Dr Ali Said Faqi
"As Study Director for teratology and reproductive toxicology studies at IITRI, Dr. Ali S. Faqi evaluates the potential effects of drugs, food additives and environmental chemicals on reproduction and development. Working with a specially trained team, he leads staff from IITRI's Life Sciences Group in performing bioassays for sponsors in the chemical, pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, and for the National Cancer Institute and other government agencies.
One area of Dr. Faqi's research is in the study of endocrine disrupters and their effects on reproduction. "In recent years, there has been increasing public concern that chemicals in the environment are affecting human health by disrupting normal hormone function," he says. These chemicals interfere with normal functions by mimicking the sex steroid hormone estrogens and androgens by binding to hormone receptors or cell signaling pathways. Disturbances in hormonal regulation during prenatal or early postnatal development may adversely affect male and female fertility, he explains.
"Low-level exposure to hormone modulating chemicals occurs throughout our lives from food, air, water, soil and household products, and probably during gestation and lactation," Dr. Faqi says. "The risks associated with these low-level and constant exposures are still largely unknown and highly controversial."
The primary goal is to determine the lowest level of exposure that elicits an adverse effect (LOAEL). Animal studies on lindane and TCDD, for example, show that the lowest dose tested produces a significant effect on sperm number, daily sperm production and sperm morphology.
The major challenge then remains "to determine whether exposure to low levels of these chemicals during gestation and lactation induces subtle changes in humans, as determined in experimental animals."
Dr. Faqi received a Ph.D. in Developmental/ Reproductive Toxicology from the University of Leipzig, Germany, a Diploma of Specialization in Experimental Pharmacology from the University of Milan, Italy, and a D.V.M. from Somali National University, Mogadishu.
Before joining IITRI, he worked at Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, GA, at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, PA, and at the Institute for Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology, Free University of Berlin (Germany).
Dr. Faqi has published in peerreviewed scientific journals approximately 25 articles and 50abstracts on developmental and reproductive toxicity and teratogenicity studies"
Abdusalam Abubakar
Somali-born Irish scientist from County Dublin. He was the winner of the 43rd Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition in 2007 at the age of seventeen. He went on to be named EU Young Scientist of the Year in September 2007.
Abubakar was born in Somalia to an Irish father of Somali descent. He is an only child. He moved to Ireland in May 2005, joining Synge Street CBS in central Dublin.
He is a young scientist who won the BT Young Scientist of the year 2007 award. He invented a new method of attacking secure electronic communications systems developed by scientists in the 80s and currently used worldwide by banks, the military and e-commerce websites. His security code breaker earned him the European scientist of the year award 2007.
(The Irish Times Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) The encryption system used by banks, the military and others to keep information secure is again under attack, this time by a Young Scientist contestant. The student has developed a new way to crack the codes and now needs a more powerful computer to see how good his new system is.
There are always a number of startlingly difficult maths projects on show at the exhibition and two individual efforts by Abdusalam Abubakar and Ardit Kroni, both 16 and third-year classmates at Synge Street CBS, are prime examples.
Abdusalam, originally from Somalia, is leading a fresh attack on RSA - the world's most popular and widely used data encryption system. Ardit, who came to Ireland from Kosovo, is working in pure theoretical mathematics, studying a concept known as infinite product expansion.
RSA was developed in the 1970s and is the most secure method of its kind, explained Abdusalam. Yet it also represents a challenge that mathematicians find difficult to ignore. The student began studying partially successful mathematical attacks on RSA by Wiener, Hinek and Dujella and attempted to find similarities within them. "I decided to generalise the work to understand why it is done in this way.
"Dujella does Wiener in a better way but using a very complex method," he said. He decided to take the work done by both Wiener and by Hinek and extend it in a "pincer movement" against RSA, as Abdusalam described it.
He began developing a series of theorems that step-by-step generalised the other methods. By his ninth theorem he had improved on Dujella's work, both simplifying it and making it deliver results much faster.
He ran a spreadsheet calculation showing Dujella's computations taking about 59 seconds, while his ninth theorem achieved the same result in about 0.1 seconds. Now Abdusalam has developed a 10th theorem which has left behind the work done by the earlier contributors, he said. "Nobody has come this way - this is a totally new result." The problem is he has no idea how good his new formula for breaking RSA actually is. All his programming to test the theorems has been done in Visual Basic but this is far too slow for this level of number crunching. He now has to learn a faster computer language, C++, and then test his new theorem to gauge its power.
"I will be going for infinite decimal points in C++ to see how far I can go with this technique," he said. He suggested, however, that banks and others should begin looking for alternative encryption methods to secure information in the future.
