Events 2019

Speaker: Dr. Huseyin Yalcin (BRC)

Date: 11 December 2019

Location: Sidra Medicine

Dr. Huseyin Yalcin, Research Associate Professor at BRC, gave a presentation as part of Human Genetics Symposium Seminar series at Sidra Medicine on December 3. Seminar attracted attention at Sidra as multiple researchers participated including Dr. Khalid Fakhro, Head of Sidra Medicine Research and Dr. Luis Saraiva, Director of Metabolism and Diabetes Program. Dr. Yalcin presented findings from his lab at BRC, metabolic research lab. The talk included novel examples of engineering approaches in biomedical research focusing on cardiovascular physiology. Dr. Yalcin is currently has an active NPRP and multiple other grants and carries out clinical investigations as well as animal experiments, trying to understand how blood flow related forces known as hemodynamics contribute to development and functioning of cardiovascular system.

Visitors: Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland

Date: 4 December 2019

Researchers from the Royal College of Surgeons visited BRC. They had a tour in the center and visited the versatile facilities. They had an overview about the center’s activities and research interests.

Speaker: Dr. Nayef Mazloum (WCM-Q)

Date: 5 December 2019

BRC organized a seminar presented by Dr. Nayef Mazloum from WCM-Q. He discussed obesity prevalence its increase at an alarming rate over the past decades as a major risk factor for type 2 diabetes (T2D) and life-threatening cardiovascular disorders among other illnesses. The morbidity of these disorders creates major public health problems; especially in Qatar, where obesity and diabetes incidences rank among the highest in the world. Fat mass expansion observed in obesity is due to increased size (hypertrophy) and/or increased number (hyperplasia) of adipocytes. Evidence has shown that the NAD+ - depended deacetylase SIRT1 maintains metabolic functions in many tissues. Knowledge of the mechanism of how SIRT1/c-MYC molecular switch controls adipocyte hyperplasia will open new avenues toward understanding obesity and its complications.

Speaker: Dr. Najeeb Halabi (WCM-Q)

Date: 7 November 2019

Dr. Najeeb Halabi from WCM-Q presented a seminar under the title “Preferenctial Allele Expression, Residual Disease and Unmutated Genes in Cancer”. He discussed three projects that used bioinformatics tools. The first project described the identification of preferentially expressed alleles in metastatic ovarian cancer using exome and RNA sequencing. The second project described the use of deep-targeted sequencing to measure the extent of residual disease in different cancers and for use in screening. The third project using computational analysis and experimental cell biology described the discovery of significantly unmutated genes in cancer.

Speaker: Dr. Mohamed Elrayess, Dr. Hashim Abdelrahman (BRC), Dr. Farooq Al-Ejli (Qatar Falcon Genome Project), Dr. Abdulrahman Mohamed (CHS)

Date: 3-14 November 2019

The Biomedical Research Center presented Qatar Scientists in Biological Diversity program, The program aimed to direct the interest of Qatari male students towards the career of science, and presented new advancements in biological diversity in Qatar.

Speakers: Dr. Puthen Jithesh and Eng. Hakeem Almabrazi (Sidra), and Dr. Muhammad Sohail (BRC)

Date: 4-5 November 2019

The Metagenomics Data Analysis workshop aimed to introduce participants with to basic bioinformatics tools for microbial ecology. The participants had an overview about NGS technology and sequence assembly. The main part of the workshop discussed data alignment, quality filtration, and statistical analysis of the NGS data. The workshop included lectures covering basic QIIME 2 usage and theory, and hands-on work with QIIME 2 to perform microbiome analysis from raw sequence data through publication-quality statistics and visualizations.

Speaker: Dr. Khalid Elawad

Date: 24 October 2019

BRC had a seminar under the title: “Vaccination as Strategic Preventive Priority for PHCC” presented by Dr. Khalid Elawad. He talked about how infectious diseases were widely prevalent in the many countries and Dramatic declines in morbidity have been reported for vaccine-preventable diseases.

Speaker: Dr. Mohamed Elrayess

Date: 26 September 2019

Dr. Mohamed Elrayess, assistant professor of genomics at BRC, presented a seminar about his research findings in obesity and diabetes type 2. He said that the impairment of fat stem cell differentiation (adipogenesis) in obesity triggers insulin resistance and increased risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). However, some obese individuals maintain insulin sensitivity and show a lower risk of insulin resistance and T2DM. He demonstrated his research data describing mechanisms underlying the protective phenotype of obese insulin sensitive individuals in relation to adipogenesis including inflammatory mediators, oxidative stress, fatty acid signaling and environmental factors.

