MENA Microbiome
From Biomarkers Discovery
to Microbiota-based Therapeutics

Dr. Maha Al Asmakh

Department Head of Biomedical Sciences
Qatar University
Qatar

Maha Al-Asmakh, MSc, PhD, CTgyn(ASCPi)CM is an associate professor Head of Biomedical Sciences Department at the College of Health Sciences at Qatar University. She is also the chair of the Reproductive System Network Group at Qatar University. Dr. Al-Asmakh earned her BSc in biomedical sciences with honors from Qatar University and went on to complete her MSc in human reproductive biology at Imperial College London. She obtained her PhD from Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden. She is a board certified by American Society for Clinical Pathology (ASCP) as a gynaecologic cytologist CTgyn(ASCPi). Dr. Al-Asmakh's research interests lie in the areas of microbiome studies, reproduction and Zebrafish toxicology. She is the recipient of several awards including the L'Oreal-UNESCO For Women in Science Middle East Fellowship 2016 and ASCP 40 under Forty 2023 award. In addition to her primary role, Dr. Al-Asmakh serves as a Laboratory Consultant Clinical Scientist at the Ministry of Public Health. Dr. Al-Asmakh also reviews scientific journals and research grants and is a member of the American Society for Clinical Laboratory Science.

Dr. Souhaila Al Khodor

Director of Reproductive and Perinatal Health
Sidra Medicine
Qatar

Dr. Al Khodor is the Director of Reproductive and Perinatal Health Division in the Research Branch at Sidra Medicine, Qatar.

Dr. Al Khodor received her Bachelor’s degree in Medical Lab technology from the Faculty of Public Health at the Lebanese University in 2001. Soon after, she started her master’s degree in microbiology and Immunology at the American University of Beirut (2002-2004). Dr. Al Khodor received her second master’s degree and PhD in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, USA (2005-2008). Before joining Sidra, Dr. Al Khodor worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the Signaling systems Unit, laboratory of Systems Biology, at the National Institute of Allergy and infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Maryland, USA.

Dr. Al Khodor’s laboratory at Sidra Medicine focuses on using multi-omics (metagenomics, transcriptomics, proteomics) and computational biology aiming to understand the molecular mechanisms underlying various diseases. Her primary goal is to identify early biomarkers for disease prediction. With a special focus on pregnancy complications (mainly preterm birth and Gestational Diabetes Mellitus) and complex pediatric disorders such as Inflammatory Bowel Disease, her research at Sidra Medicine has attracted around 2.5 million USD in external funds.

Dr. Al Khodor is an adjunct Faculty at the College of Health & Life Science in Hamad Bin Khalifa University. She has over 74 peer-reviewed publications. She currently serves as the Section Editor for Metagenomics in the Journal of Translational Medicine.

Prof. Mohammad Albataineh

Assistant Professor, Molecular Biology and Genetics, College of Medicine and Health Sciences
Khalifa University
UAE

Dr. Al Bataineh is a medical doctor (MD) who successfully completed the United States Medical Licensing (USMLE) (ECFMG certified), with a graduate training in microbiology and immunology translational research from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (PhD). In addition, he completed post-doctoral training and was funded by the National Institute of Health (NIH), USA. He published several articles in the area of the human microbiome role in health and disease conditions.

Dr. Nezar Al-Hebshi

Associate Professor
Temple University
USA

Nezar Al-Hebshi, PhD, is an Associate Professor and Co-director of the Oral Microbiome Research Laboratory at Temple University Kornberg School of Dentistry (USA), and an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Center for Microbiology and Immunology, Temple University Lewis Katz School of Medicine.

