Dr Salah Elias

Salah Elias is Associate Professor of Developmental Biology. He completed his PhD in Neuroscience at the University of Rouen, France, where he investigated the mechanisms governing secretory vesicle biogenesis and trafficking under the supervision of Prof. Maite Montero-Hadjadje and Prof. Youssef Anouar. He then joined the Curie Institute for his first postdoctoral position with Dr. Sandrine Humbert, where he discovered that huntingtin and kinesin‑1 are key regulators of spindle orientation and apical polarity in mammary epithelial cells during development and tissue homeostasis. Salah subsequently moved to the Dunn School of Pathology at the University of Oxford to work with Prof. Elizabeth Robertson. There, he identified a previously unrecognised subset of mammary stem cells marked by Blimp1, demonstrating their essential role in driving mammary gland morphogenesis and homeostasis. In 2017, Salah was appointed Lecturer at the School of Biological Sciences, University of Southampton. The following year, he was awarded an MRC New Investigator Research Grant and a Wellcome Trust Seed Award in Science to establish his independent research group. His laboratory focuses on uncovering novel mammary stem cell subsets and defining the mechanisms that regulate their fate and dynamics. His research investigates how oriented cell divisions, cell polarity, centrosome dynamics, and membrane–cytoskeleton interactions coordinate epithelial cell fate, tissue architecture, and tumorigenesis in the mammary gland. His group adopts a highly multidisciplinary strategy integrating mouse genetics, 3D organoid models, advanced imaging, omics approaches, and AI‑guided modelling to decode the cellular logic governing epithelial development and disease.