Events 2022

The Biomedical Research Center (BRC) of Qatar University hosted Dr. Sven Pettersson a Principal Investigator at the National Neuroscience Institute, Singhealth, Singapore. He talked about how Singapore is experiencing a rapid expansion of old human beings, which require changes in the health care system. Getting old if always associated with reduced organ function and increased risk to contract disease, However, the rate of organ decline, and thus biological ageing, is highly variable between individuals and subject to regulation by non-genetic factors, including the indigenous gut microbiota. The “re-discovery” that gut microbiota massively influences mammalian physiology, in an age and diet-dependent manner, open new avenues of intervention regimes targeting gut microbes as way to slow down biological ageing. Developmental programming, working in concert with maternal microbes and their metabolites, establishes a new human being. The growing offspring establishes an intricate crosstalk between its new “in house” microbes that form results in metabolic homeostasis in an exercise, diet and age-dependent manner. Organ changes by age will always be sensed by gut microbiota who reciprocate by changing composition, its functions and secretion of metabolites capable to modulate host organ function (tryptophan metabolites or production of short-chain fatty acids). The underlying mechanisms by which organ-function communicate with gut microbes and the mechanisms by which gut microbiota reciprocates to these host organ signals are largely unknown. He presented an experimental data illustrating the interplay between gut microbiota, organ function and age. Also, illustrated a vision of how we may translate our findings into next generation of food intervention therapies guiding gut microbiota to prolong health-span.

The Biomedical Research Center (BRC) of Qatar University hosted Dr. Muhammad Chowdhury an Assistant Professor with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Qatar University. Dr. Chowdhury talked about the proposed novel approaches for ECG and PPG restoration using cycle-consistent generative adversarial networks (Cycle-GANs) where the quality of the signal can be improved to a clinical level regardless of the type and severity of the artefacts corrupting the signal.

The Biomedical Research Center (BRC) of Qatar University hosted online Dr Fahad AL Zadjali an associate professor in clinical biochemistry at Sultan Qaboos University. He talked about how extracellular vesicles (EVs) are secreted by cells into the extracellular space carrying cargo to mediate inter-cellular communications. In addition, he descried the role of EVs in renal cystogenesis using a model of tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC). Furthermore, he developed human cell line models, animal models and used patient cystic fluid to describe EVs and how they mediate cellular plasticity in kidney. According to that, Loss of Tsc2 increases the production of EVs with altered surface characteristic, resulting in increased uptake. The EVs from Tsc2 mutant cells stimulate the mTORC1 pathway, while reducing substrate availability through a transcriptional mechanism. Aged Aqp2CreTsc2 mice develop renal cell carcinoma, implicating a role for EVs in this cell‐to‐cell reprogramming phenomenon.

The Biomedical Research Center (BRC) at Qatar University (QU) organized a workshop on 19-23 June 2022 titled “Practice Virus Isolation and Culture in Biosafety Level 2 & 3”. The workshop was intended for the National Reference Laboratory employees and aimed at providing diversify training content on biosafety and biosecurity principles, following the practice using the BSL3 facility. It also aimed at introducing the participants to the cell culture lab, as well as the Preparation of virus culture media, virus inoculation, and visualizing the cells microscopically.

The biomedical research training provided by the Biomedical Research Center, Qatar University was given on 5 – 7 June 2022 with the topics included as: Basics of Biomedical Research, Cell Culture Practice and using hemocytometer for cell counting; Gel electrophoresis/western blotting for protein analysis; RT-PCR for gene expression analysis; Zebrafish as an emerging animal model for in vivo research; Chick embryo model for biomedical research.

The Biomedical Research Center organized 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, Microbiology, Cell culture, Chick embryo, Zebrafish embryo, Molecular Techniques and Genomics.

In collaboration with Medtech Corporation, the Virology Unit in the Biomedical Research Center (BRC) at Qatar University organized a workshop on “Illumina Sequencing”. The training consists of a series of lectures and hand-on sessions, to provide the participants with basic knowledge on Illumina Next Generation Workshop. Participants learned how to prepare and run-set up on MiSeq sequencing system, as well as Illumnia Bioinformatics tools for secondary data analysis. In addition to gaining knowledge and skills, the workshop aimed to provide an environment for exchanging ideas and developing future collaborative projects between different stakeholders interested in virology research in Qatar.

The Biomedical Research Center (BRC) at Qatar University organized a symposium: “The 1st Neuro Research Symposium of QU Health and QU BRC”. The Keynote speakers included Prof. Andy Hill from Victoria University of Melbourne, Australia, and Dr. Cristina Quigley from King’s College of London, UK. The participants had an overview about the collaborators research works including Extracellular vesicles and neurodegenerative, Alzheimer’s disease, Cholesterol deficiency and neurotransmitter release.

BRC organized a seminar with Dr. Walid Qoronfleh an Executive Director of the US-based non-profit Q3CG Research Institute (QRI). He discussed the massive integration of personalized health and large-scaled epidemiological and molecular data, compounded with the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning, is underway. Furthermore, their aims to achieve culturally and demographically relevant outcomes in Precision Medicine, e-Health, Telemedicine and Population Health, in ways that are practical and appeal to stakeholders

The Biomedical Research Center (BRC) of Qatar University hosted Dr. Fares Al-Ejeh - Qatar Biomedical Research Institute (QBRI). He briefly presented his first collaborative study with several Qatari institutions including QU’s Biomedical Research Center that led to an accepted article on COVID-19 in Nature Communications. He also presented a work from his previous lab in Australia relating to prognostic and predictive markers and new potential drug targets for breast cancer. The presentation concluded with an outline of strategy and rationale for the cancer research at QBRI.