He is also a primary member of the Fox Chase Cancer Center. He obtained his PhD in oral microbiology from the University of Bergen, Norway (2005), and his bachelor’s degree in dental surgery from the University of Science and Technology (UST), Yemen (1999). Before moving to the USA, he held faculty and research positions in Yemen and Saudi Arabia between 2006 and 2015. Dr. Al-Hebshi has been involved in more than 5 million dollars’ worth of research funding, primarily from the National Institutes of Health. His current research focuses on: 1) Deciphering the role of oral microbiome in health and disease employing omic technologies as well as mechanistic studies; 2) Modelling and modulation of the oral microbiome; 3) Exploring the anticancer properties of health-associated oral bacteria. Dr. Al-Hebshi has more than 50 publications, holds an h-index of 30, and has presented his research findings at meetings across four continents.

Dr. Farah Al-Marzooq

Assistant Professor, Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology
United Arab Emirates University
UAE

Dr. Farah is an assistant professor of microbiology in the Department of medical microbiology and immunology at the college of Medicine and Health Sciences, United Arab Emirates University. She is a medical doctor specialized in Molecular Microbiology. She obtained her medical degree from Baghdad Medical College, Iraq. Then, she furthered her studies in Malaysia where she obtained a master and PhD degree in Molecular Microbiology. Her research was mainly focused on discovering the antibacterial activities of potential drug leads on the resistant bacteria and identifying putative drug targets against antibiotic resistant bacteria implicated in causing many life-threatening infections. Furthermore, she worked on studying the composition of oral microbiota in health and disease, using advanced molecular techniques incorporating next generation sequencing (NGS) platforms. She has published several papers in peer reviewed international journals. She has so far two US patents and one international patent. She is a member of the editorial board of several prestigious journals.

Prof. Phillip Bennett

Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology
Director of the Institute of Reproductive and Developmental Biology at Imperial College London

He co-directs the March of Dimes European Preterm Birth Research Centre, the Tommys National Miscarriage Research Centre at Imperial and the Imperial NIHR BRC Pregnancy and Prematurity Theme. He graduated BSc, MBBS from St George Hospital Medical School in 1982, and undertook research for MD (1988), and PhD (1993), at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, London. He was elected Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2017, Honorary Fellow of the American Gynecologic and Obstetrical Society in 2018 and Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology in 2020. Phillip Bennett's principal research interests are the microbiology, biochemistry and endocrinology of pregnancy, miscarriage, term and preterm labour, and the stratification, prediction and prevention of miscarriage and preterm birth. In the past decade, his research has focused upon upon the roles of inflammation and the reproductive tract microbiome in health and disease.

Prof. Peer Bork

Director
EMBL Heidelberg
Germany

Peer directs the Heidelberg site of EMBL (European Molecular Biology laboratory), Europe’s only intergovernmental organization in life sciences. He is senior group leader in the areas of computational biology and microbiomics. His work has been recognized by honorary professorships at the universities of Heidelberg and Würzburg as well as the Fudan university of Shanghai. Peer received his PhD in Biochemistry (1990) and his Habilitation in Theoretical Biophysics (1995). He has published more than 700 research articles, among them more than 80 in Nature, Science or Cell, and is among the most cited researchers in the world (>360.000 citations, H-factor of 241 in 2024). He is or has been on the editorial board of various journals, including Science and Cell, and functions as founding editor of the journal Molecular Systems Biology. Peer co-founded five successful biotech companies, two of which went public. More than 70 of his former associates now hold professorships or other group leader positions in prominent institutions all over the world. He received a number of awards, among them the "Nature award for creative mentoring" for his achievements in nurturing and stimulating young scientists, the prestigious "Royal Society and Académie des Sciences Microsoft award" for the advancement of science using computational methods and the Novo Nordisk Foundation Novozymes prize for outstanding contributions to Biotechnology. He further obtained two competitive ERC advanced investigator grants and is elected member of the German national academy of sciences (Leopoldina), the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) and the Academia Europaea.

