Research Profile - College of Medicine and Health Science - United ...

Oncology
•To promote quality control in the
management of patients with cancer
Cancer Database
Members of the group are supporting efforts
to improve the national cancer register at
Tawam hospital. This is considered to be the
cornerstone of cancer surveillance in the UAE
and will provide the tool to measure the
nation’s progress against cancer. A committee
has been set up under the leadership of Dr.
Jorgen Kristensen to work on all aspects of the
registry. In the future all government and
private healthcare providers in the UAE will
contribute to the registry.
Tissue Bank
The group considers this to be a valuable
resource for oncology research in the UAE. The
bank will provide for the collection, processing
and storage of human tumors and appropriate
control tissues for research. The bank will help
to foster collaborations between clinical
oncologists and basic scientists at the FMHS.
Approval for the tissue bank from the human
ethics committee is in place, although approval
for individual projects utilizing tissue will have
to be obtained by the project investigators.
The equipment and staff for the tissue
procurement bank are in place. A
subcommittee has developed protocols for
tissue collection and storage as well as other
issues, such as ethical approval, consent,
maintenance of records, authorship
recognition for surgeons and pathologists
participating in tissue collection, etc.
of the ORG members were included in the
recently-funded, National Research
Foundation, Genes and Diseases Research
Center of Excellence Award.
CANCER-RELATED PUBLICATIONS AND
PRESENTATIONSOF ORG MEMBERS IN 2008
This year members of the ORG published 30
publications in peer-reviewed journals
including the Lancet, Cancer Research, Clinical
Cancer Research, Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences, Journal of the American
Medical Association, British Journal of Cancer
and the Annals of the New York Academy of
Sciences. The group also made 21 presentations
at International meetings during the year.
Cancer Research Day
A cancer research day is being planned for the
autumn of 2009.
CANCER-RELATED GRANT AWARDS OF ORG
MEMBERS IN 2008
During 2008, members of the ORG received a
total of 17 research grants for their work,
including six awards from the Terry Fox Fund
for Cancer Research, two UAE University
Interdisciplinary Awards, one from the Sheikh
Hamdan Awards. In addition, the projects of six
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