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”.



Scotland Awaits Famous Son as Trump Visits Mother’s Homeland 

A general view of the Trump Turnberry hotel and golf resort in Turnberry, on the west coast of Scotland, on July 21, 2025. (AFP)
A general view of the Trump Turnberry hotel and golf resort in Turnberry, on the west coast of Scotland, on July 21, 2025. (AFP)
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Scotland Awaits Famous Son as Trump Visits Mother’s Homeland 

A general view of the Trump Turnberry hotel and golf resort in Turnberry, on the west coast of Scotland, on July 21, 2025. (AFP)
A general view of the Trump Turnberry hotel and golf resort in Turnberry, on the west coast of Scotland, on July 21, 2025. (AFP)

Donald Trump will fly into Scotland on Friday for a private visit to the land where his mother was born and spent her childhood on the remote Isle of Lewis.

"It's great to be home, this was the home of my mother," he said when he arrived on his last visit in 2023.

Born Mary Anne MacLeod, Trump's mum emigrated to the United States when she was 18. She then met and married Fred Trump, kickstarting the family's meteoric rise that has led their son, Donald, all the way to the White House.

During his visit the current US president, who is six months into his second term, plans to officially open his latest golf course in northeastern Aberdeen -- making him the owner of three such links in Scotland.

Although Donald Trump has talked openly about his father Fred -- a self-made millionaire and property developer whose own father emigrated from Germany -- he remains more discreet about his mother, who died in 2000 at the age of 88.

She was born in 1912 on Lewis, the largest island in the Outer Hebrides in northwest Scotland, and grew up in the small town of Tong.

Trump visited the humble family home in 2008, pausing for a photo in front of the two-storey house. He has cousins who still live in the house, which has been modernized since Mary Anne MacLeod's time but remains modest, standing just around 200 meters (650 feet) from the sea.

Its slate roof and grey walls are a world away from Trump's luxury Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, or his gold-adorned apartment in Trump Tower, New York.

According to the British press, which based its reports on local documents, Trump's grandfather was a fisherman.

MacLeod was the 10th and last child of the family, and her first language was Gaelic before she learnt English at school.

Life was tough on Lewis after World War I, which claimed the lives of many of the island's young men. Following in the footsteps of her older sister, and so many other Scots over the decades, she decided to emigrate to the United States.

MacLeod boarded the SS Transylvania from Glasgow in 1930, bound for New York.

- Pink Rolls-Royce -

On her immigration papers she wrote she was a "domestic" when asked about her profession. One of Trump's sisters recalled that MacLeod had worked as a nanny in a wealthy family.

But a few years later her life turned around when she reportedly met Fred Trump at an evening dance. They were married in 1936 in Manhattan's wealthy Upper East Side, and MacLeod became a US citizen in 1942.

As Fred Trump built and expanded his property empire in the city by constructing middle-class homes in districts such as Queens and Brooklyn, Mary Anne devoted herself to charitable works.

"Even in old age, rich and respected and with her hair arranged in a dynamic orange swirl, she would drive a rose-colored Rolls-Royce to collect coins from laundry machines in apartment blocks that belonged to the Trumps," the Times wrote this month.

Photos of her hobnobbing with New York high society show her with her blonde hair swept up in a bun, reminiscent of her son's distinctive side-swept coiffure.

She was "a great beauty", Donald Trump has gushed in one of his rare comments about his mother, adding she was also "one of the most honest and charitable people I have ever known".

And on X he has pointed to "great advice from my mother: 'Trust in God and be true to yourself'".

In 2018 then-British prime minister Theresa May presented Trump with his family tree tracing his Scottish ancestors.

Less than 20,000 people live on Lewis, and MacLeod is a common surname.

Residents tell how Mary Anne MacLeod regularly returned to her roots until her death, while one of the president's sisters won over the locals by making a large donation to a retirement home.

But Donald Trump has not impressed everyone in Scotland, and protests against his visit are planned on Saturday in Aberdeen and Edinburgh.

Earlier this year in April a banner fluttered from a shop in the port of Stornoway, the island's largest town. "Shame on you Donald John," it proclaimed.

Local authorities have asked for the banner to be taken down, but it is due to tour the island this summer with residents invited to sign it.