Wael M. Rabeh
Associate Professor of Chemistry
Affiliation: NYU Abu Dhabi
Education: BS Damascus University; PhD University of Oklahoma
Research Websites: Structural Biology and Biophysical Chemistry Lab
Research Areas: Enzymology, Protein Structures
Dr. Wael Rabeh received his PhD in Biochemistry in the lab of Professor Paul F. Cook in the field of enzymology where he characterized the last enzymatic reaction of the cysteine biosynthetic pathway in Salmonella typhimurium. In 2005, Rabeh joined the Structural Genomic Consortium (SGC) at the University of Toronto as a post-doctoral fellow, where he characterized the 3D structure of human proteins with medical relevance using X-ray crystallography. To further expand his expertise in the field of protein chemistry, in 2007, Rabeh joined the lab of Dr. Gergely Lukacs at McGill University for the characterization of a membrane channel that is the main cause of Cystic Fibrosis.
Dr. Rabeh’s research is devoted to the characterization of proteins’ structure and a mechanism to understand their biological function. Major area of his research focus is devoted to the characterization of disease-causing mechanism of proteins with medical relevance to assist in the discovery and design of new therapeutics using proteins’ structural information and computer simulation. Protein targets include human Hexokinase 2 that is required for tumor initiation and growth. As for his contribution in the field of bioluminescence, the laboratory of Rabeh is characterizing the color producing mechanism of the luciferase reaction from different species with different colors of light.