Dubai-8th April: The Centre for Arab Genomic Studies (CAGS) conducted the second webinar in its monthly webinar series.  Yesterday’s program focused on Population Genetics, and was attended by more than 600 participants from all over the world.

The webinar started with a short remembrance speech about the Late Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Patron of the Hamdan Medical Award, who passed away last wednesday March 24th, 2021.  In her speech, Dr. Stephany El- Hayek, Assistant Director of CAGS, emphasized that the late Sheikh Hamdan was a true visionary who dedicated a large part of his time and efforts towards improving the state of healthcare here in the UAE and also around the world.

“It was actually his vision of reducing the burden of genetic disorders in the Arab World that led to the establishment of our Centre. His passing is a big loss for us at CAGS and the Award, and also for the wider medical and humanitarian community. We truly hope that we can continue our work on the path guided by Sheikh Hamdan’s vision”, she said. 

 His Excellency Abdullah Bin Souqat, Executive Director of the Award, highlighted  the richness of the webinar topic and praised the efforts of the CAGS and the Award team. He also stressed that the Centre's organization of this webinar aims to enhance communication between specialists even during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The webinar hosted talks by Dr. Pierre Zalloua, Professor of Genetics at the Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi and Dr. David Comas, Head of the Human Genome Diversity Group at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) in Barcelona. The program was moderated by Dr. Riad Bayoumi, MBRU, UAE.

The webinar series had been launched by CAGS in February with a webinar that discussed the “Genomics of Infectious Diseases”, with more than 400 participants from all over the world. The next webinar in this series, on “Gene Therapy”, will be held on May 26th.