Salem is a part of the platform development team at Life Edit Therapeutics, focusing on protein engineering and structural biology.

He previously held several positions at life science companies, including Vertex Pharmaceuticals, and focused on early drug discovery.

Salem received his PhD in Chemistry from California Institute of Technology (Caltech) where he gained expertise in structural biology. This was followed by a Postdoc at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he expanded his protein characterization skills into the field of membrane proteins. As an assistant professor at the University of Virginia he developed novel methods for protein design.