Dubai Nature Middle East was launched yesterday at www.nature.com/naturemiddleeast.
The website from the Nature Publishing Group (NPG) showcases scientific and medical research from the region and is continuously updated with articles in English and Arabic. The King Abdullah International Medical Research Centre (KAIMRC), at King Saud Bin Abdul Aziz University for Health Sciences (KSAU-HS) in Saudi Arabia is sponsoring the website.
Nature Middle East features news, features, and short research highlights. Written by the Nature Middle East editorial team, research highlights are summaries of recently-published papers, written by researchers based in the Middle East region, from across scientific and medical literature.
Local job listings are provided by NatureJobs, and event listings by Nature Events. A blog, House of Wisdom, and a forum on Nature Network enable the community to connect, network and exchange information and ideas.
Exciting developments
"We are proud to be launching Nature Middle East, which reflects our growing commitment to a region with a proud scientific history and a promising future," said David Swinbanks, publishing director for NPG.
"We believe this launch is particularly timely, as nations from across the region increase their investment in science and medical research facilities and programmes. Nature Middle East will be the place to keep in touch with these exciting new developments."
Nature Middle East covers Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, the Palestinian territories, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, the UAE and Yemen. Additional countries in the region may be added as Nature Middle East develops.
"We are happy to partner with NPG on this important initiative," said Dr Bandar Al Knawy, President of KSAU-HS. "Nature Middle East is an important resource to facilitate communication between researchers and champion the best of the research from Arabic-speaking nations in the Middle East."
Dr Mohammad Al Juma, KAIMRC executive director, said: "We are confident that this initiative among many other capacity building initiatives that we are undertaking will help leapfrog our region to the forefront of discovery and innovation."
Nature Middle East Editor Mohammad Yahya has been actively promoting science in the Middle East region for a number of years. Prior to joining Nature Middle East, he was the Mena region coordinator for the website SciDev.Net.
Nature Middle East is NPG's third major portal focusing on emerging areas in scientific and medical research, following the launch of Nature India in February 2008 and Nature China in 2007. Its launch will be formally celebrated at the Saudi eHealth conference in May.
