The Zayed Centre for Research, which opened in 2019, focuses on understanding and treating rare diseases in children – and in doing so may offer insights into adult illnesses too.
Linked to the world-renowned Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children (Gosh), it was named in honour of Sheikh Zayed after his wife Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak donated £60m ($82.6m) to the hospital’s charity in 2014.
As Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, visits the centre, we look at its crucial role in combating disease.
Why is the centre needed?
Much work at the Zayed Centre for Research into Rare Disease in Children, to use the full name, relates to conditions with a genetic basis.
Speaking in 2019 to The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health, Prof David Goldblatt, Gosh director of clinical research and development, said most rare diseases with a genetic cause develop in childhood.
There is “a strong imperative to study and treat these diseases” because three in 10 children with a rare condition do not live beyond the age of 5.
While the focus is on rare illnesses, insights in molecular biology and genetics can have wider applications, including for common diseases affecting adults.
The centre is also important in clinical care, having 21 child-friendly consultation rooms and eight clinical investigation rooms.
What does the research cover?
One area is gene therapy, under which healthy forms of genes are inserted into cells to make up for the patient’s “faulty” copies.
It may also involve adding a new gene to produce a protein to combat disease, or disabling a faulty gene.
While still experimental, gene therapy sometimes offers the potential for a permanent cure.
Research also covers cell therapy, where healthy cells are introduced to compensate for diseased ones in the patient.
Another cutting-edge field is regenerative medicine, in which diseased cells, tissues or organs can be repaired, regrown or replaced.
Central to this are therapeutic stem cells, which are “master cells” that have not undergone specialisation into particular types.
The centre has played a part in the first human challenge trial for Covid-19, in which healthy people aged 18 to 30 are being intentionally infected with the coronavirus to help vaccine and treatment development.
What are the research facilities?
The centre, which was purpose built adjacent to Gosh and the University College London Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, has world-class facilities.
These include seven rooms where gene and cell therapies can be produced, described as the largest such unit in the UK.
There are 140 laboratory benches “for early development work to test the safety and efficacy of potential new treatments”, nine tissue-culture rooms where new treatments can be tested on lab-grown cells and a flow cytometry suite for the sorting and identification of cells.
At a cardiac research suite, 3-D models of the heart can be produced, which allows treatments and devices to be tailored to the patient.
There are offices for 400 researchers and clinicians, along with meeting areas where teams can collaborate.
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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The biog
Name: Marie Byrne
Nationality: Irish
Favourite film: The Shawshank Redemption
Book: Seagull by Jonathan Livingston
Life lesson: A person is not old until regret takes the place of their dreams
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Faf du Plessis (captain), Hashim Amla, Temba Bavuma, Quinton de Kock (wicketkeeper), Theunis de Bruyn, AB de Villiers, Dean Elgar, Heinrich Klaasen (wicketkeeper), Keshav Maharaj, Aiden Markram, Morne Morkel, Wiaan Mulder, Lungi Ngidi, Vernon Philander and Kagiso Rabada.
The President's Cake
Director: Hasan Hadi
Starring: Baneen Ahmad Nayyef, Waheed Thabet Khreibat, Sajad Mohamad Qasem
Rating: 4/5
