Qatar Foundation Annual Research Forum Volume 2013 Issue 1

The expanding economy of Qatar in the last two decades has attracted immigrants, often from countries with poor socio-economic standards. Many arrive with patent intestinal parasitic infections, and recent analyses have indicated consistently rising trends in the prevalence of some infections. We have used several approaches for quantifying the prevalence of parasitic infections brought into the country by immigran Read More

Correlation between quality of life and disease severity in children with atopic dermatitis in the state of Qatar Background: Atopic dermatitis (AD) is an itchy, chronic or chronically relapsing, inflammatory skin condition which is most prevalent in childhood. It is known to affect 10-20% of children. The prevalence of AD has increased during the past 3 decades and is probably due to modification of lifestyles and environment. Atopic Read More

Malignant tumors metabolize glucose through glycolysis to lactic acid and produce ATP at an accelerated rate when compared to normal cells, a phenotype detected clinically using Positron Emission Tomography (PET). Out of the four available isoforms, Hexokinase 2 (HK2) is the major expressing isoform in cancers specially those that metastasize and kill their human host. In malignant cells, HK2 not only improves the c Read More

The foodborne and waterborne disease continues to pose significant health problems in the Middle East. This region specifically Arabic speaking countries, imports large amounts of food products from all over the world. At the same time, this region exports a variety of food commodities to many countries worldwide. The increased international food trade, changes in agriculture production, food processing, and consumer d Read More

Anti-allergic effects by arginase inhibitors: role of nitric oxide Herman Meurs¹, Ramadan Sopi¹´², Mirjam Simoons¹, Paul Jackson³, Harm Maarsingh¹´³ ¹Department of Molecular Pharmacology, Groningen Research Institute for Pharmacy and Groningen Research Institute for Asthma and COPD, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands, ²Faculty of Medicine, University of Prishtina, Prishtina, Kosovo, ³Department of Pha Read More

Abstract The aim of this study is to examine the bioactive compounds from secondary metabolites of the fungus Rhizoctonia solani against some selected strains of pathogenic bacteria. The fungus grown in a fermented culture and the filtrate was extracted in different chemical solvents. The fungal crude extract was used to examine the bioactivity against six strains of bacteria using disc diffusion method. The results showed t Read More

Osteopontin regulates hypoxic induction of NHE1 activity in H9C2 cells. Soumaya Bouchoucha, Fatima Mraiche Hypoxia, an important component of ischemia, is the result of an imbalance between oxygen supply and demand. Severe impairment of oxygen supply may result in a maladaptive cardiac phenotype. During myocardial ischemia, the Na+/H+ exchanger isoform 1 (NHE1), the main regulator of pHi, has been shown to Read More

Background: Most of available literature on atrial fibrillation (AF) is based on studies in the developed world and included mainly Caucasian patients. Data about AF in other ethnicities is very limited. The aim of the current study is to evaluate the effect of hypertension (HTN) in Middle-eastern Arab and South-Asian patients hospitalized with AF from a 20 year national registry in a Middle-Eastern country. Methods: Retrospective analy Read More

Blood doping still remains as a performance enhancement strategy misused by athletes . Blood doping is the practice of boosting the number of red blood cells in the bloodstream by means of either blood transfusion of an individual or by administration of erythropoietin, in order to increase the oxygen carrying capacity of the blood. There is no direct method currently for the detection of autologous transfusion, leaving this a Read More

Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAH) are an important class of chemical carcinogens formed as a result of incomplete combustion; it is therefore found in grilled foods, tobacco smoke and in general, the environment. Previous studies have shown exposure of smokers and second hand smokers (SHS) towards a whole host of PAHs and more than 500 of these have been demonstrated in tobacco smoke. As it is ubiqu Read More

Background: Individuals with diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN) frequently suffer from concomitant impaired proprioception and postural instability. Conventional exercise training has been demonstrated effective in improving balance; however these exercises are often repetitive, causing patients to lose interest and not complete the long term rehabilitation process. In addition, these programs do not incorporate v Read More

Endometriosis is a debilitating medical condition in females in which endometrial glands and stroma appear and flourish in areas outside the uterine cavity and walls, most commonly in the ovaries. Incidence in general population is 5-15% and around 30% in infertile women. Usual age group is 20-30years and patients present with dysmenorrhoea, dyspareunia, dyschezia, infertility and pelvic pain. We report two interesting case Read More

