Qatar Foundation Annual Research Conference Proceedings Volume 2016 Issue 1

Background: Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is characterized by progressive decline in renal function; if left untreated, it ultimately results in end-stage renal disease (ESRD), a condition that demands either dialysis or kidney transplant for survival. CKD and ESRD are associated with a multitude of complications ranging from increased hospitalization to accelerated cardiovascular events and mortality. Currently, type-2 Read More

Introduction: Polypharmacy (or the use of multiple medications at the same time by the same patient) could expose the patient to health risks and add an extra burden on the life of these patients in addition to the burden of illness. The Living with Medicines Questionnaire (LMQ) was developed to assess the burden of polypharmacy from the patient's perspective. This tool includes items relating to the use of medication and expr Read More

Antibiotic Susceptibility and Plasmid Profile of Vibrio vulnificus isolated from mussels in Qatar Vibrio vulnificus infections are the worldwide public health problems associated with illnesses resulting from consumption of raw or partially cooked seafood and exposure with the contaminated sea water. Infections of V. vulnificus are reported in many different countries in America, Europe and Asia notably in USA, South Korea, Taiw Read More

Introduction: Angiosarcomas are rare and malignant neoplasms that involve abnormal proliferation and migration of cancerous endothelial cells. Angiosarcomas can arise in any region of the body, but tend to be found in the skin, soft tissue, and liver. They are associated with high mortality rate due to their aggressiveness and high rate of metastasis. Therapeutic strategies for treating angiosarcomas involve use of cytotoxic Read More

Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a progressive, debilitating and fatal condition [1]. Current PAH therapy relies on vasodilator drugs, which are seriously limited by their systemic side effects. We suggest that advances made in the field of nanomedicine could be used to improve the utility of drugs to treat PAH. Whilst not currently used clinically, metal organic frameworks (MOFs) such as the Material from Institute Lavoisier Read More

A bacteriophage is a virus that infects a bacteria, it uses the bacteria as a host to further replicate by controlling the replication and protein synthesis machinery of the cell. They are composed of a protein capsule and DNA or RNA genome. Bacteriophages are used in the treatment of bacterial infections, known as the phage therapy. This results from phages invading the bacteria, as they undergo a lytic cycle, where th Read More

Diabetes is a disease that occurs when there is an abundance of glucose in the blood stream and the body cannot produce enough insulin in the pancreas to transfer the sugar from the blood to other areas in the body for energy. Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes are both prevalent in Qatar however, Type 2 diabetes is more common and it is mainly what is causing the epidemic Qatar is facing. Type 1 diabetes is inherited and Read More

Streptomyces are Gram positive aerobic bacteria from the phylum Actinobacteria with close to 570 known species. They are popular for providing a variety of compounds having medicinal properties including - antibiotics, antifungals, antitumor amongst others. Various researches in the past have tested these properties of Streptomyces sp. and species including Streptomyces avermitilis, Streptomyces venezuelae, Streptomyc Read More

Background and Purpose: Great advances have occurred in the field of robotics in the past few years. The integration of robotics in our daily life became not only limited to manufacturing or industrial usage, but also in health care delivery, aerospace, humanitarian aids and others. Most of the existing robots systems rely on the programmer to set the rule it plays within the working environment or rely on a trainer to teach t Read More

Pain is an emotion and neuropathic pain symptoms are modulated by supraspinal structures such as the amygdala. If the central nucleus of the amygdala is often named as the “nociceptive amygdala”, little is known on the role of the basolateral amygdala. Here, we monitored the mechanical nociceptive thresholds of in a mouse model of neuropathic pain and infused modulators of the glutamate/GABAergic transm Read More