The Biomedical Research Center (BRC) is a research center at Qatar University focusing on biomedical research. BRC was founded in 2014, and partners with the Ministry of Public Health (Qatar), and Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC). [1] [2] [3]
The incidence of genetic disorders in Qatar is high, [4] with the top three causes of death in the country being cancer, heart diseases, and diabetes. [5] [6] The government saw the creation of BRC as a strategy for proactively preventing diseases to help foster public health. [7] [8]
BRC labs received the ISO/IEC - 17025 accreditation from the American Association for Laboratory Accreditation (A2LA). [9] This research center focus on infectious diseases (virology and microbiology), metabolic disorders, and biomedical omics. [10]
Since its establishment in 2014, the BRC has published over 530 research papers. [11] [12] The centre's research projects encompass a range of areas, including:
BRC Introduced the use of zebrafish as an animal model in biomedical research [36] [37] [32] [38] [39] [40] and established a facility for it in 2015. [41] [42] [43] The facility is used as a research unit to study many genetic diseases. [32] The Ministry of Public Health articulated an institutional research policy (IRP) on the use of zebrafish in research, [44] which Qatar University backed.
The BRC facilities include: [41]
Indiana vesiculovirus, formerly Vesicular stomatitis Indiana virus is a virus in the family Rhabdoviridae; the well-known Rabies lyssavirus belongs to the same family. VSIV can infect insects, cattle, horses and pigs. It has particular importance to farmers in certain regions of the world where it infects cattle. This is because its clinical presentation is identical to the very important foot and mouth disease virus.
Antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE), sometimes less precisely called immune enhancement or disease enhancement, is a phenomenon in which binding of a virus to suboptimal antibodies enhances its entry into host cells, followed by its replication. The suboptimal antibodies can result from natural infection or from vaccination. ADE may cause enhanced respiratory disease, but is not limited to respiratory disease. It has been observed in HIV, RSV virus and Dengue virus and is monitored for in vaccine development.
CSIR Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (CSIR-IGIB) is a scientific research institute devoted primarily to biological research. It is a part of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), India.
Dr Vinod Scaria FRSB, FRSPH is an Indian biologist, medical researcher pioneering in Precision Medicine and Clinical Genomics in India. He is best known for sequencing the first Indian genome. He was also instrumental in the sequencing of The first Sri Lankan Genome, analysis of the first Malaysian Genome sequencing and analysis of the Wild-type strain of Zebrafish and the IndiGen programme on Genomics for Public Health in India.
The 3C-like protease (3CLpro) or main protease (Mpro), formally known as C30 endopeptidase or 3-chymotrypsin-like protease, is the main protease found in coronaviruses. It cleaves the coronavirus polyprotein at eleven conserved sites. It is a cysteine protease and a member of the PA clan of proteases. It has a cysteine-histidine catalytic dyad at its active site and cleaves a Gln–(Ser/Ala/Gly) peptide bond.
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2) is a strain of coronavirus that causes COVID-19, the respiratory illness responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. The virus previously had the provisional name 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), and has also been called human coronavirus 2019. First identified in the city of Wuhan, Hubei, China, the World Health Organization designated the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern from January 30, 2020, to May 5, 2023. SARS‑CoV‑2 is a positive-sense single-stranded RNA virus that is contagious in humans.
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. Most scientists believe the SARS-CoV-2 virus entered into human populations through natural zoonosis, similar to the SARS-CoV-1 and MERS-CoV outbreaks, and consistent with other pandemics in human history. Social and environmental factors including climate change, natural ecosystem destruction and wildlife trade increased the likelihood of such zoonotic spillover. The disease quickly spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic.
An mRNAvaccine is a type of vaccine that uses a copy of a molecule called messenger RNA (mRNA) to produce an immune response. The vaccine delivers molecules of antigen-encoding mRNA into immune cells, which use the designed mRNA as a blueprint to build foreign protein that would normally be produced by a pathogen or by a cancer cell. These protein molecules stimulate an adaptive immune response that teaches the body to identify and destroy the corresponding pathogen or cancer cells. The mRNA is delivered by a co-formulation of the RNA encapsulated in lipid nanoparticles that protect the RNA strands and help their absorption into the cells.
Drug repositioning is the repurposing of an approved drug for the treatment of a different disease or medical condition than that for which it was originally developed. This is one line of scientific research which is being pursued to develop safe and effective COVID-19 treatments. Other research directions include the development of a COVID-19 vaccine and convalescent plasma transfusion.
COVID-19 drug development is the research process to develop preventative therapeutic prescription drugs that would alleviate the severity of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). From early 2020 through 2021, several hundred drug companies, biotechnology firms, university research groups, and health organizations were developing therapeutic candidates for COVID-19 disease in various stages of preclinical or clinical research, with 419 potential COVID-19 drugs in clinical trials, as of April 2021.
Allison Joan McGeer is a Canadian infectious disease specialist in the Sinai Health System, and a professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology at the University of Toronto. She also appointed at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and a Senior Clinician Scientist at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, and is a partner of the National Collaborating Centre for Infectious Diseases. McGeer has led investigations into the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak in Toronto and worked alongside Donald Low. During the COVID-19 pandemic, McGeer has studied how SARS-CoV-2 survives in the air and has served on several provincial committees advising aspects of the Government of Ontario's pandemic response.
The transmission of COVID-19 is the passing of coronavirus disease 2019 from person to person. COVID-19 is mainly transmitted when people breathe in air contaminated by droplets/aerosols and small airborne particles containing the virus. Infected people exhale those particles as they breathe, talk, cough, sneeze, or sing. Transmission is more likely the closer people are. However, infection can occur over longer distances, particularly indoors.
ZyCoV-D is a DNA plasmid-based COVID-19 vaccine developed by Indian pharmaceutical company Cadila Healthcare, with support from the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council. It is approved for emergency use in India.
BriLife, also known as IIBR-100, is a replication-competent recombinant VSV viral vectored COVID-19 vaccine candidate. It was developed by the Israel Institute for Biological Research (IIBR). The IIBR partnered with the US-based NRx Pharmaceuticals to complete clinical trials and commercialize the vaccine. A study conducted in hamsters suggested that one dose of the vaccine was safe and effective at protecting against COVID-19.
A viral vector vaccine is a vaccine that uses a viral vector to deliver genetic material (DNA) that can be transcribed by the recipient's host cells as mRNA coding for a desired protein, or antigen, to elicit an immune response. As of April 2021, six viral vector vaccines, four COVID-19 vaccines and two Ebola vaccines, have been authorized for use in humans.
NDV-HXP-S is a COVID-19 vaccine candidate developed under the leadership of Peter Palese, Adolfo García-Sastre, and Florian Krammer at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
V-01 is a protein subunit COVID-19 vaccine candidate developed by a subsidiary of Livzon Pharmaceutical Group Inc.
GX-19 is a COVID-19 vaccine candidate developed by Genexine consortium.
Nirmatrelvir is an antiviral medication developed by Pfizer which acts as an orally active 3C-like protease inhibitor. It is part of a nirmatrelvir/ritonavir combination used to treat COVID-19 and sold under the brand name Paxlovid.
Eleanor Barnes is a British physician at the John Radcliffe Hospital and a Professor of Hepatology and Experimental Medicine at the University of Oxford. She has studied hepatitis C and the development of the development of HCV vaccines. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and serves as the lead for hepatology at the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Clinical Research Network.