Ardit's project is equally impressive but hasn't an apparent use outside of theoretical mathematics. His work on infinite products, insoluble values such as the square root of two, is "a subject not often taken up by mathematicians", Ardit acknowledges.
A Synge Street entrant in Young Scientist 2005, Gohar Abbasi, tackled infinite products for square roots and Ardit wanted to build on this work but for infinite products for cube, fourth and higher roots.
Drawing on work by other mathematicians he "set out on my project to solve Gohar's problems", Ardit said.
Dr. Osman Salad Hersi
Researcher and professor at the University of Regina. Previously taught at Sultan Qaboos University in Muscat, Oman.
His research is focussed on sedimentology, depostional setting, diagenetic attributes, reservior characterization and tectono-stratigraphic significance of carbonate and mixed carbonate-clastic sequences.
He was previously involved in a Petroleum Development of Oman (PDO) formation-damage assesment project along with researchers of the College of Engineering, SQU.
Musse A Musse is a Somali Chief Engineer at the Rettsmedisinsk institut part of the Research Group on Experimental Forensic Medicine which focuses on epidemiological, genetic and immunological, studies of trigger and death mechanisms in sudden unexpected mortalities in infants and toddlers as well in stillbirths and in sudden adult deaths; studies on brain edema by morphological, radiological and genetic methods; and development of better methods for time of death estimation. Furthermore investigation of cases reported to police for medical maltreatment, and finally immunological and biotechnological investigations of colorectal carcinoma and precancerous lesions.
Abdullahi Aw-Musse is a Somali scientist best known for his study entitled;
Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR) Spectroscopy of Trace Gases HCl and NO of Relevance to Atmospheric Phenomena”. He currently works as a Patent Examiner with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in Arlington, VA.
Abdiwahab A. Musse is a Somali scientist who with his colleagues at the University of Guelph and the Hospital for Sick Children in Ontario created a genetically modified mouse expressing an enzyme known as PAD2 at a higher frequency. They found that these mice had significant loss of myelin, and also displayed behavioral deficits, such as abnormal movement, balance, and coordination.
Dr. Abdirahman D Mohamed is a Somali Researcher and physician. He is a graduate of the University of Illinois College of Medicine and trained at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore. He also completed a fellowship at the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health. Dr. Mohamed has many years of clinical experience at Park Nicollet Medical Center and in various African countries. He returned to Minneapolis in July 2008 from a five-year project in Zambia, first as the Senior Technical Advisor for USAID, then as the Country Director for MACEPA, a project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
One of the only two female somali Swedish dentist
http://www.unhcr.org/uk/news/latest...helps-dentists-muslim-patients-feel-home.html
http://www.unhcr.org/refugeeday/ama...ience-to-help-new-arrivals-to-scandinavia-10/
Dr Fahima osman
Breast cancer surgeon
Mesa College Student wins prestigious award in science competition
"
SAN DIEGO–A 26-year-old refugee from Somalia and San Diego community college student has bested some of today’s top scientific student minds in a highly competitive international science competition. Mohamed Musse, one of our four Mesa College students who presented research at the 10th Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS), held in November in Charlotte, North Carolina, was the recipient of a prestigious award for his poster participation.
Mohamed’s research project and poster entry was called “Micro-Purification of Phosphofructokinase-1.” His entry competed against 154 research abstracts submitted to ABRCMS in the Biochemical Sciences, Biochemistry category by students from top universities and research institutes. Only twelve awards were given in this category.
Mohamed’s winning entry was based on experience and research he gained during a summer internship working at UCSD under the guidance of Dr. Percy Russell and Anita Williams, who supervised his research. It was in Dr. Russell’s laboratory that Mohamed learned about research, and acquired experience in advanced lab techniques, and purifying proteins in a micro-scale. The award consists of a gold medallion, a certificate of recognition, and monetary scholarship.
Mohamed is a student at San Diego Mesa College and a scholar in the college’s Bridges to the Baccalaureate Program. “This is an outstanding achievement and accomplishment for Mohamed, for our College, and for our UCSD research mentors,” said Elizabeth J. Armstrong, interim president of Mesa College.
According to Ed Alexander, Mesa College chemistry professor and Bridges program director, research abstracts were competitively submitted to ABRCMS. Only 150 students from ten unique divisions received poster presentation awards. Of these, only nine were awarded to community college students, and Mohamed’s entry was the only award given to a community college student in the biochemical sciences division. This was the first time a Mesa College student presentation has won an award in that division.
“The accomplishments of Mohamed and all our Bridges students are a tribute to the outstanding quality of education afforded to students by our faculty at San Diego Mesa College,” said Dr. Alexander.
