What is the research focus of King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Center - Riyadh?
The King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Centre has five main research areas: cancer, genetics, cardiovascular diseases, environmental health, and infectious diseases.
The research centre is staffed by more than 300 research scientists, clinicians, postdoctoral fellows, and technicians, who work in six departments:
- Biological and Medical Research
This department is comprised of 14 research Sections and two core facilities for flow cytometry and confocal microscopy, and departmental research activities focus on major disease states (e.g., cardiovascular diseases, infectious diseases and cancer) and on basic medical research (e.g., molecular medicine, immunology).
- Biomedical Physics
This department’s research focuses on evaluating differences in radiosensitivity between radiotherapy patients and studying its molecular mechanisms and genetic determinants with the objective of identifying predictive or prognostic factors, evaluating and testing new medical imaging modalities, studying the association between certain genetic and infectious agents with cancer predisposition and treatment outcome.
- Cyclotron and Radiopharmaceuticals
This department includes a combination of advanced accelerator technology, radiochemistry, radiopharmacy, and radiopharmaceuticals research.
- Biostatisics, Epidemiology and Scientific Computing
This department instituted the first cancer registry in the Kingdom
- Comparative Medicine
This department has six sections: a laboratory animal facility, comparative pathology, experimental surgery, reproductive biology and transgenic services, a zoonotic diseases laboratory, and a tuberculosis research unit. This department’s main research areas are heatstroke, Alzheimer’s & Parkinson’s diseases, brucellosis, and tuberculosis.
- Genetics
This department conducts basic and translational research regarding the extent of and the underlying molecular pathogenesis of hereditary diseases prevalent in Saudi Arabia. In addition to the study of simple or single gene disorders, research is also being performed on the genetics of complex multigenic disorders such as type II diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
Scientists at the research centre supervise a number of Saudi's who are undertaking their PhD and MSc studies.
The research centre participates in joint projects with international centers in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, Morocco, Canada, and Australia. During the past six years, almost 800 research papers have been published.