Dr. Marvin Edeas

Professor of Medicine at Université de Paris
Investigator at INSERM U1016 and Institut Cochin

Marvin Edeas is a Professor of Medicine at Université de Paris and investigator at INSERM U1016 and Institut Cochin. His expertise spans the fields of endocrinology and metabolism with a special focus on the interaction between mitochondria and microbiota in health and disease. His main interest is the role of mitochondria and Microbiota inter talks in health and diseases. He investigated how to modulate human microbiome and the role of metabolites. He investigated the intriguing relationship between mitochondria and microbiota in kidney diseases. He published many studies related to Covid-19 infection in patients and the first who highlighted the mechanisms behind iron alterations and infection. Marvin Edeas is the founder and past President of the World Mitochondria Society, President of Mitochondria and Microbiota Task Force and Chairman of the scientific committee of International Society of Microbiota. He received the following awards: Sidaction Award and South Est Asia Award on Microbiota Medicine. He is an expert at Agence de Biomédecine and AERES: Agence d’Evaluation de la Recherche et de l’Enseignement Supérieur. He published more than 83 publications, patents and books. He is also currently associate editor at the Journal of Mitochondria, Plastids & Endosymbiosis (Taylor and Franics). Marvin Edeas Co-Edited the best seller book, the Mitochondrial Medicine Books: Manipulating Mitochondrial Function (Springer).

Prof. Mohammad Issa El Mouzan

College of Medicine
King Saud University
Saudi Arabia

Graduated MD from Montpellier School of Medicine, France, 1973. Pediatric Residency at the University of Arizona, USA. American Board of Pediatrics Certification in 1981, Currently Professor and Consultant Pediatrician at King Saud University in Riyadh, KSA.

Dr. Mamoun Elawad

Chief of the Division of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition 
Sidra Medicine
Qatar

Prof. Elawad has his training in Pediatric gastroenterology at Great Ormond Street, Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, Oxford John Radcliff Hospital and King’s College Hospital. He worked as a consultant Pediatric gastroenterologist at University Hospital of Wales and Birmingham Children’s Hospital before he rejoined Great Ormond Street Hospital in 2002 as a consultant gastroenterologist and senior lecturer at the University College of London. He has been the head of the department at Great Ormond Street since 2007 until he joined Sidra Medicine in 2014 as a Chief of Pediatric Gastroenterology and director of inflammatory bowel disorders. Whist at GOSH, he became the founder and the director of the first worldwide pioneering program for Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant for autoimmune and inflammatory gut diseases. He was also the director of the department international collaboration “ImproveCareNow” at GOSH, and recently at Sidra Medicine, which involves 98 pediatric gastrointestinal units in the United States, with GOSH and Sidra Medicine being the only centers outside the United States. He was also the co-founder of the European GENIUS group that oversees the diagnosis and the treatment of children with early onset inflammatory bowel diseases. Prof. Elawad has been a senior lecturer at the Institute of Child Health – University College of London and his main research areas of interest are autoimmune gut disorders, genetics of inflammatory bowel disease, microbiota and genetic interaction in inflammatory gut diseases, Early Onset Inflammatory Bowel Disease and GI food allergy. He has many publications in these areas.

Prof. Alessio Fasano

Chief of the Division of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition
Professor of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School, MA
USA

A pediatric gastroenterologist, Alessio Fasano, MD, is head of the Mucosal Immunology and Biology Research Center at Massachusetts General Brigham (MGB) and professor of nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. In 2000, his group discovered zonulin, a protein associated with gut dysbiosis that regulates intestinal tight junctions. His basic research focuses on bacterial pathogenesis, gut microbiome composition and function in health and disease, the regulation of gut permeability, intestinal mucosal biology and immunology and SARS-CoV-2. He is director of the Center for Celiac Research and Treatment at MGB and widely sought after as an expert in celiac disease, intestinal permeability and autoimmune disorders. Dr. Fasano is the author of Gluten Freedom and co-author with Susie Flaherty of Gut Feelings: The Microbiome and Our Health, published in March 2021 by MIT Press.