The Bridges to the Baccalaureate Program at Mesa College is a science education program designed to support the success of community college students from underrepresented groups or populations affected by health disparities, who plan to transfer and earn a bachelor’s degree in biomedical, behavioral or related sciences (www. sdmesa.edu/bridges).
The program is funded by National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NCMHD).
ABRCMS is the largest professional conference for biomedical and behavior students. This year’s conference attracted approximately 3,100 undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral scientists, faculty and administrators. The conference serves as a key experience for participants, and to the development of young scientists."
http://www.sandiegocountynews.com/2010/12/16/mesa-college-student-wins-prestigious-award-in-science-competition/
DR AHMED ALI
Researchers at Cardiff University’s Biosciences dept. working with Frankincense. Pictured is
Dr. Ahmed Ali (research director for the Compton Group) using a purification column to purify the Frankincense. He is pictured with Prof. Vic Duance (centre director of Arthritis Research UK Biomechanics and Bioengineering Centre.) and Dr. Emma Blain (research fellow).
An age old cure
The answer to treating painful arthritis could lie in an age old herbal remedy – frankincense, according to University research.
Scientists from the School of Biosciences have been examining the potential benefits of frankincense to help relieve and alleviate the symptoms of the condition.
“The search for new ways of relieving the symptoms of inflammatory arthritis and osteoarthritis is a long and difficult one,” according to Dr Emma Blain, who leads the research with her co-investigators Professor Vic Duance from the School of Biosciences and Dr Ahmed Ali of the Compton Group.
“The South West of England and Wales has a long standing connection with the Somali community who have used extracts of frankincense as a traditional herbal remedy for arthritic conditions. What our research has focused on is whether and how these extracts can help relieve the inflammation that causes the pain,” she added.
The Cardiff scientists believe they have been able to demonstrate that treatment with an extract of Boswellia frereana – a rare frankincense species – inhibits the production of key inflammatory molecules which helps prevent the breakdown of the cartilage tissue which causes the condition.
Dr Ali adds: “The search for new drugs to alleviate the symptoms of conditions like inflammatory arthritis and osteoarthritis is a priority area for scientists. What our research has managed to achieve is to use innovative chemical extraction techniques to determine the active ingredient in frankincense.
“Having done this we are now able to further characterise the chemical entity and compare its success against other anti-inflammatory drugs used for treating the condition.”
The research comes as a result of a seedcorn project, funded by the Severnside Alliance for Translational Research (SARTRE), through the MRC Developmental Pathway Funding Scheme devolved portfolio.
SARTRE is a joint project between Cardiff University and the University of Bristol to combine and accelerate translational research.
http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/news/articles/an-age-old-cure-6841.html
"
Scientists at a Welsh university hope to help turn frankincense into the next new "super-ingredient".
A specialist unit at Bangor University has refined ways of isolating active ingredients in the natural resin.
The expertise in analysing the substance is now being used by the Swansea-based Compton Group to develop commercial uses for the substance.
Frankincense was one of the gifts given to the infant Jesus by the Wise Men, according to the Bible story.
The tale of the magi's search for the child is celebrated by Christians on Epiphany - the 12th day of Christmas, which falls on 6 January.
Frankincense resin is used as incense in religious ceremonies and has been used in traditional medicinal remedies for thousands of years.
It comes from the sap of Boswellia trees in parts of Asia and Africa, in particular Somalia, Ethiopia and Oman.
Dr Ahmed Ali, a research consultant for the Compton Group, said work at Bangor University's school of chemistry and its Bio-Composites Centre should help develop new commercial uses and applications for the resin.
"Previous research has established that frankincense could help people with arthritis. It is hoped that not only will pain be relieved, but also further damage to ligaments and bones will be prevented," he said.
"I've been investigating frankincense for over ten years and am delighted that developments are moving apace."
Dr Ali said discussions are well under way with collaborators in the United States to establish new markets for products based on the frankincense research, with patents already lodged in Europe, China and the US.
Mohamed H. Farah, PhD
Assistant Professor of Neurology
Johns Hopkins University
AXONAL REGENERATION IN THE PERIPHERAL NERVOUS SYSTEM
Peripheral nerve damage and diseases are common health problems that often result in long-term functional deficits. Peripheral axons can regenerate and reinnervate target tissue following nerve injury or disease in young rodent animals. However, human axonal regeneration is very slow and both denervated Schwann cells, which provide a permissive micro-environment for regeneration, and target tissues are at risk for undergoing atrophy and death, precluding functional recovery. This situation underscores the critical need for agents that can speed up axonal regeneration to restore function.
