DISEASE MODELING AND THERAPEUTICS

Dr. Essam Abdelalim

Conference Chair

Dr. Abdelalim is a Principal Investigator at Sidra Medicine, where he leads the Laboratory of Pluripotent Stem Cell Disease Modeling. He earned his PhD in Medical Science from Shiga University of Medical Science in Japan. Subsequently, he undertook a postdoctoral fellowship and assumed the role of Assistant Professor at the same University. Before joining Sidra, he held the position of Senior Scientist at QBRI until February 2024. Notably, he established Qatar’s first pluripotent stem cell program focused to diabetes research. His team successfully generated multiple iPSC lines from healthy and diseased individuals and developed advanced protocols to enhance the differentiation of stem cells into pancreatic islets, insulin-target cells, and other cell types. He played a key role as Chair of the HSCI-QBRI Steering Committee Agreement, coordinating collaborative efforts between the HSCI and QBRI in stem cell and diabetes research. Also, Dr. Abdelalim serves on the editorial boards of “Stem Cells Translational Medicine” and “Stem Cells and Development”. He has authored over 75 peer-reviewed articles and has received numerous research grants and honors for his contributions to the field. Dr. Abdelalim also holds a joint appointment as Associate Professor at HBKU, where he teaches “Stem Cell Biology” and mentors graduate students.

Dr. Luis Saraiva

Conference Chair

In 2004, Luis concluded an integrated B.Sc. and M.Sc. degree in Biology at the University of Evora and the Gulbenkian Institute of Science in Portugal. Luis advanced to a Ph.D. in Genetics at the International Graduate School in Genetics and Functional Genomics of the University of Cologne (Germany), graduating summa cum laude in 2008. Next, his academic journey took him to Harvard Medical School as a visiting scientist, funded by the Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds, followed by his first postdoctoral appointment at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (USA). In 2013, he received the EBI–Sanger Postdoctoral (ESPOD) Fellowship, which led him to continue his postdoctoral training at the EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute and the Wellcome Sanger Institute in Cambridge (UK), where he also earned a Sanger Early Career Innovation Award.

In 2015, he joined Sidra Medicine (Qatar), where he is currently based, leading the Human Disease Modeling and Therapeutics Laboratory and the Congenital Malformations Clinical Research Program. He served as Adjunct Faculty at the Monell Chemical Senses Center (USA) from 2016-2023, has been a Joint Professor at Hamad bin Khalifa University (Qatar) since 2018, and an Associate Professor Adjunct at Yale University (USA) since 2024.

Dr. Ahmed Abdelaal

Stem Cell Core Manager

Dr. Ahmed is a core manager in the pluripotent stem cell disease modeling department at Sidra medicine, Qatar. He is a joint lecturer at the college of health and life sciences (CHLS) at HBKU. He awarded the Chinese Scholarship Council (CSC) fellowship and obtained his Ph.D. in Developmental Biology in 2015 from Yangzhou University (China) where he gained the vast experience of different types of stem cells such as pluripotent, primordial germ stem cells (PGSCs) and spermatogonial stem cells (SSCs) and its role in solving the hurdles of male sterility and infertility. From 2017 to 2022, Dr. Ahmed worked as post-doctoral researcher at QBRI where his major research interest focusses on the generation of patient specific induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and their use for understanding the pathophysiology and mechanisms of several diseases including insulin resistance, diabetes, and neurological disorders. In January 2022, he was appointed Stem Cell Core Manager at QBRI, before transitioning to his current role at Sidra Medicine. He has published numerous scientific articles in high-impact, peer-reviewed journals, contributing significantly to the fields of stem cell biology and disease modeling.

Dr. Diogo Manoel

Staff Scientist
SIDRA Medicine
dmanoel@sidra.org

Dr. Diogo Manoel is a Staff Scientist at the Laboratory of Disease Modelling and Therapeutics, led by Dr. Luis Saraiva at Sidra Medicine, Qatar. With over 16 years of experience in biomedical research, Dr. Manoel specializes in leveraging diverse animal model systems—including Caenorhabditis elegans (worm), Drosophila melanogaster (fruitfly), Mus musculus (mouse), and Danio rerio (zebrafish)—to investigate fundamental biological processes and their disruption in disease. His work integrates genetic, genomic, and gene expression tools to develop tailored models for functional interrogation of human genetic variants.

At Sidra, Dr. Manoel contributes to an advanced precision medicine pipeline by modeling disease-associated mutations in vivo and identifying pathogenic mechanisms at cellular and organismal levels. His approach combines extensive technical expertise across developmental biology, transcriptional regulation, molecular genetics, microscopy, transgenesis, biochemistry, and immunohistochemistry to generate and characterize phenotypes relevant to human health. Dr. Manoel is particularly focused on applying zebrafish models for high-resolution phenotyping of candidate variants emerging from clinical genomic studies. Through this work, he aims to bridge the gap between genetic findings and mechanistic understanding, ultimately advancing diagnostics and therapeutic strategies for rare and complex diseases.

Ms. Tara Al-Barazenji

Ms. Tara Al-Barazenji is a biomedical researcher with a master’s degree in biomedical sciences from Qatar University and Board Certification as a Medical Laboratory Scientist (ASCP). She currently works as a Research Specialist at the Laboratory of Pluripotent Stem Cell Disease Modeling at Sidra Medicine, contributing to stem cell-based approaches for understanding and treating human diseases. During her graduate studies, she served as a Graduate Research Assistant, focusing on early-onset obesity and disease modeling using zebrafish. Her work earned her the 3-Minute Thesis (3MT) Award at both university and national levels. Passionate about translational research and science communication, Ms. Al-Barazenji aims to bridge the gap between scientific discovery and public understanding, with a strong commitment to advancing patient-centered research.