One of the key pillars of WCM-Q’s overall mission is to boost the efficiency of healthcare by conducting cutting-edge research across a wide range of biomedical areas of interest, with a particular focus on disease factors specific to the local population, such as obesity, metabolic syndrome and diabetes.
With many important discoveries into some of the most pressing health issues facing Qatar and the wider region, WCM-Q has managed to achieve highly relevant and globally impactful epidemiological findings in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic, in addition to new discoveries about the fundamental processes that drive the basic functions of the human body.
WCM-Q’s Infectious Disease Epidemiology Group
Since the onset of the COVID-19 epidemic in Qatar in February 2020, WCM-Q’s Infectious Disease Epidemiology Group (IDEG) has been leading epidemiological analyses and mathematical modeling as part of the Qatar COVID-19 national response, and gained official designation as a World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre for combating infectious diseases in the region. IDEG has also supported the infrastructure for research and data generation as part of this response, while the WCM-Q Genomics Core provided support through viral genome sequencing and wastewater deep sequencing.
WCM-Q’s contributions were published in some of the world’s leading scientific journals, such as the New England Journal of Medicine, and have been instrumental in providing a principal source of data and analyses for characterizing the pandemic in support of the national and global response and to inform policy, strategy planning, public health programming, and resource allocation.
Qatar Genome Research Consortium
With countries in the Middle East experiencing an alarming increase in cancer patients, researchers operating as part of a WCM-Q and Qatar Genome Research Consortium reported the first landscape of cancer germ-line variation – known as inherited cancer – in the Middle East. The study provides in-depth screening of both common and rare cancer genetic markers in Qatari nationals.
Researchers at WCM-Q also gained new insight into the molecular mechanisms by which obesity leads to premature ageing of fat cells, causing chronic inflammation, insulin resistance, and eventually type 2 diabetes. New discoveries were also made into the essential role played by the Sirtuin 1 protein in the metabolism of fat, and how depletion of this protein is related to obesity and type 2 diabetes.
In partnership with WHO, WCM-Q researchers produced a comprehensive report on the hepatitis C virus epidemic in the Eastern Mediterranean region, offering guidance on how to eliminate the disease by the WHO’s 2030 target date.
Screening tool for genetic diseases
As part of a major landmark study, researchers from WCM-Q, Qatar Foundation (QF), and Weill Cornell Medicine in New York (WCM NY) assembled a large genomic database on the Qatari people and used it to develop an advanced but low-cost screening tool for genetic diseases. The tool, QChip1, is a microarray capable of detecting, from a blood sample, more than 80,000 different DNA variations in genes linked to hereditary disorders.
With numerous other important studies concluded or in process, WCM-Q’s functional and productive research model is based on a collaborative effort with national stakeholders to advance Qatar’s healthcare, research and economic agendas. With that principle in mind, 25 active state-of-the-art WCM-Q laboratories have been functioning as national hubs available to multiple national stakeholders.
In support of the Qatar National Vision 2030 and that of QF to translate research products into applied commercially viable solutions for the benefit of the local population, WCM-Q faculty have been involved in three startups and have executed six industry-sponsored research agreements, including one with Moderna, the renowned producer of the Covid-19
RNA vaccine. To date, WCM-Q faculty members have generated just under 40 invention disclosures.
