Events 2020

BRC organized the first online seminar with Dr. Wael Kafienah from Bristol University (UK), he talked about how Osteoarthritis (OA) is a degenerative disease that is characterized by erosion and eventually loss of cartilage tissue in joints including the knee, hip, fingers, and lower spine region. Once injured, cartilage tissue’s capacity to regenerate is severely limited due to the avascular nature of the tissue. Over the past decade, the fast-growing field of tissue engineering has introduced many approaches and technologies in an attempt to deal with cartilage repair. He argued that regenerative medicine can benefit every stage of the disease (mild, moderate and severe) and present example data from the lab to support this aim.

An online webinar in collaboration with external organizers, hosted Dr. Huseyin Yalcin to talk about how Materials Science can Impact the Pandemic.

The Biomedical Research Center organized the first online summer internship program. The program covered various essential research techniques and tools and assessed participants’ to understand the practical applications of various techniques. Including: Introduction to Biomedical Research, Lab Safety and Ethics in animal experiments, gene expression studies, microbiology, cell culture, chick embryo and, zebrafish embryo.

Dr Hadi Yassine, Associate Professor from Biomedical Research Center, participated in the lasts COVID-19 panels. The Symposium was organized by the College of Health Sciences and the Biomedical Research Center, under the title “Coronavirus: Your Questions Answered” included two informative panels on preparedness for #COVID2019, vaccines, and public health risk communication.

BRC organized a seminar presented by Dr. Morana Jaganjac from Anti-Doping Lab, Qatar, under the title “Calcium dependent upregulation of mitochondrial metabolism in skeletal muscle – roles of lipid peroxidation”. She talked about Moderate reactive oxygen species have important role in muscle cell adaptation while excessive reactive oxygen species can affect lipids resulting in lipid peroxidation (LPO). She found out that LPO and formation of 4-HNE during muscle contraction and exercise play a crucial role in the regulation of myotubes metabolism.

Dr. Omar AlBagha from Hamad Bin Khalifa University presented a seminar under the title “Deciphering the causes of common diseases using an integrated Omics approach, lessons from bone diseases”. He discussed genetic studies of common diseases and how multi-omic approach will advance the understanding of complex disease etiology and provide prospects for precision medicine to be used in clinical practice.

His Excellency Dr. Hassan Al-Dirham, President of Qatar University, visited the facilities of the Biomedical Research Center, and the Biosafety Level 3 (BSL-3) which is applicable to clinical, diagnostic, teaching, research where work is performed with indigenous or exotic agents that may cause serious or potentially lethal disease through the inhalation route of exposure.

Prof. Roy Gulick (WCM-USA) and. Dr. Abdullatif Alkhal (HMC) visited the Biomedical Research Center. Dr. Gulick is Principal Investigator of the Cornell Clinical Trials Unit of the National Institutes of Health-funded AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG). And his is current research focuses on clinical trials of antiretroviral therapy for the treatment and prevention of HIV infection.

BRC organized a seminar presented by Prof. Yiping Zhao from China. He talked about the surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) and how it works as a high sensitive detection technique for chemical and biological sensing and medical diagnostics. Furthermore, in his project he have conducted a comprehensive investigation on the physical origin of such a high enhancement factor, optimized the structures, designed different detection configurations, and developed a large scale production system. With the optimized AgNR SERS substrates, it also show that SERS is able to detect trace amount of virus, bacteria, microRNAs, or other chemical and biological molecules for applications in medical diagnostics, food safety, and environmental pollutions.