News & Press releases

CAGS holds Webinar on Lysosomal Storage Disorders
The Center for Arab Genomic Studies (CAGS), held ‎yesterday, Wednesday, June 8, 2022, a webinar, which discussed " ‎Lysosomal Storage Disorders (LSDs)".
 
LSDs are a type of inborn errors of ‎metabolism and include a group of about 50 rare and genetic disorders ‎such as Gaucher disease, Niemann-pick disease, Pompe disease, and Tay-‎Sachs disease.‎
 
The webinar, sponsored in-part by Sanofi, was attended by more than ‎‎300 participants from all over the world, and featured distinguished ‎doctors and researchers in the field of genetics who shared their most ‎recent studies with the participants. ‎
 
The webinar hosted a talk by Prof. Huseyin Onay, Founder MULTiGEN ‎Biotech, Turkey. In his talk, prof. Onay discussed the Genetics of ‎Lysosomal Storage Disorders, specifically mucopolysacharidosis, and ‎Gaucher, Gabry and Pompe diseases Prof. Ahmed Alfares, Medical ‎Consultant, King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Centre was the ‎other speaker at the webinar who discussed variant analysis and ‎interpretation of lysosomal storage diseases, with pompe disease as an ‎example. ‎
 
The webinar was moderated by Dr Stephany El-Hayek, Assistant Director ‎of CAGS, and featured a short video highlighting CTGA, the genetic ‎database that the Centre maintains.‎
 
Dr Mahmoud Taleb Al Ali, Director of CAGS, said, " As we showed in the ‎short video, CTGA currently holds data on 48 LSDs, 31 of which have ‎been described in the UAE in association with 27 genes. Some of these are ‎reported exclusively in CTGA and are absent from other international ‎genetic databases, which speaks to the value of our database for clinicians ‎and geneticists dealing with Emirati and Arab patients".‎
 
For his part, His Excellency Abdullah bin Souqat, Executive Director of the ‎Hamdan Medical Award, praised the scientific value of the webinar and ‎the richness of discussions that took place, which greatly contribute to ‎exchanging the latest developments in the field of human genetics, ‎ultimately leading to the advancement of the health sector, both inside ‎and outside the UAE.‎
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