“DHFMR” ANNOUNCES RECIPIENTS of COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH CENTER and RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP AWARDS for 2009

Under the Collaborative Research Centers Program, DHFMR is funding researchers who have demonstrated exceptional ability to generate knowledge and novel approaches to medical, biomedical or translational research, relevant to the Middle East region.  Last year, the Foundation funded its first two collaborative research centers [LINK to RESEARCH CENTERS PAGE].  Effective January 2009, two more grants will enable the recipients to build on established collaborations between research laboratories at Harvard Medical School and Middle East based counterparts with the goal of forming independent and sustainable regional research institutions.  The first Collaborative Research Center award for 2009 goes to project titled “Collaborative Research Network on Primary Immunode- ficiency Diseases (PID).”  Boston based collaborators for this project are Dr. Raif Geha, Professor of Pediatrics at HMS and Chief of the Immunology Division at Children’s Hospital Boston, and Dr. Luigi Notarangelo, also Professor of Pediatircs and Director of Children’s Hospital’s Program of Primary Immunodeficie-ncies.  The Middle East based collaborators are Dr. Suleiman Al-Hammdi, Tawam and Al-Ain Hospitals, UAE, Dr. Basel Al-Ramadi, UAE University, Dr. Waleed Al-Herz, Al-Sabah NBK Pediatric Hospital, Kuwait, Dr. Abdullah Al Angari, King Saud University, Riyadh, Dr. Ghassan Dbaibo, American University of Beirut, and Dr. Necil Kutukculer, Ege University Medical School, Izmir, Turkey. The second award for this year goes to “Discovery of Genetic Causes for Human Congenital Malformations.” Boston based collaborators are Dr. Patricia Donahoe, Professor of Surgery at HMS and Massachusetts General Hospital, and Dr. Barbara R. Pober, a Genetitcist at HMS’s Deaprtment of Surgery, Dr. Richard Maas and Dr. Christine E. Seidman, Preofessors at HMS and Brigham & Women’s Hospital, and Dr. Jonathan Seidman, Harvard Medical School.  The Middle East collaborators are Dr. Fadi Bitar and Dr. George Nemer, American University of Beirut, Dr. Zuhair Al Hassnan, Dr. Majid Al-Fayyadh, and Dr. Fowzan Al-Kuraya, King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Center, Riyadh, and Dr. Ahmad S. Teebi, Weill Cornell Medical College, Doha, Qatar. DHFMR also awarded two new Research Fellowship Awards to postdoctoral researchers from the Middle East region, currently in the early stages of their research career, who will work for up to three years under the guidance and mentorship of Harvard Medical School faculty.

Dr. Manal Alaamery of Boston College, a 2008 DHFMR Research Fellowship Award winner, will be working with the researchers in the laboratory of Dr. Christopher Walsh, at the Division of Genetics, Children’s Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School, where she will investigate identification of genes that control the development of the human cerebral cortex. Dr. Sultan T. Al Sedairy, a DHFMR Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) member and Executive Director at King Faisal Specialist Hospital Research Center, Riyadh, discusses DHFMR research objectives with Dr. Maha Al-Mozaini, a 2008 Research Fellowship Award winner, and other delegates at the Partners in Research conference, May 2008, Boston, MA.

Dr. Maha Al-Mozaini of the Molecular Virology Department, BMR, King Faisal Specialist Hospital Research Center, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Dr Al-Mozaini will work in the laboratory of Dr. Jay A. Fishman, at the Transplant Infectious Disease and Compromised Host Program, Infectious Disease Division, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston.  The second award for this year goes to Dr. Manal Alaamery of Boston College, and Fellow at the Harvard Medical School Genetics Training Program, Laboratory of Molecular Medicine, Harvard-Partners Center for Genetics and Genomics, Cambridge.  Dr. Alaamery will be working with the researchers in the laboratory of Dr. Christopher Walsh, at the Division of Genetics, Children’s Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School, where she will investigate identification of genes that control the development of the human cerebral cortex.

All research award applications, for both Collaborative Research Center Awards and Research Fellowship Awards, undergo a peer review process by an ad hoc Review Committee, comprised of members based at Harvard Medical School and academic medical centers in the Middle East.  The Committee made its recommendation to the DHFMR Scientific Advisory Committee, which makes recommendation to DHFMR Board of Trustees.

2008 AWARDEES

Co-investigators for the first research project titled “Galactosylceramide as Potential Treatment for Juvenile Neuronal Ceroid Lipofuscinosis (JNCL) – Batten Disease” are Dr. Rose-Mary N. Boustany, American University of Beirut Medical Center, Lebanon, and Dr. Susan Cotman, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, USA.  The second research grants was given to Collaborative Research Center headed by Dr. Christopher A. Walsh, Harvard Medical School, Dr. Bassam Ali and Dr. Lihadh Al-Gazali, United Arab Emirates University; and Dr. Brian Meyer, King Faisal Specialist Hospital Research Centre, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Their project is titled “Identification of Genes for Human Cognition.” [Research Centers Page]

Fellowship awardees in 2008 are Dr. Faiqa Imtiaz Ahmad, King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and Dr. Hasan H. Otu, of the Yeditepe University Department of Genetics and Bioengineering, Istanbul, Turkey. Dr. Ahmad works in the laboratory of Dr. Cynthia Morton, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Biology Harvard Medical School Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Department of Pathology, Boston, and Dr. Otu in the laboratory of Dr. Towia Liberman, BIDMC Genomics Center and DF/HCC Cancer Proteomics Core Harvard Institutes of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston.