His Highness Sheikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai, Minister of Finance & Industry and the Patron of the Sheikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Award for Medical Sciences has approved the budget for the term 2007-2008 and raised the budget to 20 million dirham.

 

The members of the Board of Trustees of Sheikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Award for Medical Sciences have met on the 6th of June, 2007 to review and approve the Financial Budget for the term 2007-2008. In the meeting the Board has evaluated the success of its previous term 2005-2006 and approved the balance sheet. After recommending the new budget for the term of 2007-2008 to His Highness Sheikh Hamdan, the Awards' Chairman, His Excellency Humaid Al Qatami, Minister of Health and the members of the board have thanked H.H. Sheikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum for his highness continuous support and his generosity in raising the budget to 20 million, the biggest budget.

 

The board members have congratulated the members of the General Secretariat for their success and hard work in bringing up the awards to this height. The board also congratulated the scientific committee and the conference & public relations committee for their major role in the success of the awards in the previous term of 2005-2006 which reflected on the award ceremony and the 4th Dubai International Conference for Medical Sciences.

 

Prior to the approval of the budget, the Awards' office has already launched their activities of the 5th Awards and Conference. The new subjects selected for the awards are being announced in the recommended international medical journals; official invitation letters to various medical institutions are being sent and will continue to advertise it till the end of 2007. All medical institutions, medical colleges, and research centers throughout the world are also invited to nominate eligible candidates for the International, Arab world and Local awards. 

 

The Email campaign has already been launched to contact the pioneers from the subjects selected for the awards. Web banner advertisement is also in the process to link with other leading international medical websites and other websites like Yahoo.com and Google.com etc.

 

The awards have already started supporting and participating the international conferences and workshops from the beginning of the term since January, 2007 in the country and abroad. The announcement and marketing of the awards will continue till end of this year and the last date for receiving the nominations will be November 30, 2007 and if it is required the last date may extend till end of this year. 

 

The processing of the nominations will start from January 2008 till end of May and this will be the responsibility of the Scientific Committee and they will recommend the winners by the end of June, 2008. We will have another press conference to announce the winners by September, 2008.

 

The board has also decided to host the award ceremony presentations for the present term of 2007-2008 on November 25th, 2008 followed by the 5th Dubai International Conference for Medical Sciences will be held from 26-27 November, 2008. The subjects of the awards are selected carefully to reflect scientific advances made in the subject. The subject for the Grand Hamdan Award for 2007-2008 is stem cells. The field of Stem cells is one of the most fascinating areas of biology today. Knowledge in this field has advanced in the area of healthy cell replacement of damaged cells and in the area of the development of an organism from a single cell, a promising area of science leading scientists to investigate the possibility of cell-based therapies to treat disease which will be the main subject for the 5th Dubai International Conference for Medical Sciences.

 

The Board of Trustees has advised in the last meeting that the award will have a different view and strategy in the activities. The Board also decided to change the working pattern of the award in order to improve the quality in organizing the awards & conference as per the objectives set for the awards. The first step of its change in the pattern, the Board appointed Mr. Abdulla Bin Souqat as the Executive Director of the awards' office. Mr. Abdulla has a prolonged experience in the field especially in the medical community. Mr. Abdulla is also the chairman of the conference committee of the awards. The main focus is the awards and the ceremony & conference, but our support will continue to other areas like, to strengthen the Research activities, Publication of the results and supporting more and more conferences in the country either organized by the awards or by other entities.

 

As you are aware a Medical journal has been launched during the last award ceremony - SHAMS - Journal of Medical Sciences. The journal will be made available from January 2008 with its first official issue till we finalize the technical and official documentation has been completed. All doctors, researchers are invited to submit their original, review articles and case studies to the Editor of the journal. A fully fledged website is available to submit the articles on line. www.shamsjournal.org.ae

 

The Award has already announced a new award for the Arab World and that will be the Hamdan Award for honoring distinguished personalities from the Arab World. Also the award will celebrate its 10th anniversary at the end of this term of 2007-2008 which is a great achievement of the awards' status and it international reputation among the Scientific World.

 

In addition to the above, the award has an additional assignment of supporting the publication of new books and enhancing the new journal.

 

The award will also focus on supporting in bringing health education campaign through its CME activities which is also an objective of the awards. Also it has plan of conducting training course in the field of research for doctors and health workers.

 

The vision of H.H. Sheikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum to alleviate human suffering from genetic diseases in the Arab World crystallized in the establishment of the Centre to characterize and prevent genetic disorders and transfigure the future practice of health care in the region. Today the centre is having a full fledged database called CTGA - CATALOGUE FOR TRANSMISSION GENETICS IN ARABS. Further to the development in this field was the formation of the Arab Council which further extended the activities of this centre to the Arab World. It resulted to the completion of UAE & Bahrain database and Oman is in the process which is expected to complete within this year. An additional budget has been sanctioned for this centre also.

 

This centre is now in the process of preparing for the 2nd Pan Arab Genetic Conference scheduled to be held in Dubai from 20 -22 November, 2007. More information on this conference is available in the website: www.cags.org.ae

 

The General Secretariat is considering this valuable endless support and generosity of His Highness Sheikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum which his highness gifted to the scientific world. The General Secretariat also thanked the Board of Trustees for their trust on the members of the General Secretariat.

 

The award is looking forward to face any challenges to bring this awards status to the height to achieve its objectives laid down by the Patron.

 

We take this opportunity to invite all doctors, physicians, researchers to participate in this seminal event.