Gamal Esmat

Gamal Esmat is a distinguished Professor at Endemic Medicine and Hepatogastroenterology Department, Cairo University. He was Vice President of Cairo University for Graduate Studies and Research. He published a vast number of scientific papers in top journa ls and was mainly concerned with hepatitis, hepatocellular carcinoma and liver transplantation. Since 2001, he is the director of Clinical Research Unit, Hepatitis C Project, International Health Division, University of Maryland Baltimore. He is a member of Numerous Scientific Societies and Organizations and per se was the president of IASL (International Association for the Study of the Liver) during the period 2006 – 2008 and is recently the WHO consultant for management of viral hepatitis.

Esmat was born on 3 January 1956 in Giza, Egypt. He is professor of Endemic Hepatology and Gastroenterology, Kasr El Ainy Hospital, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University, Egypt. He is peculiarly specialized in viral hepatitis and all its sequelae as well as the different related and advanced techniques such as abdominal ultrasonography and the different endoscopic modalities.

Professor Esmat is well known for his vast research in hepatology. He has pioneered the field of epidemiology, treatment and prevention of viral hepatitis, also enabling individualization of its treatment. He later developed further treatment strategies using the first Egyptian developed HCV Direct Antiviral Agent (DAA) for the hard-to-treat, interferon experienced and cirrhotic patients, revolutionizing HCV treatment.

Schistosomiasis Research

Prof. Esmat's researches started in 1985 through the Schistosomiasis Research Project, when Prof. Esmat was the co-PI of this project that studied the epidemiology and prevalence of schistosomiasis in 12 Egyptian governorates. In this project, Prof Esmat mastered abdominal ultrasonography for the first time in diagnosis and grading of hepatic schistosomiasis which was approved by the WHO as an ideal method for the diagnosis of schistosomiasis. This project had great impact in the control of schistosomiasis in Egypt that led to the decrease of prevalence from 40% in the 1980s to 2% in the 2000s. He contributed in the first textbook "Clinical application of 3D ultrasonography", by a chapter titled "Three dimensional ultrasonography in hepatogastroenterology". In addition, he also contributed in the hepatology text book "Zakim and Boyer's Hepatology", by a chapter titled "Parasitic liver disease".

National Committee for Control of Viral Hepatitis

t was reduced to 10% its worldwide price. Moreover, Prof Esmat established the Hepatology Clinical Trials Research Unit (HCTRU) in the National Hepatology and Tropical Medicine Research Institute (NHTMRI) in Ministry of Health in collaboration with the department of epidemiology and preventive medicine at University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, USA. In this centre, many clinical trials were conducted and about 800 Egyptian patients were treated for free and the first trial to evaluate the efficacy of pegylated interferon for treatment of HCV genotype 4. In 2009, Professor Esmat established Kasr el Ainy viral hepatitis treatment center in Cairo University, as a referral centre for Egyptian patients for prevention, diagnosis and treatment of chronic HCV and as a unique center for research on HCV, in which multiple pioneered national and international clinical drug trials were conducted. These efforts elucidated by prof Esmat were a backbone for the establishment of national guidelines strategy for the management of HCV, HBV and hepatocellular carcinoma.

Recent Achievements

In 2013, when the directly acting antiviral agents developed, he well established different clinical trials in HCV genotype 4, then due to his research in this field, he succeeded, together with the national committee members, to introduce all the new drugs for treatment of viral hepatitis C genotype 4 with a very affordable price. He developed an interesting system for recruitment of patients and database processing to enable a successful mass treatment of the Egyptian patients reaching up to 150,000 patients per year, by introducing the sofosbuvir based regimens. Even more, the plan is to treat 300.000 patients by the all oral antiviral therapy in the following years. He succeeded to introduce variable DAAs (as sofosbuvir, simeprevir, daclatasvir, ombitasvir and paritaprevir, ledipasvir) at very affordable prices. This achievement was peculiar in Egypt that many developed countries did not achieve neither the provided variability nor the full governmental support. So, prof Esmat is looking for a major health problem that touches every Egyptian family and the main plan is to eradicate HCV in Egypt in the next coming 20 years. The results of his research has saved millions of chronic HCV patients. His work was rated by the WHO as one of the most important strategies arising from research they have supported. In late 2015, Professor Esmat announced in the most eminent international liver meeting organized by the American Association for Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD), the results of a large clinical trial on an Egyptian molecule by Pharco's drug company. It is the first milestone in addressing the hepatitis C epidemic in EGYPT. This is a Phase III clinical trial of the combination of Ravidasvir with Sofosbuvir for the treatment of patients with Genotype-4 chronic hepatitis C virus, the largest study of its kind globally. It was announced by him being the lead Principal Investigator of the study, at the 66th Meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases conference in San Francisco on November 16, 2015. Results from the Phase III trial in 300 patients showed that combining Ravidasvir 200 mg and Sofosbuvir 400 mg once daily for 12 weeks resulted in sustained virological response at 12 week post-treatment rates of 98% overall. It was an Egyptian honor that the presentation was accepted as one of only 6 oral late-breaker presentations. The study indicates that we may be able to treat even compensated cirrhotic patients with a high response rate when we extend therapy to 16 weeks. No relapses have occurred to date in difficult to treat Interferon-experienced cirrhotic patients treated for 16 weeks.

• Medal of Science and Arts of the First Class from the Egyptian Presidency (2017)
• Nile Award for Science from the Academy of Scientific Research and Technology – Egypt (2016)
• Medal of Science and Arts of the First Class from the Egyptian Presidency (2013)
• State Merit Award for Medical Science from the Academy of Scientific Research and Technology – Egypt (2010)
• President of the international liver congress, San Francisco (2008).
• Nominated in Marquis Who's Who biography book as one of the most effective contributors to the field of Hepatology (2007)