Dr. Vibeke Telle-Hansen

Associate Professor
Oslo Metropolitan University
Norway

Vibeke Telle-Hansen obtained her MSc and PhD degrees in nutrition at the University of Oslo, Norway. After her PhD she was employed in a Norwegian food company, having responsibility for the research projects. Since 2016, she is associate professor in nutrition at Oslo Metropolitan University (OsloMet), Norway. Since 2022, Telle-Hansen has the academic responsibility of Intelligent Health, a strategic initiative at OsloMet facilitating research, innovation and education within health and technology. Telle-Hansen has extensive teaching experience and has supervised more than 30 master’s students and 4 PhD students, including 2 ongoing. The overall aim of Telle-Hansen’s research is to understand how diet and nutrients affect cardiometabolic health and disease. Her research focus is within prevention, including identifying new biomarkers. In her research, she characterizes different phenotypes, or so-called metabotypes, to better understand cardiometabolic pathways. She has long experience in implementing randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to investigate the causal effects of nutrients (mainly fat and fiber) on gut microbiota and human metabolic regulation. Her current focus is within the field of precision nutrition. As part of her research, she is using sensors and digital data in combination with biological samples, including omics data, and machine learning to investigate individual regulation (responders/non-responders).

Dr. Ibrahim Hassan

Senior attending Physician
Microbiology and Virology, Sidra Medicine
Qatar

Dr Professor Ibrahim Hassan is Currently Senior Attending Physician, Microbiology/virology, Sidra Medicine, Doha & Clinical Professor of Pathology (Hons) College of Medicine, Doha, Qatar University. He did his Postgraduate training in Medical Microbiology in the UK & has worked there for > 20 years where he was also clinical lead & Head of Microbiology department before joining Sidra Medicine in February 2023. His main areas of clinical & Research interests include infections in women & children, infections in burns & plastics, AMS, as well as teaching/Training. He is current chairman of a UK-based medical charity “Africa Healthcare Development Trust” (AHDT) (www.ahdt.org.uk). AHDT has over 20 Years of volunteering experience focusing on improving Healthcare and supporting medical education.Ihassan1@sidra.org

Dr. Erika Isolaurias

Professor of Pediatrics
Head of the Department of Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Medicine
University of Turku, Finland

Dr Isolauri is Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Turku, and Turku University Hospital,
Finland.
She has received numerous Academic Honours such as The John Harris price (European Society for
Paediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition); Niilo Hallman price (Foundation for Paediatric Research);
Institut Candia (France); Marvin L. Dixon Memorial Lecture (Harvard Combined Program in Pediatric
GI&Nutrition Unit, Children ́s Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital, USA); Nanna Svartz Lecture
(Karolinska Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden); Tissier Price and Lecture (The Japan Bifidus Foundation);
The IDF Elie Metchnikoff Prize in the category Nutrition and Health and the Matti Äyräpää Award
from The Finnish Medical Society Duodecim, and The European Award in Medicine: the
Gastroenterology category.
She has supervised 26 doctoral theses (PhD) and acted as Opponent in Finland, France, Sweden, The
Netherlands and Denmark.
Her Major Research Interests are: Gastroenterology, gut microbiota; Nutrition, probiotics, and
Immunology, food allergy in the Neonatal exposures, Adverse outcomes, Mucosal immunology
and Intestinal microbiota (NAMI) programme. Author of 466 scientific publications, she has written
287 original publications, 112 Review articles/ Chapters in books and 67 Scientific articles in Finnish.
In addition she has 191 Invited Lectures in International Academic Meetings. H-index 100 (Jan, 2024).

