Owais Mohammad is an Indian immunologist, nano-technologist and a professor at the interdisciplinary biotechnology unit of the Aligarh Muslim University. Known for his studies on nanotechnology-based vaccine and drug delivery, Owais is the author of two books, Trypanothione reductase: a potential anti-leishmanial drug target and Antimicrobial properties of clove oil: clove oils as antimicrobial agent. He has also co-edited two books, Modern Phytomedicine: Turning Medicinal Plants into Drugs and Combating Fungal Infections: Problems and Remedy, and has contributed chapters. His studies have also been documented by way of a number of articles and ResearchGate, an online repository of scientific articles has listed 60 of them. He is a recipient of the Rashtriya Gaurav Award of the India International Friendship Society. The Department of Biotechnology of the Government of India awarded him the National Bioscience Award for Career Development, one of the highest Indian science awards, for his contributions to biosciences in 2007. His work has been displayed on cover pages of FEMS Immunol. Med Microbiology for all the issues of Year 2006 and Molecular Medicine in May–June issue of Year 2007. Education and career Owais did his undergraduate and post-graduate studies in Pharmacy from Delhi University, India, after which he pursued his doctoral research from Institute of Microbial Technology (IMTECH), one of premier biotechnology institutes in India and Panjab University, Chandigarh, under the mentorship of Prof. C. M. Gupta. Later, he joined National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, USA as Fogarty Post Doctoral Fellow, where he worked on HIV. During his stay at NIH, he demonstrated that the introduction of HIV-1 genome into PBMCs blocks the propagation of HIV-2 viruses. His work on the antiviral chemokine, RANTES established that the amino-terminal domain of the chemokine was not essential for its antiviral activity or for its binding to the CCR5 receptor. He is currently serving as a professor of biotechnology at Interdisciplinary Biotechnology Unit, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, working in the area of drug delivery since his joining in 1998. Research Besides active involvement in teaching modern biochemistry/biotechnology courses to M.Sc./Ph.D students, Owais has successfully established a small but active research group with focus on nanoparticle-based novel delivery systems including dendrimers/virosomes for gene packaging and liposomes, niosomes, microspheres and solid core lipid nano-particles for vaccine delivery, gene delivery, targeted drug delivery etc.; with a view to increase the efficacy and safety of encapsulated chemotherapeutic agents/subunit vaccines for some important