Abelali Haoudi, vice-president for research at Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development, speaks at BioVision 2011 in Lyon, France
Qatar Foundation is committed to building a world-class scientific and research community in Qatar aimed at establishing the country as a regional centre for research and innovation, a conference in Lyon France was told.
“Many people know Qatar for going - in 50 years - from a dependency on pearl diving to winning the bid to host the FIFA World Cup, but not many are aware of the massive investment in education, science and research that is taking place in this small country,” said Abelali Haoudi, vice-president for research at Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development, to an audience of researchers and scientists at BioVision 2011 in Lyon.
“At Qatar Foundation we believe that research and education naturally go hand-in-hand. Our job as decision-makers in research is to ensure the environment in which this takes place is enticing to innovation.”
Hamda al-Thawadi  and Haleema al-Farsi
BioVision, the seventh World Life Sciences Forum, is a three-day international biomedical research and innovation forum held every two years in Lyon, France, where top research scientists outline their views on forthcoming developments in life sciences disciplines, and where stakeholders and industry leaders discuss the impacts of these discoveries on society and the environment.
BioVision also invites promising PhD and post-doctoral students to attend the forum with a fellowship programme called BioVision.Nxt. At the BioVision.Nxt Creativity Seminar, the fellows presented ideas for innovative research projects related to the topics addressed by the BioVision conference to a jury for evaluation.
In addition to being on the jury panel, Haoudi was the keynote speaker at the closing ceremony of the BioVision.Nxt Creativity Seminar addressing over 100 promising young scientists from around the world about the research culture and opportunities at Qatar Foundation.
Haoudi pointed out that “through our participation in large-scale international events such as BioVision as well as our own Annual Research Forum, we not only raise the profile of Qatar’s research capabilities to a wider audience, but we reach out to more young scientists looking to cultivate their talent.”
Also attending BioVision 2011 were two Qatar Science Leadership Programme students who are researching cancer and stem cells. Hamda al-Thawadi is researching the relationship between ovarian cancer cells and stem cells, and Haleema al-Farsi is looking into the behaviour of cancer stem cells to identify those responsible for the disease thus enabling direct drug therapy at those cells.
Al-Thawadi and al-Farsi participated in the sixth Cancer Scientific Forum, which was a satellite event as part of BioVision.