By Bonnie James
Qatar University’s Physics Department, Qatar Foundation’s Sidra Medical and Research Center, and CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research are embarking on a multi-faceted partnership that stands to benefit the healthcare segment and the world of science.
A team from QU, headed by Physics professor Ilham Y al-Qaradawi, will be joining hands with Sidra’s chief research adviser Dr David J Kerr, and CERN’s senior scientist Dr Lars Jorgensen, who was in Qatar last week, in this regard.
Professor al-Qaradawi’s group, which has worked with positrons (anti-electrons) for over two decades using them in basic research on materials and built the first positron beam line in the Middle East, is also heading an effort to set up a cyclotron research centre in Qatar, in association with Sidra.
The proposed cyclotron accelerator is to be used to produce radio isotopes necessary for one of the region’s first Positron Emission Tomography (PET) centre planned for Sidra, apart from research involving CERN, one of the world’s largest and most respected centres for scientific research.
“Cancer doctors and cardiology doctors are using PET scanning to introduce new treatments all the time,” explained Dr Kerr, who is also a member of Qatar’s Supreme Council of Health and a cancer doctor at Hamad Medical Corporation’s Al Amal Hospital.
PET scanning, a type of nuclear medicine imaging, is mainly used to detect cancer, determine whether it has spread in the body, and assess the effectiveness of a treatment plan, apart from determining blood flow to the heart muscle and the effects of a heart attack on areas of the heart.
It can also evaluate brain abnormalities, such as tumours, memory disorders and seizures and other central nervous system disorders, and map normal human brain and heart function.
“Introduction of PET scanning will make a real difference to the quality of the care that we provide for our patients,” the Sidra official observed while stressing that having an expert like professor al-Qaradawi, supported by Dr Jorgensen, really lifts up the whole research field.
The plan is to have the cyclotron and the PET scanner commissioned by the end of 2010 or beginning of 2011, according to Dr Kerr.
Elaborating on CERN’s association with QU’s Physics Department, Dr Jorgensen revealed that the latter will be responsible for the positron trap for an experiment called AEGIS (Antimatter Experiment: Gravity, Interferometry, Spectroscopy), which aims to measure the effect of gravity on antimatter.
Professor al-Qaradawi recalled that her department has been sending students to CERN for summer internship during the past three years.
QU also has plans to collaborate with CERN on its Compact Muon Solenoid experiment. “It is one of the tasks to be run on the gigantic Large Hadron Collider (which spans the border between Switzerland and France about 100m underground), expected to be started up again shortly,” Dr Jorgensen added.
QU’s College of Arts and Sciences dean Dr Siham Yousef al-Qaradawi, expressed the hope that university’s participation in such advanced research would attract more students to the science programmes, which have only very little demand now. |
