Hiba Mustapha… An Egyptian Scientist Who Contributed to a Major US Experiment

Hiba Mustapha and Karen Carroll, the doctors who developed a test to diagnose the coronavirus (Johns Hopkins website)
Hiba Mustapha and Karen Carroll, the doctors who developed a test to diagnose the coronavirus (Johns Hopkins website)
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Hiba Mustapha… An Egyptian Scientist Who Contributed to a Major US Experiment

Hiba Mustapha and Karen Carroll, the doctors who developed a test to diagnose the coronavirus (Johns Hopkins website)
Hiba Mustapha and Karen Carroll, the doctors who developed a test to diagnose the coronavirus (Johns Hopkins website)

As scientists raced to confront the coronavirus, Johns Hopkins University’s name stood out as one of the most prominent sources of information on the pandemic’s spread, and the names of the scientists analyzing COVID-19 and studying its symptoms shined, as they developed one of the fastest and accurate tests to diagnose it.

Among those scientists is an Egyptian scientist who started working at Johns Hopkins University a few months ago and contributed to developing the diagnostic test that President Donald Trump considered to have “changed the rules of the game” of fighting the epidemic. Miss Mustapha and Karen Carroll, two epidemiologists at the university, developed the rapid test for detecting the coronavirus, providing a diagnosis within minutes.

Mustafa, an assistant professor of viral pathology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, spoke to Asharq Al-Awsat in an exclusive interview.

"When we started researching the novel virus, diagnostic tests were only available through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It used to take a long time, as the tests had to be sent to the main laboratory or state laboratories. So we worked on developing a laboratory for analyzing samples and genetic material of the virus. We purchased the components from a pharmaceutical company and worked on developing the test until we were able to provide the test in mid-March”.

Mustapha considers that the virus spread across the world extensively and at an unexpected speed. Its symptoms resembled those of SARS, which broke out between 2002 and 2003 before research centers and universities managed to control its spread. COVID-19, on the other hand, is characterized by a more rapid spread and has infected many, especially those who have weak immune systems or other diseases that affect their respiratory system. This led some patients to need ventilators.

Dr. Mustafa emphasized that “social distancing is necessary and effective in reducing the spread of the virus and no hospital in the world is capable of providing enough ventilators for the massive number of victims at once”. She adds, “We did not expect this disease to become a pandemic, and so medical laboratories were unable to meet the increasing need for tests.

We worked for three days straight to develop a rapid test and conducted experiments in order to ensure its clinical accuracy. The test is based on a Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) that amplifies a small sample of genetic material obtained from the mouth or nose, and this allows the virologist to use specific computer software to determine whether the virus’s genetic material is present in the sample or not”.

The Egyptian scientist says: “On the first day we ran 50 samples, and in the following days our capacity expanded to 180 tests a day, then a thousand, and now we can run 1500 tests a day”.

Dr. Mustapha, who worked quietly alongside her colleagues to move the fight against the pandemic a step forward, comes from an Egyptian family and lived in Alexandria, where she graduated from the University of Alexandria’s Faculty of Medicine in 2004 and then went to the United States with her husband after obtaining a Ph.D. scholarship. She applied for her doctorate five years later, and then worked on "para flu" and influenza research at St. Jude Hospital, Tennessee

Later, Hiba Mustafa applied to a two-year scholarship at the University of Rochester in New York to study chemistry and microbiology and was among 12 scientists who were selected every year across the entire United States. This allowed her to earn a degree in Clinical Microbiology, and when Johns Hopkins University announced a vacancy at its Department of Microbiology, she applied for the job and was accepted in 2019.

Dr. Mustafa ruled out that the virus may evolve into a more dangerous and widespread virus while the death rate declines, but pointed out that eradicating it will not happen before reaching an effective vaccine, which is estimated to take at least one year.

She says: “The current research looks at the effect the virus has on the immune system, and the required medication to fight it, and at what part of the immune system needs to be boosted to fight the virus. We hope that the social distancing policy will continue until the rate of new cases declines and effective treatments and a vaccine are reached”.



Will Israel’s Interceptors Outlast Iran’s Missiles?

The Israeli Iron Dome air defense system fires to intercept missiles during an Iranian attack over Tel Aviv, Israel, early Wednesday, June 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
The Israeli Iron Dome air defense system fires to intercept missiles during an Iranian attack over Tel Aviv, Israel, early Wednesday, June 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
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Will Israel’s Interceptors Outlast Iran’s Missiles?

The Israeli Iron Dome air defense system fires to intercept missiles during an Iranian attack over Tel Aviv, Israel, early Wednesday, June 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
The Israeli Iron Dome air defense system fires to intercept missiles during an Iranian attack over Tel Aviv, Israel, early Wednesday, June 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Israel has a world-leading missile interception system but its bank of interceptors is finite. Now, as the war drags on, Israel is firing interceptors faster than it can produce them.

