From sports medicine to the genome project: scientific research in Qatar is at the forefront and has made great strides in recent years.
The world of sport has changed significantly thanks to technological advances. The goal is to make better decisions in the care of athletes, leveraging sports medicine and scientific research. Aspetar is a state-of-the-art medical center in sports medicine, to which countless elite athletes turn: it is internationally recognized as one of the most important research facilities on sports medicine in the world.
“Since Aspetar deals with elite athletes, he wants these athletes to feel at home – says Dr. Jamal al Khanji -. And the home for these athletes is a training center or a gym. If you join Aspetar, you are there. he realizes that it is more like a large gym or a training center than a hospital. This is very important. “
Sports injuries are treated very differently today than they were a few decades ago. The hypotheses have been replaced by scientific data. “Thirty years ago, when I started doing this work, our gaze was basically all we had to evaluate how the athletes moved, and to try to guess how the different loads were distributed across the joints, muscles. and ligaments – says Dr. Rod Whitely -. We thought we were pretty good at it. Then came this revolution – about which frankly I was skeptical – which involves measuring joint angles and examining the forces passing through the feet, as well as the measurement of muscle activity. And for me it was really a revelation. “
This revolution has allowed healthcare professionals to customize rehabilitation programs, allowing altetors to get back into action faster and safer. Since opening its doors in 2007 in the heart of Doha’s Sports City, Aspetar has curated some of the biggest names in sport, ensuring privacy and discretion.
“Privacy is important for many reasons – says al Khanji -. First of all, it is a fundamental requirement of health care in general. A person’s state of health is a private matter that each of us wants to preserve. In the case of athletes who are worth it. 150 or 200 million dollars, even a single news about an injury can affect their career, their club and their results. And you know how much social media and the media in general love to deal with these things. It therefore becomes absolutely essential to be able to protect the privacy of these people “.
A biobank for personalized care and prevention
Qatar Biobank provides medical professionals with all the data they need to ensure personalized care and offer patients greater chances of avoiding serious illnesses, such as diabetes or heart disease. The biobank was launched in 2012 to address major medical challenges, from various types of cancer to obesity.
“We collect clinical measurements and laboratory data – says Nahla Afifi, director of the institute -. We also have access to medical records for diseases. We collect samples, store them, analyze them and provide them to researchers”.
The biobank is a long-term initiative. Participants fill out questionnaires and are given blood and DNA samples, which are then evaluated every five years. This way scientists can check whether prevention methods are working. Biological samples are analyzed in various ways in different laboratories.
So far the Biobank has collected samples from more than 34,000 Qatari citizens and long-term residents, but this is just the tip of the iceberg: there is enough capacity to store more than 2.3 million samples. In recent years, the center has also used its cutting-edge technology for Covid research. The hope is that the Biobank will allow local and regional health programs to become much more consumer-centric and that the focus will shift to prevention rather than cure. Collecting these samples is an essential step in enabling scientists to tailor medical interventions to patient needs.
The Genome Program
One of the most exciting projects the Biobank has contributed to is the Qatar Genome Program, a genome sequencing initiative set to change the course of precision medicine around the world. We talked about it with Dr Said Ismail, director of the project. When was it started?
The Qatar Genome Program sequenced the first genome in 2015. We are now about 32,000 whole genomes. This makes us one of the largest genomics projects in the region and one of the largest globally. The goal is to make Qatar the leader in the implementation of precision medicine.
The Qatar Genome Program is based on seven building blocks. Can you explain us better?
It is not enough to sequence genomes and return them to researchers to uncover disease-causing mutations. The whole ecosystem needs to be prepared: research, infrastructure, capacity building, policies and regulations are needed. These are the seven elements we thought we would work on in parallel to prepare Qatar to be a leader, a pioneer in the implementation of precision medicine.
What are the most important discoveries? Tell us about the Q-Chip, for example.
We call it Qatari gene array chip – it’s a much less expensive tool than whole genome sequencing, but capable of delivering a lot of data at a fraction of the cost. It is possible to diagnose dozens of different diseases and possibly hundreds of thousands of different mutations with just one test.
What can the region learn from this program?
When it comes to genomics on a global level, it is crucial to understand the importance of the diversity of genomic information. More than 95% of the available data so far comes from Western Europe and North America, Caucasian Europeans. You cannot claim to have understood the human genome if you do not study representative groups from around the world. Once we had sequenced a sufficient number of Qataris to understand the country’s reference genome, we started sequencing the expatriates belonging to this part of the world, covering that vast area that goes from Morocco to the Gulf, to North Africa.
Are there any lessons the world can learn from this region?
Since Covid appeared, we have seen that some people with the virus are asymptomatic, while others need intensive care. We knew that something in our genes would determine the severity of the disease. We were the only representatives – not only from the Middle East but also from the Southern Hemisphere – to be part of the consortium that identified 15 genes that determine the severity of the disease. One or two of these discoveries would not have been possible without the samples from our region.
You have also organized genome workshops for children. Tell us about it.
The plan is basically to incentivize the next generation of geneticists here in Qatar. Getting them to devote themselves to science is no easy task. This training not only serves to get them to choose a scientific career, but also to prepare them to take part in this new form of patient-centered health care. In the future we will be responsible for our decisions, we will be given genetic information and we will have to act accordingly.