Type I interferon α/β (IFN-α/β) cytokines are produced by the host cell upon sensing viral proteins and nucleic acids as pathogen associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) and thereby elicit an antiviral response that represents the frontline of innate immunity against a virus infection. Among the signatures of the "non self" presence, double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) is the most potent PAMP in triggering the IFN-α/β-based Read More

Introduction: The objective of the "Italian Study on gene-environment interactions in lymphoma etiology", hereafter named the Italian GxE Study, is to identify individual conditions and external factors associated with lymphoma aetiology, the response to therapy and survival, as possible targets for preventive action and possible drivers of new individualized therapeutic strategies. Methods: This objective is being pursued by recrui Read More

الفكرة هي اعتبار عقل الطفل لا يوجد به البرنامج التشغيلي ي للعقل أو أن برنامج التشغيل الأولي لا يعمل كما يجب وهو فرضية أن عقل الطفل عندما يولد يكون عقله محمل ببرنامج مكتسب من الجينات وضعه الخالق سبحانه وتعالى نصه * انتبه إلى ما هو مكرر في بيئتك * انتبه إلى المثيرات البصرية التي تتكرر * انتبه إلى المثيرات السمعية التي تتكرر * سوف تتعرف على نفسك ومن حولك في حالة الطفل تم إهماله في الشهور الأولى مثل ترك الطفل ليشاهد قنوات الأطفال في أول 6 أشهر أو أن الدماغ لم يحفز فيصبح اقل ن Read More

Background & Objectives Aneurysm is a condition in which an abnormal dilation occurs in the wall of an artery or vein. Since cerebral aneurysm morphology is considered as a potential surrogate of rupture, clinicians often desire its segmentation before any pre-operative or interventional planning is performed. Also, segmentation of such images offers the potential of identifying the right treatment for a wide range of medi Read More

Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is an autosomal recessive disease affecting mainly the alpha motor neurons in the ventral horn of the spinal cord leading to muscular atrophy and paralysis. Although SMA is one of the leading genetic causes of infant mortality, no effective treatment is currently available. Gene delivery studies of Glial Derived Neurotrophic (GDNF) in Parkinson's disease (PD) have demonstrated positive impacts in Read More

Cancer develops as a result of a defective apoptotic system. Anticancer drugs mainly aim to modulate apoptosis. Multiple publications strongly support the link between the elevation of the intracellular calcium concentration and the induction of apoptosis. Cisplatin was one of the pioneers of the metal based anticancer drugs. Many tumors have been treated with cisplatin and other platin-based anti-cancer drugs like carboplat Read More

The computational advances in recent times have led to analysis of the complex interaction of blood flow through elastic artery. This aids in prognosing the progression and behaviour of cardiovascular diseases like atherosclerosis, aneurysms etc. In the present investigation, an idealistic 66% eccentric stenosed common carotid artery is analyzed under normal blood pressure condition based on clinical data obtained from Read More

Purpose: Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) has one of the worst prognoses of all malignancies. At time of diagnosis, 80% of patients with PDAC have unresectable tumors, and conventional therapies are nearly ineffective. The relative poor efficacy of chemo/radiotherapy against PDAC indicates that the development of new therapeutic strategies is a crucial step to improve the survival of patients with this disease. This i Read More

Patient engagement in their care process, vis-à-vis self-management programs is an important element of the patient's longitudinal care plan, where the patient is encouraged and expected to achieve self-efficacy in the self-management of the disease through a regime of educational and behavioral modification strategies. To ensure the effectiveness of self-management programs, it is important that the proposed self-man Read More

Background: People with diabetes are at risk of developing foot ulcers (DFUs), which accounts for significant morbidity and mortality. Damage caused from repeated foot loading and temperature changes during walking may go undetected by patients due to loss of lower-extremity sensations (peripheral neuropathy). Clinical assessment on the other hand needs considerable time. Therefore, a feasible assessment of Read More

Modulation of calcium homeostasis plays a key role in regulating fundamental cellular processes, including gene transcription, cell proliferation, differentiation, and apoptosis. Store-operated calcium entry (SOCE) is the major pathway in non-excitable cells for extracellular Ca2+ influx across the plasma membrane and is regulated by the content of the intracellular Ca2+ stores. Following store depletion, the Ca2+ sensor in ER Read More

Gastric bypass surgery is the most effective treatment for obesity, achieving both sustained weight loss and improved insulin sensitivity. However, following Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery (RYGB) some patients develop debilitating nausea and vomiting (N/V) persisting for years. The aim of this study was to determine if the N/V following RYGB is due to elevated systemic GLP-1 levels and whether GLP-1 directly mediates secretio Read More

