Doha- Organized by the Qatar Precision Healthcare Institute, a national research and application center under the umbrella of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community DevelopmentOn Thursday, a special event brought together an elite group of health care and scientific research experts in the country, during which he revealed his latest achievements in the field of genomic data, where he announced a pioneering achievement of completing the genomic sequencing of 25,000 Qatari citizens.
Scientific research engine
Acting President of the Qatar Precision Healthcare Institute, Dr. Saeed Ismail, said in an interview with Al Jazeera Net that tens of thousands of genetic and health data have been announced and collected and arranged to be available to the scientific research community in Qatar and the region to search for causes of diseases or mutations and genetic variants that may be responsible for… Different responses to some medications, and this data will be the engine of scientific research that can be translated into advanced medical care.
Ismail added that the future of health care in the world is based on precise care that focuses on providing health care based on the patient’s genetic makeup. This means that treatment should be “personalized” by identifying the patient’s genetic components and then knowing the appropriate treatment for this makeup.
He pointed out that this genetic knowledge will also determine health policies based on scientific research by taking advantage of this currently available data, which is the largest genetic and health database in Qatar and the Middle East.
Leverage data
Regarding how to access and benefit from this data, Ismail said that all workers in the field of research can access this data after obtaining the approval of their institution in which they work and other parties, and to search for what concerns them about a specific disease or inquire about variables that cause different responses to medications and others.
He added that this release of data is not the first, but rather the third, but it is the largest of its kind. Genome data was issued for 6,000 people, and then data was issued for about 15,000 people. This new release includes 25,000 people and is the largest of its kind, explaining that this data will be available. Through the Qatar Precision Healthcare Institute, noting that the larger the number of genomes, the greater the opportunities and importance of discoveries.
He explained that genomics promises to change the global health system, and that Qatar is one of the countries that closely emulates this global development and is one of the first countries in this context, noting that such data will create a qualitative shift in many medical fields, such as cancer and cardiovascular diseases. And mental health.
Changing the medical system
For his part, Dr. Khaled Fakhro, Head of the Research Department and Director of the Precision Medicine Program at Sidra Medicine, said in a statement to Al Jazeera Net that the application of genomics in healthcare will have a major impact on radically changing the health system in the future, especially in terms of diagnosis, which will be more accurate. .
He pointed out that the diagnosis will focus on the cause of the disease and will not be based on monitoring the symptoms of the disease, explaining that if the cause of the disease is discovered through genomics, the appropriate treatment will be determined and the necessary treatment plan will be drawn up for the patient according to his specific condition.
He added that Sidra Medicine has already begun applying genomics to some specialties such as obesity and diabetes, especially in children, as genetic diagnosis has succeeded in drawing up a treatment plan suitable for each individual case instead of trial and error, stressing that through genomic scanning the appropriate treatment will be determined according to the specific genetic fingerprint. For each patient individually.
He explained that genomics is capable of dealing with complex and rare diseases by reading the patient’s genome to deduce the mutation causing the disease, and then building the appropriate treatment plan for this mutation.
Encouraging researchers
Director of Research and Partnerships at the Qatar Precision Healthcare Institute, Hamdi Mubarak, explained that the announcement of the data came to encourage researchers in the State of Qatar to participate in the Qatar Genome and Qatar Biobank research alliance under the umbrella of the Qatar Precision Medicine Institute, with the aim of motivating them to intensify and update their research to serve personalized medicine for the benefit of the patient.
He added – in a statement to Al Jazeera Net – that monitoring genomic data and preparing it for research took more than two years to create a database related to the genome, which is the largest database in the region and will benefit researchers at various levels, whether doctors, researchers, students, hospitals, treatment centers, and others.
He said that the genome means a set of genes that any human carries in the DNA, which is the book of life for the individual and is responsible for a number of functions in the human body, and “today we are in the era of the genome, which will make a difference in the world of medicine and will push health care forward, and this is the future.” Modern medicine.