Hamdan Medical Award Concludes Activities of 12th Term Winner’s Webinar Series
29 May 2023
The Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum Award for Medical Sciences concluded the activities of the 12th term winner`s webinar series, on the topic of infectious diseases, through its 3rd webinar, which discussed the topic Cancer Immunotherapy – what have we achieved and what have we still to achieve?
More than 1100 from 17 countries participated in the webinar. All participants were awarded one CME hour by the UAE University.
The webinar featured a talk by Prof. Ian Hector Frazer, the Founding CEO and Director of Research of the Translational Research Institute (TRI) at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Queensland, Australia. Prof. Frazer is the recipient of the Grand Hamdan Award in the 12th term of the Award. The webinar was chaired by Prof. Gulfaraz Khan, Professor of Viral Pathology at the Department of Microbiology & Immunology at the UAEU.
During the webinar, Prof. Frazer discussed his research that focuses on using the human immune system to control cancer. He talked about current experiments that help to understand how cancers defend themselves against immune attack and how we can overcome these defenses, enabling us to kill cancer cells.
He clarified the scientific basis for immunotherapy methods, whether by using cancer antigen T cells for solid tumors or blood tumors, or by means of immune regulation, as well as active immunotherapy, which helps to develop vaccines targeting a type of cancer causes, as in the human papilloma virus.
His Excellency Abdullah bin Souqat, Executive Director of the Hamdan Medical Award, expressed his happiness at the success of the webinar series and the interaction of the attendees with the speakers during the webinar. He also stressed that with the organization of these webinars, the Award aims to support the health sector and scientific research and enhance its ability to communicate with the scientific and academic community and specialists from all over the world.
He also praised the scientific value of the webinar and the richness of the discussions that took place during the webinar, which contribute greatly to the exchange of the latest developments in the field of cancer, which ultimately leads to the advancement of the health sector, whether inside or outside the country.