Epithelial ovarian carcinoma (EOC) is an aggressive neoplasm that mainly metastasizes to organs of the peritoneal cavity. This event is mediated by molecular mechanisms that remain elusive. Cell adhesion molecules play a key role in tumor invasion, metastasis and drug resistance. The conventional in vitro two-dimensional cell culture models are not sufficient to explain the exact mechanism behind tumor invasion, migr Read More

Asperger syndrome is one of the Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD's), characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction and nonverbal communication, alongside restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests. ASD's have a strong and complex genetic basis that cannot be distinguished by the clinical presentation. A South African family with an affected father and three affected sons all with characteristi Read More

This study evaluated the effectiveness of paravertebral block as alternative anesthetic technique for extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy (ESWL) procedure. Fifty patients with renal stones, aged 20 to 60 years, were randomly allocated into two groups; twenty five patients in group P; received unilateral paravertebral block from T8 through L1 with injection of 5ml 0.5%bupivacaine and 25 patients in group L; received local infiltr Read More

Abstract: Background: While promising, cationic lipid-mediated gene delivery can still benefit from improvements in lipid design and lipid-DNA (lipoplex) formulation. The putative mechanism of cellular lipoplex uptake is believed to occur by endocytosis, where the key influential factors are lipoplex size and morphology; lamellar and inverted hexagonal. Lamellar lipoplexes offer superior protection to the DNA cargo, while the Read More

Introduction: Mild Brain Injury or concussion is frequently observed during contact sports such as football and soccer. If it remains undetected, a repeat concussion can lead to long term consequences because of the vulnerable brain tissue damage. Balance Error Scoring System (BESS) test is a widely used test to detect concussion. It requires the athlete with suspected concussion to maintain his/her position in three different s Read More

Diabetic nephropathy (DN), a serious complication of diabetes, is characterized by hyperfiltration, hypertrophy, extracellular matrix accumulation, fibrosis and proteinuria leading to loss of renal function. In renal hypertrophy, tubules increase in size and accumulate extracellular matrix and are also associated with alterations in renal sodium handling as well as hypertension; processes linked by involvement of the arachidonic aci Read More

Background and Aim: The prevalence of type-2 diabetes (T2D) has doubled in the last three decades and is still rising at an alarming rate, thereby posing a major challenge to global health. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of short RNAs, which play an important role in regulating physiological processes in diabetes. These small RNAs post-transcriptionally suppress mRNA target expression and, therefore, modulation of specific Read More

Background: Expanding adipose tissue in obesity requires effective angiogenesis and vasoreactivity to combat hypoxia and its consequences, such as insulin resistance and type-2 diabetes. While recent evidence suggests that the adipose tissue is highly angiogenic and inflammed, the tissue arteriolar vasoreactivity has been less investigated. As a consequence of the inflammation the omental adipose tissue (OAT) also synthe Read More

Purpose The first stage of this QNRF funded study includes a series of key informants' interviews with stakeholders in the PHC sector in Lebanon and Qatar to formulate an understanding of the recruitment and retention strategies of health human resources (HHR) and understand the obstacles and challenges that they face. This abstract reports on the findings obtained in Lebanon, as data collection remains ongoing in Read More

Sickle Cell Anaemia is an, autosomal, genetically-inherited, blood disorder, arising due to a point mutation in the bases coding for the sixth amino-acid of the β-chain of haemoglobin. The effects of the mutation begin to play role at the event of translation; during which the mutated haemoglobin (HbS) is synthesised. Here a hydrophobic protein residue (valine) is incorporated at the position of a hydrophilic residue (gl Read More

Autoinflammatory disorders are a group of Mendelian disorders characterized by seemingly unprovoked inflammatory bouts without high-titer autoantibodies or antigen-specific T-cells and are probably due to defects in the innate immunity. We here report on a 4-year old Arabic child with the clinical presentation of an autoinflammatory disorder, namely Pyogenic Arthritis, Pyoderma Gangrenosum and Acne (PAPA) syndrom Read More

The Yamanaka factors (Oct4, sox2, Klf4, cMyc) used to produce induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) have become a staple of stem cell biology and ChIP-seq studies have led to an understanding of the genomic landscape of how these as well as other recently discovered factors transduce their effects to form iPSC. A conundrum that previously existed was that the Sox family has high homology and yet various members drive co Read More

