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Biology Student Pens Top Dissertation
DissertationAwardWinner
Distinguished Dissertation Award
Winner Ahmed Sayed (middle)
and wife with David Williams,
Professor of Parasitology (right).
Ahmed Sayed, Department of Biological Sciences, has won the 2006 Clarence W. Sorensen Distinguished Dissertation Award for his outstanding dissertation, “Biochemical Characterization of 2-CYS Peroxiredoxin Enzymes from Schistosoma Mansoni and Validation by RNAi as Essential Parasite Proteins and Potential Drug Target.” This award recognizes the University’s most outstanding dissertation. Sayed’s dissertation focuses on his research of peroxiredoxins, considered an important new class of defense proteins, as being essential for the viability of a human parasite that is a major cause of morbidity in Egypt, Sayed’s homeland. “Dr. Sayed’s work was critical in our ability to obtain funding from the National Institutes of Health to conduct a high throughput screen for novel anti-schistosomiasis drugs and has resulted in two publications in the Journal of Biological Chemistry,” said David Williams, Professor of Parasitology and Dissertation Committee Chair. “Dr. Sayed’s efforts have produced perhaps the most comprehensive analysis of peroxiredoxins in any system to date.”

The Clarence Woodrow Sorensen Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award was made available through a gift from Mrs. Sorensen in her husband’s memory. As the first Dean of the Graduate School, Dr. Sorensen provided the leadership that enabled Illinois State University to mature as a comprehensive graduate institution. Under the leadership of Dean Sorensen, master’s degrees increased dramatically and the groundwork for the first doctoral programs was laid. In 1960, Dr. Sorensen recommended to President Robert Bone that Illinois State University begin offering terminal degrees. Today as a result of Sorensen’s leadership, Illinois State University has 37 master’s degree programs, one integrated, two master’s of fine arts degrees, one specialist, seventeen graduate certificates, and eight doctoral programs, enabling Illinois State University to be classified as a Carnegie Doctoral/Research University-Intensive institution.
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