Su mer

pleasures

Exchange Student

Dr. Khaled EI-Sham
worts with Dr. Lea
Eisenbach.

An Egyptian

doctor is doing

graduate work

in Israel.

52 • stnvrivrER 1995 • STYLE

trolling down the Weizmann
Institute campus in blue jeans
and denim shirt open at the top,
Khaled El-Shami looks like a
typical Israeli college student.
There would be no way of
guessing that he has a medical
degree from the University of
Alexandria and is Israel's first
doctoral student from Egypt.
Before embarking on a sec-
ond career in research, 29-year-
old Dr. El-Shami spent seven
years in medical school, one
year as a doctor in the Egypt-
ian army and three years as an
intern in the surgery depart-
ment of Alexandria University
Hospital. Putting his clinical
career on hold, he went on to do
a master's degree in molecular

courses are taught in English —
a language in which he is fluent.
Dr. Lea Eisenbach of the de-
partment of cell biology, head of
the research team that he is part
of; says that in the last few years
her laboratory has had students
from Israel, Korea, Belgium, the
United States, England and Ar-
gentina, as well as summer stu-
dents and visitors from Greece,
Spain and Bulgaria.
"Dr. Khaled has blended into
our group quickly and smooth-
ly," she says. "Besides, science is
international in character; I my-
self would have no problem do-
ing lab work in Java or Japan,
just as soon as somebody showed
me where the test tubes are."
Like most of the foreign stu-
dents at the Institute, Dr. El-
Shami's decision to come to
biology at Sussex University in lem is that I don't speak Hebrew, Rehovot was based mainly on
England, and will be spending which limits the depth of rela- professional considerations.
the next four years at the Weiz- tionships. This will take some "When I wrote my master's the-
mann Institute studying the use time. But I've already registered sis on the genetic basis of breast
of genetic engineering in cancer for an ulpan."
cancer, I came across numerous
therapy.
Perhaps Dr. Khaled's rapid scientific papers by institute re-
Not surprisingly, when Dr. El- adjustment is not as strange as searchers, and it became clear
Shami arrived in Israel last it might seem. He had several Is- that world-class work is being
spring, he felt rather ill at ease. raeli friends at Sussex Univer- done here. There are only a few
That feeling, however, has rapid- sity, and felt that he had more leading research centers in the
ly disappeared.
in common with them than with world where advanced studies
"Strangely enough," he says, the British, American and Cana- are being carried out on gene
"I feel completely at home now, dian students he came in contact therapy for cancer."
and have a real sense of belong- with. "People from the Middle
Still, Dr. Khaled's decision to
ing. I see myself as part of a re- East tend to be warmer and come to Israel had its roots in his
search team, part of the more open than Westerners," he personal background and beliefs.
institute, part of society, part of says.
He is one of two children from
life. I've already made a lot of Is-
Also easing his adjustment is what he refers to as a "middle-
raeli friends," he adds, "from the the fact that the Weizmann In- class family." Both his mother,
lab and the dorm, as well as from stitute has a distinctly interna- a high school teacher, and his
visits to Tel Aviv. The only prob- tional flavor, and that all its EXCHANGE STUDENT
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