Background. Chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) is the most common myeloproliferative disease accounting for ~15% to 20% of all cases of leukemia (1-1.5/100.000 cases per year). It originates from a pluripotent bone marrow stem cell in which a t(9;22) results in the production of BCR/ABL fusion protein which has a constitutive tyrosine kinase activity and deregulates signal transduction pathways. Phosphorylation o Read More

Background & objectives: Vascular complications account for much of the morbidity of obesity. The proportion of Qatari population that is overweight or obese is one of the highest in the world. With this comes the increased risk of blood vessel dysfunction and predisposition to type 2 diabetes and hypertension. The vascular endothelium is often the first target of the negative impact of obesity. It is however unclear ho Read More

Abstract The use of herbal and nutrition supplements is widespread. It has been reported that about 80% of the world's population use herbal medicines [1, 2, 3, 4]. Very few supplement use studies have been conducted in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and neighboring nations (5,6). Supplement use data among young adults is scarce. In one study aimed at determining the use of supplements among athletes in Qatar Read More

Introduction: Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a disease with severe complications and major health/economic impacts. It is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide, with an estimated 346 million adults being affected in year 2011. World Health Organization (WHO) projects indicated that diabetes death will increase by two thirds between 2008 and 2030. The WHO estimated that 80% of the populations of developing count Read More

Rationale Despite improvements in oral health care during the last decade, caries and other tooth structure defects still represent major global public health concerns. To date, no index has satisfied records of different tooth structure defects that could be present in the same mouth and in the same tooth. Available indices provide data on some defects separately. Exposing decision makers to deficient information leaves the Read More

Background and objectives: A high prevalence of insulin resistance (IR) amongst normal weight Qatari individuals may contribute to progression of type II diabetes and account for the current epidemic. Factors contributing to this increased risk of IR and its associated co-morbidities, especially in the absence of obesity, are still under investigation. Therefore the objectives of this pilot study were to characterize components of IR in Read More

Hematological Malignancies (e.g., leukemia and lymphoma) are among the top 5 causes of cancer death in the Middle Eastern Countries, including Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The monoclonal antibody rituximab, directed at the CD20 antigen, has become an essential drug for the treatment of Non Hodgkin Lymphoma (NHL). Although transient B cells depletion frequently occurs after rituximab treatment, it usually resolves aft Read More

Background: Traumatic brain injury (TBI) and related death rates vary worldwide. Objectives: To evaluate the incidence, causes and outcome of TBI in Qatar. Method: A retrospective review of all TBIs admitted to the trauma center between January 2008 and December 2011 was performed. Patients' demographics, mechanism of injury, morbidity, and mortality were analyzed. Results: A total of 1665 patients with TBI were ad Read More

Objectives: Dizziness is a relatively common medical complaint that that rarely requires hospitalization for work-up and management. Whether gender related differences exist in the etiologies and outcome of patients hospitalized with dizziness is unknown. The aim of this study was to compare women and men presenting with dizziness in a real-world population. Methods: Retrospective analysis of all patients hospitalize Read More

Failure to offer evidence based structured diabetes educational program impacts negatively on the effectiveness of diabetes management and leads to increased morbidity and mortality. We assessed the efficacy of a nurse led group based structured diabetes education in improving glycemic and metabolic parameters among Arab type 2 diabetic patients compared to usual care Methods This was a parallel group ran Read More

Facilitated LMA fiberoptic intubation while keeping on ventilation in ischemic heart patient with unexpected difficult airway Authors: Mahmoud Abdalla MD. Hesham Ewila,MD. Hany Osman, MD. Abdulrashed Pattah MD. Institution: HMC, heart hospital, DOHA QATAR Difficult tracheal intubation remains an important cause of mortality and morbidity during general anesthesia, especially in ischemic cardiac patients where hypoxia Read More

Household spices comprising, chili, Kashmiri chili hot, Kashmiri chili mild, basil, oregano, ginger, curry, cumin, turmeric, tandoori masala, garam masala, black pepper, garlic and coriander, were collected from local markets in Doha, Qatar, during 2012, and were surveyed for the presence of potentially harmful mycoflora and for contamination with aflatoxins B1, B2, G1, and G2 by high-performance liquid chromatography (HP Read More

Phospholipids in cells are mainly synthesized in the cytoplasmic leaflet of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and the newly made polar lipids must flip-flop rapidly across biological membranes to sustain cellular life. But this 'flipping' is energetically costly as well as its translocation rate is low. As a solution to this, cells have membrane proteins that function as lipid transporters - 'flippases', proteins that facilitates the rapid, bi-directi Read More