generated a mouse using PE2.  This work was second only to a Chinese report of PE in mouse embryos published several months before his own paper came out in Genome Biology in 2021. This publication resulted in Amr’s invitation from Erik Sontheimer (a CRISPR pioneer) to write a methods paper on PE in mice.  Amr is first author of this publication in Current Protocols.  Amr then published the first successful use of an engineered pegRNA, another innovation from David Liu’s lab, in mice and this paper was published in Vascular Pharmacology.

Amr’s second major contribution to the field came with his work on a transcription factor called MEIS1.  He found this factor controls the smooth muscle program of differentiation and set out to perform experiments with existing Meis1 models only to find out that each had severe limitations.  After testing multiple antibodies in a rigorous manner, Amr turned to designing a mouse that would carry a 3xHA tag.  At the same time, he designed a strategy for floxing the same mouse.  This mouse has been generated and is now the focus of his funded K99/R00 NIH transition award.  This prestigious award allowed Amr to secure a tenure track faculty position at LSU Health Sciences Center – Shreveport (USA), where he now runs his own independent program working as a tenure-track Assistant Professor. His research focuses on gene editing and vascular biology, with an emphasis on vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) phenotypic switching in cardiovascular disease. His lab uses CRISPR-Cas9, prime editing, and viral gene delivery to model human vascular diseases in rodents and cell lines. They combine multi-omics and chromatin conformation techniques (Hi-C) to uncover regulatory mechanisms driving VSMC transitions. His goal is to translate these molecular insights into innovative therapies for cardiovascular disorders.

“The third and most exciting area of Amr’s mouse modeling work was conducted following completion of the PE work above.  We have been working on a gene called Leiomodin1 (Lmod1) for several years.  Amr was instrumental in testing a new Cre driver (Itga8-CreER^T2) we developed that is preferentially active in vascular smooth muscle over visceral smooth muscle.  This work, published in Nature Cardiovascular Research, has been a boon to the field because many smooth muscle cell conditional knockouts exhibit a lethal visceral myopathy, preventing any study of vascular smooth muscle, which is Amr’s main cell type of interest.  Amr validated a newly created floxed Lmod1 mouse and then performed a careful side-by-side comparative study of our Itga8-CreER^T2 model with the popular Myh11-CreER^T2 model.  He found that Lmod1 knockout with Myh11-CreER^T2 resulted in rapid death of mice due to a visceral myopathy of the gut.  On the other hand, Lmod1 knockout with Itga8-CreER^T2 resulted in viable mice that developed massive coronary artery disease, a very rare event in mouse literature and highly significant from a human health perspective.  This manuscript, the preprint of which can be seen on the bioRxiv, has been submitted to Circulation for consideration for publication with Dr. Salem the sole first author.

Apart from these mouse models, Amr was a first author on a review of development of mouse models for the study of long noncoding RNAs which was published in Mammalian Genome. He is also a shared first author on a uniquely designed humanized ACE2 mouse model for the study of beta coronaviral infections such as SARS-CoV-2. Amr was instrumental in transforming my lab from an average CRISPR editing laboratory to one that is now capable of performing any type of gene editing in the mouse.”    Dr. Joseph M Miano

Without forgetting to warmly thank Joseph for his nomination, we enthusiastically wish Amr every success he so richly deserves in his scientific career. Amr will present his scientific achievements at the next next 20^thTransgenic Technology Meeting  in Leiden, The Netherlands, September 15-18^th, 2026, where he will receive his award.

Eligibility Criteria

Nominees must actively be involved in the field of transgenic technologies at the time the award is given.

Nominees must have received a PhD or MD (or equivalent) within the past 10 years.

Nomination Criteria

Nominations must be made or endorsed by an ISTT member.

Nominee does not have to be an ISTT member.

Self nomination is not permitted.

No person may nominate more than one candidate

 Procedure

Nominations must be made or endorsed by an ISTT member and should include:

• the CV of the nominee,
• a document highlighting the achievements made by the nominee in the field of transgenic technologies;
• a message or document confirming the nominee’s acceptance to participate in the ISTT Young Investigator Award selection process

All documents should be sent by the ISTT Member nominating the candidate to the ISTT email address: istt[at]transtechsociety.org

Scientific Committee

An ISTT Young Investigator Award committee will be established at the ISTT in order to select the awardee among nominated candidates. This committee will be formed by at least the following members: the President of ISTT and the Vice-President of ISTT. Additional advice and external referees might be also contacted, if decided by the ISTT Board of Directors

 The ISTT Young Investigator Award

The ISTT Young Investigator Award provides funds to defray the costs related to the participation of the ISTT Young Investigator awardee at the corresponding TT Meeting, including: TT meeting registration fee, travel to the TT meeting venue and accommodation during the meeting dates. All ISTT Young Investigator awardees will be given a 1 year Ordinary ISTT Membership and a diploma that will be presented at the ISTT Awards Ceremony during the TT Meeting.