Dubai: Watching her brother battle leukaemia at the age of 17 has inspired Adhra Al Mawali to focus all her studies and time to finding a cure for the terminal disease.
Adhra was one of the four women honoured this year by L’Oreal — Unesco Pan Arab Regional Fellowships for Women in Science 2015 for her scientific research during an award ceremony held at Zayed University in Dubai.
The programme, which was launched in the region in 2010 by L’Oreal and Unesco, aims to promote women in the field of scientific research.
This year four Arab scientists and researchers from the region — including a UAE resident — were awarded €20,000 (Dh78,267.5) for their work in different fields.
Adhra, who is director of the Centre of Studies and Research at the Ministry of Health in Oman, was awarded for her research, which proved that malignant leukaemia stem cells remaining in the body after chemotherapy can be separated from normal stem cells through the receptor (CD 123), which is only present in malignant cells.
This is an important discovery as malignant stem cells, known as minimal residual disease, cause relapses in leukaemia patients as the cells start to regenerate, with many patients seeing a recurrence of the disease in two to three years.
“I saw this first-hand as my brother, who was completely cured of cancer after his chemotherapy, passed away after the recurrence of the disease. My brother’s relapse and seeing patients suffer on a daily basis from this disease has made me determined to find a cure.”
She hopes to patent her finding and find a pharmaceutical company that will create an anti-CD123 that will only target the cancerous cells and, hopefully, cure the disease.
The Masdar Institute of Science and Technology PhD student, Nazek Al Atab, who was representing the UAE, also received an award for her PhD thesis, which focuses on fabricating novel nano-memory devices with lower power consumption.
“The L’Oréal-Unesco FWIS Middle East Fellowship will help me buy cleanroom supplies needed for the fabrication of novel low-power non-volatile memory devices using innovative nano materials. It will also enable me to attend international conferences and share my findings with peers in the nanotechnology and microsystems engineering fields,” said Nazek.
Maha Al Sabbagh from Bahrain and Maha Al Mozaini from Saudi Arabia were the other two winners awarded at the ceremony held under the patronage of Shaikha Lubna Bint Al Khalid Al Qasimi.
The L’Oréal-Unesco For Women in Science Fellowships has recognised and honoured over 2,250 women scientists in 115 countries in the past 17 years.
The programme is offered to promising young women researchers at crucial junctures in their careers when stereotypes and preconceived notions could be most detrimental.
