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Meet focuses on genetic disorders in Arab world

DUBAI - The 15th joint Human Genome Meeting and the Fourth Pan Arab Human Genetics Conference was opened on Monday by Shaikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai, UAE Minister of Finance, President of the Dubai Health Authority and Patron of the Hamdan Award for Medical Sciences.

Shaikh Hamdan said that genetic disorders were disproportionately high in the Arab world.

In his opening speech, Dr Hanif Hassan, UAE Minister of Health said, “Genetic disorders exact suffering for people who grapple with the long term effects they impose; chronic illness and disability undermine the lives of many. They also impose significant burdens on families.”

Dr Mahmoud Taleb Al Ali, Director, Centre for Arab Genomic Studies hoped that novel genetic technologies for diagnostic and treatment purposes could be used to achieve a high standard of health for people around the world.

“Experiments are carried out to simultaneously sequence more than 25,000 genes, and to link genetic variations with factors that may cause complex disorders, such as metabolic, cardiological disorders and cancers. And prevalence rates for some of these disorders reach epidemic levels in our region.”

However, the country does not have such a reference map for Arab populations, he added. “This void leaves us with the choice to rely on non-Arab genomic reference maps. The use of this approach may be causing a delay in defining the genetic causes of many inherited disorders in the region and, hence, minimising our hope to find cures for these diseases.”

Edison Liu, President Human Genome Organisation said, “We wish to give a platform for the voice of emerging countries in this new field of genomic medicine to be heard.” While the first contributions to genome efforts were clearly from North America, Europe and Japan, the largest growth in the use of genomic reagents is now in the rest of Asia and the Middle East. The talent in human genetics and medicine is rich and plentiful in this region, he added.

Nobel Laureate Sydney Brenner who also suggested the formation of HUGO, delivered a keynote lecture on Reading the Human Genome. “If obesity were declared a crime, there would be not fat people in the world,” he said while talking about the rising obesity rates in the region and world.

Terming his idea to curb obesity as a ‘joke’, he suggested that fat people be put in prisons and on a diet and cycling as a punishment.

asmaalizain@khaleejtimes.com