On Thursday, The New York Times reporters spoke to current and former Israeli officials about the strengths and weaknesses of Israeli air defense.

Aside from a potentially game-changing US intervention that shapes the fate of Iran’s nuclear program, two factors will help decide the length of the Israel-Iran war: Israel’s reserve of missile interceptors and Iran’s stock of long-range missiles.

Since Iran started retaliating against Israel’s fire last week, Israel’s world-leading air defense system has intercepted most incoming Iranian ballistic missiles, giving the Israeli Air Force more time to strike Iran without incurring major losses at home.

But now, as the war drags on, Israel is firing interceptors faster than it can produce them. That has raised questions within the Israeli security establishment about whether the country will run low on air defense missiles before Iran uses up its ballistic arsenal, according to eight current and former officials.

Already, Israel’s military has had to conserve its use of interceptors and is giving greater priority to the defense of densely populated areas and strategic infrastructure, according to the officials. Most spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak more freely.

Interceptors are “not grains of rice,” said Brig. Gen. Ran Kochav, who commanded Israel’s air defense system until 2021 and still serves in the military reserve. “The number is finite.”

“If a missile is supposed to hit refineries in Haifa, it’s clear that it’s more important to intercept that missile than one that will hit the Negev desert,” General Kochav said.

Conserving Israel’s interceptors is “a challenge,” he added. “We can make it, but it’s a challenge.”

Asked for comment on the limits of its interceptor arsenal, the Israeli military said in a brief statement that it “is prepared and ready to handle any scenario and is operating defensively and offensively to remove threats to Israeli civilians.”

No Israeli official would divulge the number of interceptors left at Israel’s disposal; the revelation of such a closely guarded secret could give Iran a military advantage.

The answer will affect Israel’s ability to sustain a long-term, attritional war. The nature of the war will partly be decided by whether Trump decides to join Israel in attacking Iran’s nuclear enrichment site at Fordo, in northern Iran, or whether Iran decides to give up its enrichment program to prevent such an intervention.

But the war’s endgame will also be shaped by how long both sides can sustain the damage to their economies, as well as the damage to national morale caused by a growing civilian death toll.

Israel relies on at least seven kinds of air defense. Most of them involve automated systems that use radar to detect incoming missiles and then provide officers with suggestions of how to intercept them.

Military officials have seconds to react to some short-range fire, but minutes to judge the response to long-range attacks. At times, the automated systems do not offer recommendations, leaving officers to make decisions on their own, General Kochav said.

The Arrow system intercepts long-range missiles at higher altitudes; the David’s Sling system intercepts them at lower altitudes; while the Iron Dome takes out shorter-range rockets, usually fired from Gaza, or the fragments of missiles already intercepted by other defense systems.

The United States has supplied at least two more defense systems, some of them fired from ships in the Mediterranean, and Israel is also trying out a new and relatively untested laser beam. Finally, fighter jets are deployed to shoot down slow-moving drones.

Some Israelis feel it is time to wrap up the war before Israel’s defenses are tested too severely.

At least 24 civilians have been killed by Iran’s strikes, and more than 800 have been injured. Some key infrastructure, including oil refineries in northern Israel, has been hit, along with civilian homes. A hospital in southern Israel was struck on Thursday morning.

Already high by Israeli standards, the death toll could rise sharply if the Israeli military is forced to limit its general use of interceptors in order to guarantee the long-term protection of a few strategic sites like the Dimona nuclear reactor in southern Israel or the military headquarters in Tel Aviv.

“Now that Israel has succeeded in striking most of its nuclear targets in Iran, Israel has a window of two or three days to declare the victory and end the war,” said Zohar Palti, a former senior officer in the Mossad, Israel’s spy agency.

“When planning how to defend Israel in future wars, no one envisaged a scenario in which we would be fighting on so many fronts and defending against so many rounds of ballistic missiles,” said Palti, who was for years involved in Israel’s defensive planning.

Others are confident that Israel will be able to solve the problem by destroying most of Iran’s missile launchers, preventing the Iranian military from using the stocks that it still has.

Iran has both fixed and mobile launchers, scattered across its territory, according to two Israeli officials. Some of its missiles are stored underground, where they are harder to destroy, while others are in aboveground caches, the officials said.

The Israeli military says it has destroyed more than a third of the launchers. Officials and experts say that has already limited the number of missiles that Iran can fire in a single attack.

US officials said Israel’s strikes against the launchers have decimated Iran’s ability to fire its missiles and hurt its ability to create large-scale barrages.

“The real issue is the number of launchers, more than the number of missiles,” said Asaf Cohen, a former Israeli commander who led the Iran department in Israel’s military intelligence directorate.

“The more of them that are hit, the harder it will be for them to launch barrages,” Cohen added. “If they realize they have a problem with launch capacity, they’ll shift to harassment: one or two missiles every so often, aimed at two different areas simultaneously.”

The New York Times