Research Highlights

Implementation of National Diabetes Registry in Kuwait

Research Highlights

Diabetes is a chronic disease that requires continuous engagement with healthcare services. To establish a comprehensive profile of individuals with diabetes and monitor their clinical outcomes, incl

DDI Functional Genomics Team Has Knocked-out GCGR in Zebrafish

Research Highlights

The Glucagon receptor, GCGR, is a membranous receptor that plays an essential role in regulating glycemia. The main action of glucagon is to stimulate hepatic glucose production by increasing glycoge

New Immunophenotypic Profiling helps identify Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) patients at risk of severe COVID-19

Research Highlights

The Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Department at DDI published an article that investigated the effects of increased toxicity caused by palmitic acid (PA) on insulin regulation. PA, a type of f

New Immunophenotypic Profiling helps identifying T2D patients at risk of severe COVID-19

Research Highlights

This study was a collaboration between Sorbonne Université and the Public Hospitals of Paris (Assistance Publique – Hôpitaux de Paris, AP-HP). It investigated the characteristics of immune cells in h

GLOBAL COLLABORATIVE APPROACH IN DISCOVERING GENETIC DETERMINANTS OF METABOLIC DISORDERS

Research Highlights

There is currently a global effort to apply large-scale genomic science and associated technologies to further the understanding of disease pathogenesis in diverse populations. These efforts focus on

Research During 2021 in a Glance

Research Highlights

Number and Impact factor of DDI’s published articles from 2016 until 2021. Here we highlight insightful published work in the department of Genetics and Bioinformatics: MMP9 is a molecule i

Scientists at DDI discover a new Branch in the regulation of IL-6 in Fat cells

Research Highlights

Kuwait is amongst top-ranking nations afflicted badly by obesity epidemic and its wide-scale complications such as increased blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, digestive problems, certain cancers

Exploring the Link Between Genes, Diabetes and COVID-19 Outcomes

Research Highlights

Prof. Fahd Almulla and his colleagues investigate what makes some cases of COVID-19 more severe. A striking feature of COVID-19 has been the variability in outcome, which ranges from silent infect

Elevated resting heart as a predictor of cardiovascular risk in Healthy Obese individuals

Research Highlights

The autonomic nervous system is a control system that governs body activities such as digestion, respiratory rate, pupillary response, and heart rate in a mostly unconscious manner. This system i

Obesity and Mitochondria – Research during 2020 in a glance

Research Highlights

Do you inherit your obesity from your mom? Maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is used to trace the kinship through the female line, it accumulates mutations over several generations. C

Heritability and Metabolic Traits – Research during 2020 in a glance

Research Highlights

Number, Impact factor, and citations of DDI’s published articles have increased significantly during 2020 as compared to previous years. Here we highlight some of the published work in the dep

COVID19: N720D AN ACE2 VARIANT WITH HIGHER AFFINITY TO TMPRSS2

Research Highlights

The rate of infection and mortality of SARS-CoV-2 varies based on the geographical spread of the virus as a consequence of several factors such as isolation, quarantine, differences in the genetic ma

Markers for Inflammation in Obesity and Diabetes

Research Highlights

DDI finds potentially critical biomarker of metabolic inflammation in obesity and diabetes Obesity, an important risk factor in the development of diabetes, is often associated with chronic infl

Metabolic disorders In kuwait – are our Ancestral genes to Blame?

Research Highlights

Why is the prevalence of obesity and metabolic disorders so high in the Middle East? Are diet and lifestyle choices the sole culprits? A new study1 conducted at Dasman Diabetes Institute may have fou

Immunometabolism – A Promising Route For Drug Development

Research Highlights

Immunometabolism has emerged recently as a very exciting field of research in immunology that investigates the interplay between immunological and metabolic processes. Interest in this field is gaini

Spratt-dawley Rat Models For Diet-induced Obesity Leading To Hypertension And Diabetes.

Research Highlights

BY DR. ALPHONSE T. THANGAVEL By performing an epidemiology study using cross-sectional data from Kuwait Health Network, we demonstrated recently that the association of higher body mass index (B

FTO SNP RS1421085 Increases Body Weight, Soft Lean Mass And Total Body Water Via Interaction With Ghrelin And Apolipoproteins.

Research Highlights

Prashantha Hebbar@, Mohamed Abu-Farha@, Anwar Mohammad, Fadi Alkayal, Motasem Melhem, Jehad Abubaker, Fahd Al-Mulla, Thangavel Alphonse Thanaraj* As an application of the SNP genotyping pipeline t

MIR-181D Plays A Protective Role Against Obesity By Regulating The Activity Of Angptl

Research Highlights

Mohamed Abu-Farha, Preethi Cherian, Irina Al-Khairi, Rasheeba Nizam, Abdullah Alkandari, Hossein Arefanian, Jaakko Tuomilehto, Fahd Al-Mulla & Jehad Abubaker Lipid metabolism is an important f

Genetic Variability In Protein-coding Regions Of The Human Genomes From Kuwait

Research Highlights

A typical human genome comprises around 3 billion letters (nucleotide bases); however, only a tiny fraction (~1%) of the bases constitute DNA regions that code for proteins. Genetic variability in su

Irf3 Is A Key Regulator Of Metabolic Inflammation, Insulin Resistance And Disruption Of Glucose Homeostasis

Research Highlights

Obesity/overnutrition is associated with a state of chronic low-grade inflammation and its downstream metabolic effects greatly increase the risk of developing metabolic syndrome including Type 2 Dia

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