A prime candidate for enhancing axonal regeneration is inhibition of Beta -Amyloid Cleaving Enzyme (BACE1). We published a paper showing that genetic deletion and pharmacological inhibition of BACE1 markedly accelerate axonal regeneration in the injured peripheral nerves of mice. However, it is unclear how inhibition of BACE1 improves nerve regeneration. We postulate that accelerated nerve regeneration is due to blockade of BACE1 cleavage of two different BACE1 substrates. The two candidate substrates are the amyloid precursor protein (APP) in axons and tumor necrosis factor receptor 1 (TNFR1) on macrophages, which infiltrate injured nerves and clear the inhibitory myelin debris. In the coming years, we will systematically explore genetic manipulations of these two substrates in regard to accelerated axonal regeneration and rapid myelin debris removal seen in BACE1 KO mice.
Equally importantly, we are evaluating a new and very attractive therapeutic approach (e.g. pharmacological inhibition of BACE1) to accelerate nerve regeneration in preclinical rodent models. As experimental models, we employ peripheral nerve injury in mice, and toxin-induced peripheral neuropathy in rodent models. We use combined approaches of morphological, electrophysiological and behavioral studies. These studies are highly relevant because faster rate of outgrowth associated with BACE1 inhibition could be useful in speeding nerve regeneration in human conditions.
AXONAL SPROUTING AND REGENERATION IN MOTOR NEURON DISEASE MODELS
Distal axonal degeneration is a hallmark of motor neuron diseases, and precedes clinical symptoms onset and motor neuron death both in animal models and human patients. Surviving intact motor axons extend axonal sprouts as a compensatory mechanism to denervated muscle areas, suggesting that an early intervention approach might be to enhance axonal sprouting. Recently, we characterized degeneration and regeneration of a pure long motor nerve. This is the lateral thoracic nerve (LTN) that innervates the back muscle, the cutaneus maximus muscle (CMM). The LTN/CMM system is an ideal system to investigate axonal sprouting and means to encourage axonal sprouting in motor neuron disease models. The LTN is comprised of fast-fatigable ??motor fibers and contains some of the shortest (to the high thoracic region) and the longest (to the region at the base of the tail) motor fibers in the rodent body. It innervates the CMM, which contains type II muscle fibers. The FF/type II motor axon/muscle classes are amongst the most vulnerable in the widely used mouse model of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), the G93A SOD1 mouse. We plan to test whether genetic reduction and pharmacological inhibition of BACE1 can enhance axonal sprouting in the LTN and reinnervation of the CMM in G93A SOD1 mice at early stages of axoterminal degeneration.
Dr Marian Warsame
Few scientists, men or women, have overcome the odds Dr Marian Warsame faced as a young girl growing up in Somalia. The eldest of ten children, Marian learned from an early age that to get ahead as a girl, she would have to study hard. And that she did, always excelling in school and finishing at the top of her class.
“I was determined to improve my life,” she says. “And my parents always encouraged me. My father was a policeman, and our big family had only his salary, but he and my mother never pressured me to get married; they wanted me to stay in school.” Indeed, while most girls dropped out after the 8th grade, Warsame made her way to Somalia National University, where she studied medicine and surgery, one of just eight women in a class of fifty.
A move to Sweden and malaria studies
After earning her MD, Warsame went on to complete a Master of Medical Sciences at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, and already, the young scientist was making important contributions to the literature. By 1986, she had published the first reports of chloroquine resistant plasmodium falciparum in Somalia and completed the first ever description of malaria endemicity in an area along the Shebelle River in the country’s south. And thanks to a TDR training grant and support from Swedish Agency for Research and Cooperation, Warsame was able to continue her studies at the Karolinska Institute in pursuit of a PhD.
Warsame’s PhD work focused on the evolution of Somalia’s drug-resistant falciparum malaria. Over the course of her PhD programme, civil war erupted in Somalia, forcing her to remain in Sweden to complete her degree. Later, she embarked on a post-doctoral research project with support from the Swedish government.
Warsame had planned to do her fieldwork in Somalia, but with the war still raging she couldn’t safely return. “So I went to Tanzania instead,” she recalls. “I got permission to stay on at the Karolinska Institute, which provided support for my post-graduate work, and I joined a research collaboration there to study health service delivery of malaria case management.” If the United Republic of Tanzania was an unplanned detour, it also opened the door to an unforeseen opportunity—one that would change the course of the young scientist’s career.