Speaker: Dr. Nahla Eltai and Dr. Hashim Abdelrahman (BRC), Dr. Tahra El-Obeid and Ms. Grace Attieh (CHS)

Date: 22-24 September 2019

BRC organized a series of three-month workshop for Ministry of Municipalities and Environment inspectors under the title: “Food Inspection and Public Health”. The workshop aims at training more than 20 food inspectors from different municipalities on the latest technologies in food safety inspection. Trainees attended a number of lectures about food safety, food spoilage, food sampling for microbiological analysis and microbiological analysis with conventional methods (bacteria culture). Practical sessions focused on bacterial culture from food samples and microbiological analysis with PCR and ELISA. The workshop series aim to increase the knowledge of the trainees on the subject of food safety and to assure that trainees could distinguish between different types of food spoilage and are able to identify them. It is also expected that they learned the proper method of food sampling and gained a basic understanding of lab work related to the analysis of the food sample by both conventional and rapid methods.

Speakers: Dr. Susu Zughaier (CMED), and Dr. Hashim Abdelrahman and Mr. Hassan Al-Mana (BRC).

Date: 9 September 2019

Qatar Academy for Science and Technology students had a visit to BRC facilities. Twelve student of grade 10 had the opportunity to investigate antibiotic resistance problem. They had hands-on demonstration with interactive 2-hour BRC Microbiology lab visit session prepared and lead by Dr. Susu Zughaier (CMED) and participation of Mr. Hassan Al-Manai and Mr. Hashim (BRC). Students also visit QU campus (bus tour), library and CMED anatomy museum. Students learned about the problem of antibiotic resistance; practiced how to investigate antibiotic resistance and discussed potential solutions. Students also learned about educational opportunities at QU colleges and library facility.

Speakers: Trainers from Oxford Nanopore Technologies

Date: 16-17 July 2019

BRC researchers had training sessions under the title “Oxford Nanopore Sequencing Training”. The training plan included an introduction to nanopore sequencing, preparation and setting up a sequencing run, software introduction to Minknow, Epi2me and Gupp, and an overview of kits and extraction methods.

Trainers: BRC Researchers

Date: 10-23 June 2019

BRC provided a course for health cluster senior students to equip them with necessary safety practice at the center. Students had a tour in the various sections of the center and initial explanation of the work of each department. They also had theoretical and practical explanation about each department and training session of different tests and equipment used in the labs. Trainees had an evaluation test to estimate their level after the training course sessions.

Speaker: Dr. Naila Rabbani

Date: 25 April 2019

Proteins in human tissues and body fluids continually undergo spontaneous glycation, oxidation and nitration reactions forming low levels of glycation. Quantification of these is termed AGEomics. AGEomics technology has been developed over 20 years for the assessment of proteome quality and to identify and quantify endogenous damage. Dr. Naila Rabbani shared her team’s discovery. They discovered that along with the oxidative stress another abnormal metabolic state “dicarbonyl stress” plays a major role in metabolic and inflammatory disorders. Dicarbonyl stress is emerging as a new dysfunctional metabolic state mediating health decline in obesity and diabetes and a basis for new therapeutics development and companion clinical diagnostics. Its further development may provide an exemplar study of bench-to-bedside research to advance precision medicine for obesity, vascular complications of diabetes, arthritis and autism. Dr. Naila included in the seminar understanding the disease mechanism of insulin resistance in obesity and diabetes and the therapeutic strategy to counter dicarbonyl stress and thereby reverse insulin resistance, development of biomarkers for early detection and classification of arthritis, biomarkers of proteotoxic stress for a blood test for diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder.

Participants: BRC divisions

Date: 23-24 April 2019

BRC participated in the fourth Annual Research Forum “Research Transformation through the Fourth Industrial Revolution: Challenges and Social Innovations”. The BRC exhibited four projects in a booth: Biosafety Level-3 (BSL3), zebrafish as a research model, Qatar genomic biomonitoring, 3D models of heart valves, and genetic variation of respiratory syncytial virus. BRC won the award for the best faculty poster of Dr. Huseyin Yalcin and Dr. Enes Salman.

Speakers: International speakers

Date: 13-17 April 2019

Zebrafish is a small tropical fish native to Southeast Asia. Over the last few decades, this unsuspecting fish has proven itself to actually be very useful in the latest research, specifically in human disease development such as developmental biology, cancer, toxicology, genetic disorders, neuronal disorders, diabetes and cardiovascular research.÷ n 2015 Qatar University (QU) set up a zebrafish facility at the Biomedical Research Center in collaboration with the Qatar Cardiovascular Research Centre. Since the establishment of the zebrafish facility in Qatar, there has been an increasing interest from research institutions in Qatar to use this model. QU’s Biomedical Research Center organized a 5-day conference and workshop aptly entitled “Current and Emerging Trends in Zebrafish Research,” which involved both theoretical lectures from renowned experts in the field as well as hands-on practical sessions to train interested researchers. The aim of the program held in QU was to focus on the utilization of the zebrafish model in a variety of research investigations, and to introduce this relatively new animal model to students, academicians, researchers and health care practitioners in the nation. The workshop also provided a platform for establishing new collaborations. The conference and workshop hosts a slew of researchers, from QU, Qatar and beyond who have used the zebrafish model to break new ground in research in various ways.

