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Tribune News Network
Doha
FORTY-TWO students from Qatar University College of Health Sciences (QU-CHS) successfully presented their graduation research projects on January 11 and 12.
Sixteen students from the Department of Biomedical Sciences showcased their projects. Maryam Mokhtar and Tasneem al Hamad delivered their project 'The Role of T regulatory cells in obesity' stating that young females from QU did not show significant difference in the expression of circulating CD4+ T cell subsets in lean, metabolic healthy and unhealthy obese. Such findings could be attributed to the insignificant difference in insulin resistance among the studied subjects.
Mariam al Wakeel and Afnan Mohamed, under the supervision of Dr Nasser Rizk, presented their work 'TLR4 receptor genotype polymorphism with obesity and metabolic syndrome components'. Concluding the study, Mariam and Afnan stated that based on results of the current study TLR4 D229G/T399I polymorphism is associated with increased insulin resistance but not with obesity.
Presenting their project on 'The impact of CYP2R1 in vitamin D level in human subject' and supervised by Dr Elham Sherif, Ilham Ajaj and Tala Ismaiel demonstrated that carriers of 'A allele of rs2060793' are at high risk of having suboptimal vitamin D level.
Supervised by Dr Pejman Hanifi-Moghaddam, Noor Aldoos and Israa Elbashir presented their project 'Quantitative detection of human enteric viral pathogens expatriates arriving to Qatar'. They assessed the prevalence of acute gastroenteritis viral agents among apparently healthy expatriates arriving to Qatar concluding that Adenovirus was the most prevalent one.
Israa Majidi and Salma Nagy, under the supervision of Dr Ibrahim Mustafa, presented their work 'Effect of low and high molecular weight iron chelation therapy in iron overloaded zebra fish' demonstrating that current iron chelators either L1 or DFO modestly decrease total iron and iron staining. Such study validates the use of Zebra fish as a model to study iron overload.
Two projects supervised by Dr Gheyath Nasrallah were in the field of immunoassays. The first project 'Discrepancies in enzyme immunoassays performance greatly affect IgM and IgG seroprevalence assessment of hepatitis E virus', conducted by Omnya Mohamed and Areej Mesleh, shed light on the discrepancies of enzyme immunoassays performance used for seroprevalence assessment of hepatitis E virus. The second project 'Performance evaluation of three enzyme immunoassays for detection of anti-herps simplex viruses', conducted by Malaz Komi and Afifah Shifa, evaluates three different enzyme immunoassays for detection of anti-Herps Simplex Viruses.
In collaboration with Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) and under the supervision of Dr PejmanHanifi-Moghaddam, Nada Nasser and Salsabel Elshami studied the 'Gene Expression Profiling of Chronic Myelocytic Leukemia (CML) using RQ-PCR array'.
Concluding the study, Nada and Salsabel stated each stage of CML disease shows pattern of dysregulation of MiRNAs and LncRNAs expression that can be used for the purpose of diagnosis.
Twenty-five students from the Department of Human Nutrition presented their projects. Under the supervision of Dr Tahra Obeid, two projects were presented in the field of food science. Hana Dawalbaet, Doaa Ibrahim, Aala Elamin and Athiya Yusuf conducted a study on 'Application of seaweeds to develop innovative food products with superior quality and health related benefits'. While another group of students, Zamzam Syed, Huda al Hadhromi, Fida Ali and Eisha Nafiea, presented their study on 'Date pits infused chocolate: Development and material analysis for functionality and nutritive value'. These studies demonstrated the effective application of foods for future food product development.
Supervised by Dr AbdelhamidKerkadi, Alaa Arnoos, Alaa Abu Nahia and Haya Subh presented their research on the 'Association between food outlets concentration and body weight'. This study showed that distance to school was not a strong indicator of high consumption of fast food in Qatar. The study on 'Association between waist to height ratio and CVD inflammation biomarkers in female students' by Tamara Mirza, Amna Adaiba and Al Jazial Qahtani indicated a positive correlation between anthropometric indices and CVD biomarkers such as LDL, oxidize, Leptin and Apo A.
The project conducted by MaissaBelhaj, Zahra Abedini and Maryam Abbas was on 'Nutritional quality of kid meals offered by fast food and non-fast food outlets in Doha'. This study found that fast food meals are nutritionally inadequate and its regular consumption is associated with excess intake of calories, fat, sodium, protein, carbohydrate and low fibre intake.
Lastly, under the supervision of Dr Hiba Bawadi, Noor al Kilani, Maryam al Sir, Asma Jamil and Tayyiba Ashrif presented their research topic on 'Testing the efficiency of a user friendly meal planning exchange list on eating habits and weight status among overweight and obese students at Qatar University'. They concluded that simplified and culturally sensitive dietary instructions augment weight loss outcomes and increase retention in follow-ups.
Sana Boutefnouchet, Hala Shabana, Shrooq Ismail and Sereen al Jazzar conducted research on 'The impact of new presentation of food exchange lists on meal planning skills and food intake among group of workers with limited literacy levels'. They found that after the education session, there was a significant difference in terms of choices in fruit, protein, diary, calories, % CHO and healthy eating index.
Senior Public Health student Abeer Abuqaoud, working under the supervision of Dr Manar Elhassan, presented her senior research on 'Experiences, motives and their associated psychosocial factors among Qatar University students toward cosmetic surgery'. She concluded that an alarmingly higher proportion of QU students, about 24 percent, had undergone cosmetic procedures or wanting and willing to do some in the future. Both family and friends experiences have significant association with motives and experiences of cosmetic procedures done for aesthetic purposes. The results of the study suggest that cosmetic procedures might have an emerging market in Qatar with a potentially negative public health consequence that needs further inquiry.
