Dr Amin Hajitou obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Liège in Belgium under the direction of Dr Claire-Michelle Calberg-Bacq. His Ph.D. training involved the use of retroviral vectors for the transfer and expression of oncogenes in normal mammary cells to investigate the pathways leading to cellular transformation of murine and human mammary cells. After his Ph.D. thesis, Dr Hajitou enhanced his skills in vector technologies by joining the laboratory of Professors Agnes Noel and Jean-Michel Foidart (University of Liège), using adenoviral vectors to systemically deliver inhibitors of tumour angiogenesis to tumour-bearing mice to assess therapy relevance. His interests extended to the elucidation of the biology implicated in cancer phenotypes. In 2002, Dr Hajitou joined the group of Professors Renata Pasqualini and Wadih Arap at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center (MDACC of the University of Texas, USA). There, he acquired substantial expertise in bacteriophage (phage) technologies. Most importantly, he designed and developed a new generation of targeted hybrid viral vectors for targeted systemic gene delivery to cancer. Since 2007, Dr Hajitou has established his own research group, as a Lecturer, at Imperial College London, then Senior and Reader.