Community case management that helped children
Indeed, that experience made Warsame an ideal candidate for a position as principal investigator on two TDR-supported trials in the country. “When I started my PhD, I was doing laboratory work and individual-level clinical work,” she says. “As a post-doc, I expanded to malaria case management at the health facility level. And when I received the TDR research grant to be the PI on studies in Tanzania, the focus of my research shifted from health care delivery to community-based care. So that project both built on my previous work and allowed me to develop new skills.”
Warsame spent most of the next eight years in Tanzania. The first trial, which assessed the impact of early administration of rectal artesunate on childhood severe malaria in rural Tanzania, resulted in a
paper published in the Lancet, and seeing it in print, says Marian, was a proud moment.
I had reached that level where I could lead a team of 40 staff to conduct this study in close to 200 villages,” she says. “As a black person and a woman, I had to work ten times harder to reach my goals than any man.” And that work paid off; Marian has been a member of multiple scientific committees; she has more than 40 peer-reviewed publications to her name; and she’s had a meaningful impact on the field, both as a researcher and a mentor to younger colleagues.
“She has that quality that Americans call a ‘seriousness of purpose,’” says Dr Hans Rosling, former director of the global health division at the Karolinska Institute. “Marian is an amazingly determined and focused person.” While at the Karolinska Institute, he adds, “she took care of a number of other foreign students, and all students were inspired by her example: that of a girl from a family that wasn’t very sure she should go to school, and who, once she got her hands on an education, never let go. I really admire Marian so much.”
Helping develop international guidelines
Since 2007, Warsame has worked with the World Health Organization’s Global Malaria Programme, which sets evidence-based norms, technical strategies, guidelines and policies around malaria control. Working with Member States’ national malaria programmes, she provides technical support for capacity strengthening in the form of training activities and materials. She also assists countries in monitoring the efficacy of the antimalarial drugs they use, advising them on everything from the implementation of studies to data analysis, monitoring and evaluation and report writing.
Reflecting on her path from Somalia to Sweden and later the WHO, Warsame acknowledges that she has come a long way. But she remains committed, she says, to strengthening Somalia’s research capacity and helping to build up the next generation of Somalian scientists. Once she retires, says Warsame, “I’ll have time to write my story.” Until then, her amazing journey continues.
http://www.who.int/tdr/news/2014/woman-scientist-somalia/en/
Alim Ahmed Fatah - inventor
Alim Ahmed Fatah is an inventor from Somalia. He studied overseas and received his High School Diploma and General Certificate of Education (GCE), with honors from the University of London. Alim then returned to Somalia and enrolled in the then new National College of Education “Lafoole” at Afgoye but left after 8 months when he secured a scholarship in Kuwait with five other Somali students and joined Kuwait University.
Inventions and Innovations
* The popular Self-adhesive stamp - An environmentally friendly, and recyclable postage stamp with non-toxic security inks.
* Modern Postage stamp cancelletion ink - currently used in all US postal service facilities.
* At BASF Corporation, as a Research Staff Scientist Alim developed new ester demulsifiers for breaking water-in-oil emulsions and synthesized a new line of reactive Uvinul compounds to protect polymer films, coatings and structural materials from harmful UV radiation and degradation. He also co-invented with another chemist a proprietary process for removing N-nitrosoamines impurities, synthesized new types of nonionic surfactants for applications such as dishwasher detergents, fiber lubricants, hydraulic fluids, agricultural chemicals, and cosmetics.
* At Artech Corporation in 1986 as a Senior Materials Scientist Alim developed a new luminescent (both fluorescent and phosphorescent) taggants, based on terbium and europium metals, for use with environmentally engineered water-based ink jet printer inks used in U.S. Mail bar coding for optical character recognition (OCR) of automated mail processing equipment and other applications
* At the Bureau of Engraving and Printing Alim jointly developed a process for treatment of the waste from the printing inks at the BEP’s new Waste Water Treatment Plant
Awards
* Best Graduate Student Award” -Binghamton University
* Zappert Award - American Chemical Society and the Research Foundation of the State University of New York (SUNY).
* The US Postal Service Merit Award
* The Team Leadership Award for Environmental Achievement - U.S. Secretary of Agriculture
* The Gold Medal for Distinguished Service, Leadership and Accomplishments - the Secretary, U.S. Department of Commerce. -
Asli Kulane
Role: Scientist
Profile: MD, PhD, is the coordinator for Swedish Research School for Global Health and has been KI’s coordinator for European Masters in International Health Programme. Her research experience includes malaria, HIV/AIDS and TB in low income countries (focussing on social dimensions). She is also the TropED coordinator of KI.
@AbdiJohnson This thread needs a clean up in regards thread derailment.
