In addition, Abou-el-Enein, lab member Amaia Cadinanos-Garai and their co-authors received the Best of Molecular Therapy Award for their paper describing a new tool for identifying which CAR T cells are best at surviving and killing cancer.
USC physician-scientist Mohamed Abou-el-Enein, MD, PhD, has found himself in a win-win situation: winning not one but two awards from the American Society of Gene + Cell Therapy (ASGCT), the leading professional organization in the field.
The first award celebrates Abou-el-Enein as a 2026 Outstanding New Investigator based on his contributions to the field of gene and cell therapy within the first 10 years of his career as an independent investigator.
The second, the 2026 Best of Molecular Therapy Award, honors a paper from his lab that demonstrates exceptional novelty, innovation and scientific significance. This year’s award recognizes “High-dimensional temporal mapping of CAR T cells reveals phenotypic and functional remodeling during manufacturing” by first author Amaia Cadinanos-Garai. Additional authors are Christian L. Flugel, Anson Cheung, Enzi Jiang and Alix Vaissié from the Abou-el-Enein Lab and USC/Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) Cell Therapy Program.
“Spending my career bridging scientific discovery and patient care, both by supporting others and through our own research, makes this dual recognition especially meaningful,” said Abou-el-Enein, executive director of the USC/CHLA Cell Therapy Program, founding director of the cGMP Facility and associate professor of medicine (oncology), pediatrics, stem cell biology and regenerative medicine, population and public health sciences, and regulatory and quality sciences at the Keck School of Medicine of USC.
Both awards will be formally presented at the ASGCT 2026 Annual Meeting in Boston in May. During the meeting, Abou-el-Enein will give a lecture covering his body of work at the Outstanding New Investigator Symposium, and Cadinanos-Garai will present the research featured in the award-winning paper.
The making of a translational scientist
Abou-el-Enein first heard the news that he would receive the Outstanding New Investigator Award from ASGCT’s Immediate Past President Paula Cannon, PhD, who is a distinguished professor of molecular immunology and immune therapeutics, stem cell biology and regenerative medicine, and biomedical engineering at USC.
“The committee seems to acknowledge that translational work, which can appear from the outside as supporting other people’s discoveries rather than making independent ones, carries its own scientific rigor and merit,” said Abou-el-Enein. “The contribution of translational scientists has long been underestimated and under-acknowledged, and having a committee of peers recognize its value means a great deal to me. It also shows recognition of the independent work my lab is now producing, and the new insights we are bringing to the field.”
As a physician-scientist, Abou-el-Enein combines a first-hand understanding of clinical and patient needs with a deep knowledge of manufacturing, drug development and regulatory science. His interdisciplinary training spans some of the world’s leading institutions. In addition to his MD/PhD from Charité University Hospital in Berlin, he holds a specialization in Quality Management from the American University in Cairo, a master’s degree in pharmaceutical sciences and biotechnologies from Strasbourg University with a focus on regulatory science, a clinical research certificate from Harvard Medical School, a master of public health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, a qualified person degree for the production and quality control of advanced therapies from the University of Granada, and a master’s degree in cancer and clinical oncology from Queen Mary University of London.
During his time as head of clinical development at Charité University, he guided the translation of cell-based therapies, including the first-in-human clinical trial of regulatory T cells for solid organ transplantation. As an assistant professor at Charité University Hospital, he also established his research group focused on using data science to enhance the translation of cell therapies.
“Translational science is an innovation cycle,” said Abou-el-Enein. “You support others, you learn from that experience, and you bring it back into your own research. Each role I have taken on has made me a better scientist and a better advocate for patients.”
In 2021, he joined USC to launch the USC/CHLA Cell Therapy, designing, building, and leading its cell manufacturing facility, located at the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, with investment from the Keck School of Medicine of USC, Keck Medicine of USC, and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. The program was awarded a $2 million grant from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) to advance its technology platform and develop digital quality systems, strengthening its capacity for clinical translation.
He’s also part of the team that secured an $8 million CIRM grant to establish the USC+CHLA Alpha Clinic, part of a network of nine California medical centers working to expand access to stem cell and gene therapy clinical trials.
“We are fortunate to have Mohamed Abou-el-Enein lead USC’s program in Cell Therapy and our GMP manufacturing facility,” said Chuck Murry, chair of the Department of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, and director of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at USC. “Mohamed brings an eclectic mix of cell biology, biomanufacturing and patient-centered humanity to this role. He’s built a team that can manufacture seemingly anything — from gene therapy viruses, to cancer-killing T cells, to stem cells for regenerative medicine — and this is a catalyst for clinical discovery. He is most deserving of ASGCT’s Outstanding New Investigator Award.”
Alongside these efforts, Abou-el-Enein runs his own research lab committed to engineering next-generation cell therapies with the development of the analytical and computational tools needed to understand, optimize and bring these therapies to patients.
Following the paper trail
While the Outstanding New Investigator Award recognizes the trajectory of Abou-el-Enein’s career as a whole, the New Best of Molecular Therapy Award specifically honors one of the most impactful new projects in his lab.
Published in ASGCT’s journal Molecular Therapy in May 2025, the paper by Cadinanos-Garai and the Abou-el-Enein lab describes a new tool for analyzing and optimizing the engineering of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells, which are patient immune cells genetically engineered to recognize and destroy cancer.
The new tool relies on machines called spectral flow cytometers that use lasers to capture the full profile of each cell simultaneously. This tool enables researchers to track the evolution of CAR T cells during engineering and pinpoint the ones that best recognize, remember and kill cancer.
Using this new tool, the Abou-el-Enein lab discovered that CAR T cells are strongest at fighting cancer after spending five days growing and multiplying in the lab, and lose some of this power after 10 days. This discovery informs scientists about how to optimize the manufacturing of CAR T therapies, with the goal of providing better outcomes for patients with cancer.
Drawing on the lab’s expertise in characterizing cell and gene therapy products and a vision for the broader impact of the tools they design, the Abou-el-Enein lab recently secured up to $6.8 million in funding from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H). The team will develop UNICORN (UNIfying Cell Therapy Outcome prediction and Regulatory Navigation), an AI-based tool that combines their analytical platform with machine learning to improve the design, evaluation and approval of cell and gene therapies for children with cancer and rare diseases.
“I’m very grateful for these ASGCT awards, which recognize both a specific project and the broader arc of my career,” said Abou-el-Enein. “These awards are catalysts that give me motivation to keep going. I always remind my team, when they are frustrated by setbacks or troubleshooting an experiment, to go back and remember why we do this. We do science and take on these challenges every day because we believe that what we do will make a difference. It’s really about helping patients, and making sure they have a real chance.”