Dubai: Some of the UAE’s first medical pioneers, Western doctors, Arab health foundations and global non-profit groups, were among 15 award winners who will share a Dh2.8 million prize.
The winners, announced in a Dubai hotel on Sunday, were selected by the Shaikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Award for Medical Sciences for their work in their field.
This cycle of the award, which has run for 18 years, is focused on the treatment of stomach disorders.
The winners are grouped in three categories: in the UAE, Arab world, and worldwide.
Winners were chosen after “huge efforts” by expert committees, said Mirza Al Sayegh, one of the award’s board members.
“We have had excellent specialists in this field of medicine on board in order to achieve the highest level of professionalism throughout all rounds of selection for the awards,” he said.
At the announcement officials thanked the award’s patron, Shaikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai and UAE Minister of Finance. Shaikh Hamdan is also president of the Dubai Health Authority.
Diplomats from the USA and Kuwait were also present at the press conference, alongside award officials and reporters.
The winners will be honoured at a ceremony on December 14, at the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre. Shaikh Hamdan will be in attendance.
Alongside the ceremony, the ninth Dubai International Conference for Medical Sciences will take place. The conference will focus on gastroenterology, and colon, liver and pancreatic diseases.
The award’s chief winner, who will receive the Grand Hamdan Award on Gastroenterology, is Harvey J. Alter. Alter is an investigator at the Transfusion Medicine Department at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Maryland, USA.
The other award winners in the international category are:
*Sanford Markowitz, Case Western Reserve University, School of Medicine, Cleveland Ohio, USA, for work on colon disorders
*David Tuveson, Deputy Director of the Cold Spring Harbor, Laboratory Cancer Centre, USA, for work on pancreatic diseases
* Dr Meritxell Huch, Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK, for work on liver disorders
Organisations and individuals in the humanitarian category of the award are:
*Medecins Sans Frontieres, France
*Emirates Airline Foundation, UAE
*Dr Graham Forward, Australia
Winners in the Arab World category are:
*Lalla Salma Foundation for the Prevention and Treatment of Cancers, Morocco.
*Mohammad Al Faqih, Saudi Arabia
Winners in the UAE category are:
*Cardiac Sciences Institute, Shaikh Khalifa Medical City, Abu Dhabi
*Dr Hussain Abbas Mahboobi, Dubai
*Dr Tayseer Ebrahim Barakat (deceased)
*Dr Shawqi Mir Hashem Khouri, Dubai
Awards for original research papers published in the Hamdan Medical Journal are:
*‘Purification and biochemical characterisation of a second type of neutral ceramidase from camel (Camelus dromedarius) brain’, by Sehamuddin Galadari, Cell signalling laboratory, Department of Biochemistry, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, UAE University, Al Ain, UAE
*‘Sensitisation of murine macrophages and human hepatoma cells to lipopolysaccharide-induced oxidative and nitrosative stress by aspirin’, by Haider Raza, Department of Biochemistry, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, UAE University, Al Ain, UAE