Prof. Nahla Mansour

Professor of Microbial Molecular Biology National Research Center
Egypt

Nahla Mansour obtained her PhD from biological science faculty University of East Anglia- United Kingdom (2002) in the field of Microbiology and genetic engineering. Dr Mansour is currently a Professor of Microbial Molecular Biology and a group leader of Gut Microbiology and Immunology at the department of chemistry of natural and microbial products at the Institute of Pharmaceutical and Drug Industries Research, National Research Centre, Egypt. Research interests of Prof. Nahla Mansour emphasize on human microbiome and its role in disease control, phage therapy, Bacterial–mediated gene therapy, multi-drug resistant pathogens, probiotics as oral vaccine carrier and probiotics manufacturing. Prof. Mansour has been a principal investigator for several of international and national projects, and has a recognized publications record in international scientific journals. Dr Mansour supervised graduate students for M.Sc. and PhD degrees and she is actively involved in training and mentoring young scientists. Alongside her research activities, Nahla Mansour is the founder of the Egyptian Foundation of Microbiome Sciences and its Applications (EFMSA) since 2020, she also serves as chair of board of trustees at EFMSA.

Dr. Mohammad Tauqeer Alam

Assistant Professor , Biology Department, UAE University
Al Ain, UAE

Dr Mohammad Tauqeer Alam is an Assistant Professor of Systems Biology & Omics at The United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, Abu Dhabi. His research endeavors focus on unraveling the intricate metabolic dynamics occurring within and among organisms using systems biology approaches. The primary objective of his laboratory is to decipher the interactions among microorganisms within microbial colonies and elucidate how these interactions affect the overall community structure and growth.

In investigating fecal samples from individuals with Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), Dr. Alam’s lab has identified microbial imbalances across various taxonomic levels in patients compared to control subjects. Additionally, they have constructed a network of co-abundance among bacterial families based on publicly available gut microbiome data. Their analysis revealed that bacterial families exhibiting increased abundance in IBD conditions are poorly connected to other groups within the network, suggesting a lack of coexistence with typical gut organisms. In a recent work, his lab has investigated how microorganisms interact (cooperate) with each other. Specifically, they explored the sharing of metabolites between interacting organisms within microbial communities and investigated how such sharing confers collective benefits to the community, such as enhanced tolerance against antimicrobial substances.

Dr. Alam's research efforts have garnered recognition through the acquisition of two new research grants at the UAEU aimed at enhancing the understanding of microbial interactions within the microbiome associated with complex human diseases. His contributions have been disseminated in prestigious academic journals including Nature Microbiology, Cell, Nature, and Nature Communications, among others.

Dr. Annalisa Terranegra

Principal Investigator
Sidra Medicine
Qatar

Dr Terranegra obtained her MSc degree in Biological Sciences at the University of Siena, Italy, and both her PhD in Molecular Medicine and Post-graduate Diploma in Nutritional Sciences at the University of Milan, Italy.

Before joining Sidra Medicine in 2014, Dr. Terranegra achieved strong experience in clinical nutrition, molecular biology and genetics during her career at the University of Milan, Italy, San Raffaele Hospital, Milan, Italy, and San Paolo Hospital, Milan, Italy (2001-2014).

Dr Terranegra has extensive teaching experience as an Assistant Professor at the University of Milan, Italy (2003-2014). Dr Terranegra currently covers the position of adjunct Assistant Professor both in the College of Health and Life Sciences at Hamad bin Khalifa University, Qatar and in the College of Health Sciences at Qatar University, Qatar.

At Sidra Medicine, Dr Terranegra leads the Laboratory of Precision Nutrition (PreNutri Lab) which is interested in characterizing the mechanisms underlying the role of food and nutrients in the development and management of pregnancy complications, infertility, and pediatric non-communicable diseases. The PreNutri lab research projects focus on understanding the effect of diet on gut microbiota, metabolomics, and epigenetic mechanisms, as well as diet interaction with the genomic background, using the most advanced technologies, such as bacterial 16S rRNA sequencing, NGS, DNA-methylation arrays, HPLC-MS, GC-MS, and nutritional assessment.

