Objective
The objective of the Path towards Personalized Medicine (PPM) call is to support and advance research that aims to provide medical treatment tailored to the individual characteristics of each patient, based on her or his genetic profile to improve care quality while reducing unnecessary diagnostic testing and therapies.
Description
Each award is up to US$ 200,000 per year and each award can be up to three years.
Responsiveness to Challenges
PPM has three specific areas of priority;
1. Discovery
- Continue comprehensive -omics analysis of Qatar Biobank
(QBB) samples for discovery of disease biomarkers.
- Development/Validation of diagnostic disease gene panels.
- Identification of genomic and environmental interactions
utilizing comprehensive -omic analysis
- Studies related to parental and sibling genome analysis
(family genome analysis).
2. Translational Research:
- Building on QGP pilot phase to identify disease
biomarkers and match patients with targeted therapies.
- Research approaches that explore the complexity of the genotype–phenotype
associations.
- Developing clinical research into advanced phases and
participating in multi-centre clinical trials.
3. Community
Engagement, Ethics and Policies in Precision Medicine
- Behavioural analysis research of awareness campaigns targeting
the public towards precision medicine.
- Comparing different genome interpretation solutions and reporting formats to be used by health care providers.
- Identifying best practices of precision medicine policies
and delineating the best regulatory and ethical approaches to genomic
technologies and implementation.
- Identifying effective strategies to engage the public in
supporting the Qatar Genome Program.
Potential Benefits
PPM2 aims to
support research that benefit from the pilot-phase of the Qatar Genome Program
(QGP) in understanding the correlation of disease phenotype and genotype,
translate the research findings into medical products for better healthcare
quality and promote healthcare providers and community engagement in Qatar in
their effort towards understanding personalized medicine.