Biography: Dr. Khaled Saad is a Professor of Pediatrics at Assiut University in Asyut, Egypt. He obtained his undergraduate degree in Medicine and Surgery (1997) and a master’s degree (MSc) in Pediatrics in 2003 under the tutelage of Professor Maher Mukhtar and Professor Ahmed Askar. Saad received his PhD in Pediatrics from the University of Assiut in 2009 under the supervision of Professor El Sayed Khalil and Professor Emad El-Daly. During his PhD. training, he worked at Ain Shams University and the National Research Center, Cairo, Egypt from 2004 to 2006. Dr. Saad is a full professor in the Pediatrics Department at the Assiut University Children’s Hospital, the largest pediatric medical center in Upper Egypt. It is a teaching hospital that provides primary and tertiary care with more than 550 beds for children in all governorates in Upper Egypt. He has a considerable number of international publications (105) in addition to three book chapters. Professor Khaled is a section academic editor for six journals (Global Pediatric Health, Medicine, Archives of Medical Science, Frontiers in Pediatrics, Frontiers in Public Health, International Journal of Clinical Practice) and an editorial board member of 48 international medical journals in the fields of pediatrics and general medicine. He is a referee for 190 international medical journals.

Our last article “Cow’s Milk-related Symptom Score for cow’s milk allergy assessment: a meta-analysis for test accuracy” assessed the ability of the Cow’s Milk-related Symptom Score (CoMiss) in screening cow’s milk protein allergy (CMPA) and validated its sensitivity and specificity. We performed a meta-analysis of the test accuracy of the CoMiss. Fourteen studies were included, with a total of 1238 children. At a cutoff value of 12, the CoMiss had a pooled sensitivity of 0.64 and a pooled specificity of 0.75. The platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio and neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio were 3.05 and 0.5, respectively. The area under the curve value of the summary receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.7866. Our findings reflect that the CoMiss may be a promising symptom score for CMPA awareness and a useful tool in monitoring the response to a cow’s milk-free diet.

Professor Saad was raised in Asyut, which is the capital of the modern Asyut Governorate in Egypt. It is close to the ancient city of Ancient Asyut, which was the capital of the Thirteenth Nome of Upper Egypt (Lycopolites Nome) in approximately 3100 BC. His primary, preparatory, and secondary schools were in Asyut; he always dreamed of being a pediatric doctor. His mother has had a positive influence in his life. She always says that just because you do not have money does not mean you should not have just as good of an education. Saad’s first project was on the iron status of breastfed infants compared to that of infants fed with cow’s milk in 1999. Many mentors have helped him in his research, including Professor Zeinab Mohy-Eldeen, Professor Faida Mostafa, Professor Emad M. Hammad, and Professor Mostafa Elsaeid.

His following advice may help scientists to improve their scientific writing and the likelihood of having their work published in high-impact journals: “Your research should be rigorous and solve a significant medical problem.” More precisely, high-impact journals seek studies that are (societally) significant. These studies must address a significant issue and have serious implications—either for an application or something more fundamental.