Doha, 13 March 2023: A new state-of-the-art Qatar Preterm and Precision Medicine Research Clinic (QPrem & PM-RC) to assess preterm children’s readiness to join school, has recently opened at the Women’s Wellness and Research Center.
The clinic, named after QPrem (Qatar Preterm Study) and Precision Medicine (QPrem & PM-RC), focuses on the development of preterm and it is looking comprehensively at various aspects including their medical, psychological, neurocognitive, executive functioning, behavioral, genetic predisposition, and environmental factors. The aim is to inform policy makers and practitioners of possible ways to intervene and improve the quality of life and care of preterm children and their families.
Speaking about the Research Clinic, Dr Hilal Al Rifai, WWRC’s Chief Executive Officer and Medical Director says that the establishment of the clinic aligned closely with Qatar’s National Health Strategy and that Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) has given great attention to family and child-centred care when designing and developing the WWRC. “It gives me great pleasure to announce the opening of the WWRC's Qatar Preterm and Precision Medicine Research Clinic (QPrem & PM-RC). Our hospital has reached a new milestone with this accomplishment. The QPrem & PM-RC will offer evidence-based care to patient and ease the clinicians’ decision-making process,” he says.
The Translational and Precision Medicine Research Lab (T&PML) Director, Dr. Nader Al-Dewik says, "This new research clinic will not only assess the children’s development but also will feed the third-generation omics lab with samples utilizing this new technology. This is to discover the underlying environmental and genetic factors of high priority health concerns impacting mothers and their preterm children. This will assist us to deepen our understanding of the potential causes of morbidities and comorbidities amongst maternal and neonatal health to support the development of new targeted interventions and therapies."
The head of Newborn Screening Program, Dr Ghassan Abdoh, the Lead PI of the QPrem project says, “This new research clinic will give us a great opportunity to follow up the children and their parents and look at the consequences of being premature from clinical perspective.”
