Dr. M. Saleh

M.T. Saleh, Ph.D.

Email: msaleh@laurentian.ca
Phone: (705) 675-1151 ext.2434
Address:

Biology Department

Laurentian University

935 Ramsey Lake Road

Sudbury, Ontario

P3E 2C6

Canada

Research Interests:

My research area is the pathogenesis of mycobacteria. Mycobacterium tuberculosis is the etiological agent of tuberculosis (TB). This agent belongs to a group of closely related pathogens responsible for leprosy, and tuberculosis-like disease in bovine, birds and fish. The tuberculosis vaccine currently in use worldwide is a live vaccine derived originally from the bovine pathogen Mycobacterium bovis and is known as M. bovis BCG.

The most common infection is the result of exposure to aerosols containing the pathogen. Patients with advanced Tuberculosis have significant load of the pathogen in their saliva and release infectious particles in mucus droplets released upon coughing or sneezing.

Once in the host, the pathogen adheres to certain cell types and is eventually internalized by the host cell. In the case of white blood cells, this is done to neutralize the pathogen in a process called phagocytosis. However, with pathogenic mycobacteria, white blood cells fail to inactivate the pathogen as it survives the process of phagocytosis and continues to multiply. Understanding why the pathogen survives phagocytosis is my primary research objective.

Select Publications:

Saleh, M.T., S.C. Mojumdar, and M. Lamoureux. 2006. Colorimetric determination of iron with 1,8 - naphthalenediol. Res. J. Chem. Environ. 10: 14-17.

M.L. Conrad, J.E. Enman, S.J. Scales, H. Zhang, C.M. Vogels, M.T. Saleh, A. Decken and S.A. Westcott. 2005. Synthesis, characterization, and cytotoxicities of platinum(II) complexes bearing pyridinecarboxaldimines containing bulky aromatic groups. Inorg. Chim. Acta. 358: 63-69.

Mojumdar, S.C., Madgurambal, G., and M.T. Saleh. 2005. A study on synthesis and thermal, spectral and biological properties of Carboxylato-Mg(II) and Carboxylato-Cu(II) complexes with bioactive ligands. J. Therm. Anal. Cal. 81: 205-210.

Hanni A. Darwish, Stephen J. Scales, Jennifer L. Horton, Liliya G. Nikolcheva, Haiwen Zhang, Christopher M. Vogels, Mazen T. Saleh, Robert J. Ireland, Andreas Decken, and Stephen A. Westcott. 2004. Platinum pyridinecarboxaldimine complexes containing boronate esters. Can. J. Chem. 82: 1692-1699.

Stephen J. Scales, Haiwen Zhang, Paul A. Chapman, Ciara P. McRory,Eric J. Derrah, Christopher M. Vogels, Mazen T. Saleh, Andreas Decken, Stephen A. Westcott. 2004. Synthesis, characterization, and cytotoxicities of palladium(II) and platinum(II) complexes containing fluorinated Pyridinecarboxaldimines. Polyhedron 23: 2169-2176.

Mazen T. Saleh, Manuel Fillon, Patrick J. Brennan, and John T. Belisle. 2001. Prediction of putative exported/secreted proteins in prokaryotic proteomes. Gene 269: 195-204.

Mazen T. Saleh, and John T. Belisle. 2000. Secretion of an acid phosphatase (SapM) by Mycobacterium tuberculosis that is similar to eukaryotic acid phosphatases. J. Bacteriol. 182: 6850-6853.