Dr. Heli Viljakainen

Group leader, Department of Food and Nutrition
University of Helsinki
Finland

Heli Viljakainen received her PhD in human nutritional sciences in 2008. After that she continued as clinical researcher in Helsinki University Children’s Hospital for 7 years investigating bone health in patients with obesity and genetic determinants for early-onset severe obesity. She was qualified as associate professor in 2013. In 2017 she joined the Finnish Health in Teens group at Folkhälsan Research Center, and took over the principal investigator position in 2018. Her research group focuses on obesity in children: basic research to understand roots and consequences of weight gain in modern society. The follow of the Fin-HIT cohort is on-going and supported by wide international network of researchers. Viljakainen has supervised 8 PhD researchers (1 on-going), and hosted 5 postdoctoral researchers. She has published 107 peer-reviewed scientific publications. Viljakainen has acted as the president of the Finnish Association for the Study of Obesity (FASO), since 2020. Her research group actively participates NuGO, an Association of Universities and Research Institutes focusing on the joint development of the research areas of molecular nutrition, personalized nutrition, nutrigenomics and nutritional systems biology.

Dr. Elisabetta Volpe

Santa Lucia Foundation (IRCCS)
Rome, Italy

Elisabetta Volpe started her research activity in 2002. She graduated and trained for a PhD course in Immunology in the laboratory of Molecular Pathology at the University of Tor Vergata (Rome, Italy) and in the laboratory of Infectious Diseases at the National Council Research (CNR) (Rome, Italy). In these years she studied the human macrophage and dendritic cell responses to mycobacterial infection, combining molecular, cellular, and microbiological approaches. From 2006 to 2009 she worked in the Department of Immunology at the Curie Institute (Paris, France) as post-doc researcher. In these years she studied the role of inflammatory cytokines in health and disease. At the end of 2009 she obtained the Marie Curie European Reintegration Grant and she came back to Italy as senior scientist at the Santa Lucia Foundation in Rome, where she transferred all knowledge acquired during her previous experiences, and she developed projects concerning the regulation of macrophages, dendritic cells, and T cell immune responses in multiple sclerosis. Since 2010 she directs a research team working on the mechanisms regulating neuroinflammation, including immune cells, cytokines and microbiota. In 2019 she became director of the laboratory of Molecular Neuroimmunology at Fondazione Santa Lucia, Rome, Italy. Today her research is focused on the study of neuroinflammation in neurological diseases and neuropsychiatric diseases. Today she is part of multidisciplary network of national and international collaborators covering research in clinical, bioinformatic, and pharmaceutics areas as evidenced by 50 scientific works, in peer-reviewed journals.

Prof. Sunny Wong

Associate Professor of Nutrition, Digestion and Metabolism
Nanyang Technological University
Singapore

Dr. Sunny Wong is an Associate Professor at the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, Nanyang
Technological University Singapore. He is currently the Assistant Dean and Programme Director of
Microbiome Medicine at LKCMedicine. Dr Wong read Medicine at the Chinese University of Hong
Kong and completed his doctoral studies in genetics at the University of Oxford. He completed his
clinical training in gastroenterology in the Prince of Wales Hospital. He is an accomplished clinician-
scientist with an expertise in gastrointestinal diseases, genetics, and the microbiome. His main
research interest is on the host-microbe interaction in digestive diseases and to explore this to
discover novel biomarkers and therapeutics. He has won several awards, including the Asia Pacific
Digestive Week Emerging Leaders Lectureship (2021), the Sir David Todd Lectureship (2020) and
the Croucher Foundation Award (2014). He has published over 200 peer-reviewed articles including
papers in Nature Genetics, Nature Communications, Gastroenterology and Gut, and is currently an
Associate Editor for the Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology.

Dr. Amine Zorgani

Consultant
Biocodex Microbiota Institute
Belgium

Dr. Zorgani is a scientist and a microbiome expert with over a decade of experience working with biotechnology start-up on both gut and skin microbiome. He dedicates his live mission into saving the Human microbiome from extinction using his Microbiome Mavericks Communication brand. Amine works with scientists across the globe to bring microbiome science to the wider audience and bring innovations from the bench to the bedside.