Speaker: Dr. Hamdi Mbarek

Date: 21 March 2019

Dr. Hamdi gave a presentation about the Twinning Genetics Consortium (TGC) that was established to characterize the genetic basis of spontaneous DZ twinning and performed the first genome-wide association study (GWAS). It showed that variants in two specific genes are significantly associated with a broad range of fertility and reproductive traits in women including age at menarche, age at menopause, age at first and last child, and lifetime parity The relative risk was estimated of twin birth given the novel alleles and explore the genetic relationship of DZ twinning and fertility traits using polygenic risk scores, and showed that higher DZ twinning PRS is associated with having children, greater lifetime parity, and earlier age at first child. The results were hypothesize that the results will also be of importance to investigations into ovarian response to follicle-stimulating hormone stimulation for assisted reproductive technology, making these findings relevant to research into female infertility.

Speaker: Dr. Tatiana Vinardell

Date: 21 February 2019

Dr. Tatiana gave an overview of her cartilage injury and osteoarthritis associated research, and its clinical applications. Surgical approaches and osteoarthritic drug diffusion studies were presented as well as the discovery of an enzyme playing a major role in equine cartilage tissue degradation. Mesenchymal stem cells provide a promising therapeutic approach to cartilage repair. Studies on the chondrogenic potential of mesenchymal stem cells from different tissue sources and their incorporation with novel biomaterials into animal models for cartilage and bone repair were also presented, in addition to recent data on the application of this fundamental research.

Speaker: Dr. Khalid Fakhro

Date: 31 January 2019

Achieving “personalized medicine” will require high quality genome interpretation, tailored to individuals in the context of their native populations. Over the past 5 years in Qatar there have been significant advances in this domain, driven by initial explorations of population genetic structure to recent identification of disease-causing genes and loci underlying both rare (Mendelian) and complex disorders. Through sequencing thousands of Qataris to date, we have demonstrated a significantly under-appreciated diversity of modern day Arabs, as well as identified founder alleles for a range of different diseases relevant to the local population. Our data is aligned with the goals of the Qatar Genome Program, a nationwide, multi-stakeholder effort to sequence all native Qataris, tied to an exceptional national Biobank. The talk covered the trajectory that genomic sciences have taken in Qatar over recent years and identify areas of opportunity for students and collaborators looking to enter the growing field of Precision Medicine.

Speakers from J. Craig Venter Institute: Dr. Richard Scheuermann, Dr. Amedeo Paolo, Dr. Christian Zmasek, Dr. Yun Zhang

Date: 14-17 January 2019

The connectedness of populations across the globe through international travel and trade, along with the increase of newly emerging pathogens, has led to the rapid spread of diseases. This is illustrated by the SARS-coronavirus outbreak in 2003 and the global spread of pandemic H1N1 in 2009. To mitigate the risks of emerging diseases for Public and Veterinary sectors, coordinated and collaborative approaches across domains of Infectious diseases (ID) are essential. With the above observations comes the notion that preparedness planning is needed to ensure adequate response to emerging ID cases or outbreaks. Qatar faces several challenges with respect to preparedness for emerging ID threatening veterinary and human health. Qatar also knows a heavy influx of foreign labor with expatriates constituting 94% of a total labor force of 1.3 million people and originating from countries in Africa and Asia endemic for zoonoses. These increasing demands will go hand-in-hand with increased risks for introduction of zoonoses into the country, which raises the alarm about the importance of preparedness planning, and building the ‎knowledge‎ to ensure effective responses to emerging infectious disease cases or outbreaks. Accordingly, the Biomedical Research Center (BRC) at Qatar University in coordination with the Ministry of Public Health (MOPH) and Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC), organized and hosted a workshop on “Bioinformatics and Laboratory investigations of emerging pathogens and epidemics”, on January 14-17, 2019. The workshop, which was supported by Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF), aimed at introducing medical and public health professionals to the new bioinformatics approaches that are used in outbreak investigations of emerging and re-emerging pathogens including viral and bacterial pathogens. This event hosted internationally renowned experts from the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI), which is a world leader in genomic and bioinformatics research. The workshop was a Category 1 - Accredited Group Learning Activity as defined by the Qatar Council for Healthcare Practitioners Accreditation Department and qualified for a maximum of 30 credit hours for all topics. The event drew the participation of over 35 health care professionals from different institutes in Qatar. The opening session was delivered by Prof. Asma Al-Thani, QU College of Health Sciences (CHS) Dean and BRC Director, followed by QNRF representative talk by Dr. Mohammed Jarrar, Senior Manager of Biomedical and Health Research and Associate Professor in QNRF. The workshop was moderated by Dr. Hadi Yassine, BRC Assistant Professor of Infectious Diseases. During the four days of the event, the participants attended different theoretical sessions, followed by hands-on trainings on advanced bioinformatics tools in the field of ID.