Chairperson CU-IACUC, EAARA & ESBA (EGY)
Prof. Gaafar is A professor of Endocrinology, Zoology department, Faculty of Science, Cairo University, and the chairperson of the Cairo University IACUC. Prof Gaafar is the founder and president of the “Egyptian Association for Animal Research Advancement (EAARA) as well as the “Egyptian Society for Biosciences Advancement (ESBA). She is also the chief editor of Journal of Basic and Applied Zoology, a peer-reviewed international journal published by Springer.
Since 2011, Prof. Gaafar have participated in many of the most attended conferences in USA, Europe and Africa as representatives of Cairo University and Egypt (AALAS, FELASA, ICLAS, PRIM&R IACUC, SAALAS, etc.) Following that, Gaafar became very active in disseminating the international principals and regulations that govern the use of animals in research and education. She established in 2012, the first Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) in Egypt in the Faculty of Science, Cairo University, with the aim of performing unbiased ethical and scientific reviews of research protocols using experimental animal models in research, testing, and teaching. She is helped in her quest to disseminate the knowledge to other universities in Egypt and the Arab world by a group of young scientists that believe in the principles that govern the use of animals in experiments. Together, Gaafar and her team have visited many universities, faculties and research centers mostly in Egypt to deliver workshops whence they explain and emphasize the importance of applying these principals and help establish their IACUC.
In 2014, Prof. Gaafar founded and chaired the Cairo University IACUC. She was also instrumental in passing a mandate by Cairo University board that stipulated acquiring the IACUC approval as an integral document for any research using animals, as well as animal handling training. She is, at the meantime, advocating the building of a state-of-the-art animal facility in Cairo University to help in the implementation of the international guidelines of the care and use of animals.