Manama: A symposium to identify opportunities for creating a global network for research of Type 2 diabetes will be held in Qatar on Sunday.
The “Systems Biology of Diabetes: Towards Precision Medicine” symposium on January 26-27 will address the latest developments in systems biology and genomic medicine for the understanding and treatment of diabetes.
Qatar Biomedical Research Institute (QBRI), a member of Qatar Foundation Research and Development, said that the symposium would bring together leading scientists from around the world.
“Type 2 diabetes is a serious problem in Qatar, and QBRI is focused on better understanding this disease and finding innovative treatments for it, Dr Abdul Ali Haoudi, Executive Director, QBRI, said.
“The best approach for such research is not to work in isolation, but to collaborate with other researchers from local stakeholders’ institutions and around the world. By assembling this all-star team of systems biology and genomic medicine experts for two days in Doha, we hope to lay the foundation for a global network focused on innovative research for diabetes.”
Unlike traditional medicine, which offers a one-size-fits-all treatment approach, genomic medicine looks at disease characteristics among genetically similar populations. The ultimate goal of such research is to discover innovative therapies that are targeted at small, genetically related groups, giving rise to the term “precision medicine,” oragnisers said.
“The quality of this symposium’s programme is superior to almost all of its kind in the field of diabetes. The only exception is the Keystone Symposia, but that is a 3-day conference,” Dr Philippe Froguel, Senior Scientific Director of QBRI and one of the organisers of the event, said.
Dr Bernard Thorens, Professor at the Centre for Integrative Genomics, Department of Physiology, University of Lausanne, Switzerland, will deliver the keynote address on ‘Mouse genetic, genomic, and physiology to uncover novel pathways controlling islet function’.
Dr Thomas Zachariah, Executive Vice-President, Qatar Foundation Research and Development, Dr Haoudi and Dr Froguel will also address the symposium during the opening session.
Other speakers presenting on the first day include Dr Chris Newgard and Sarah W Stedman of the Nutrition and Metabolism Centre, Duke Institute of Molecular Physiology, Duke University Medical Centre, USA, Dr Jorge Ferrer, Imperial College London, UK, Dr DecioEizirik, Laboratory of Experimental Medicine, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium, Dr Oluf Pederson, University of Copenhagen, Denmark and Dr Emmanuel Van Obberghen, University of Nice, France.
The second day of symposium features a workshop on ‘Towards global networks for Type 2 diabetes’. Dr Froguelof will present his thoughts on ‘The road towards personalised medicine in Type 2 diabetes’. Other presenters in the workshop include Dr Timothy Spector, Kings College London, UK, Dr Karsten Suhre, Weill Cornell Medical College-Qatar, Dr Mark Prentki, Montreal University, Canada, Dr Guy Rutter, Imperial College London, UK, and Dr Mario Falchi, also from Imperial College London.
