The university president stressed in the Egyptian Genome Council meeting the need to form research teams of youth

The first meeting of the Egyptian Genome Program Council at the Academy of Scientific Research and Technology was held under the chairmanship of Prof. Dr. Khaled Abdel Ghaffar, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, and in the presence of Dr. Hala Zayed, Minister of Health, Dr. Mohamed Awad Tag El-Din, Advisor to the President of Health and Reporter of the Health Council at the Academy of Scientific Research, Dr. Magdy Yakoub, and Dr. Mahmoud Sakr, President of the Academy Major General Dr. Khaled Amer, director of the Regenerative Medicine Center at the Ministry of Defense, heads of Ain Shams, Mansoura, and Alexandria universities, the National Research Center, Deputy Minister of Antiquities, a group of scientists in the field from Egypt and America, assistants to the Academy's president for the qualitative councils, scientific and cultural relations, and representatives of supervisory authorities.

At the beginning of the meeting, Prof. Dr. Khaled Abdel Ghaffar welcomed the members of the Council from the Egyptian authorities at home and abroad, and presented the Egyptian genome program, its objectives and its connection with the state’s plan and its importance in personalized and accurate medicine, gene therapy and genetic pharmacology, and the ministry’s plan to direct capacity building programs available in the central administration of missions to meet the needs of the Egyptian genome program for training the specialist in the best scientific schools abroad and the experiences of developed countries in this field, then the president of the academy explained the program in detail the proposed work plan within five years and the size of the support that the ministry will provide through the academy for this program, which amounts to one billion Egyptian pounds from the academy's allocations and without the state's cost additional burdens, provided that another billion pounds be obtained from outside the academy's budget.

After that, Dr. Khaled Amer, Director of the Regenerative Medicine Center (the winning entity to manage the coalition according to the results of the technical evaluation) presented the center's available infrastructure for the project and the proposed research management system.

The Council approved the program plan proposed by the Academy and their confidence in the capabilities of the Center for Regenerative Medicine and its ability to lead a national program in the size of the Egyptian Genome Program and the ability of the Academy and the Egyptian scientific research community to implement the program in only five years, given that the decoding of the genome, which was announced in 2003 It took about 13 years, and this is due to the amazing technological progress in this field today, and the Council mandated the administration of the Academy to provide all the material and technical support necessary to start the implementation immediately.

On her part, Dr. Hala Zayed expressed her happiness with the cooperation of all state institutions in this important national project, and stressed the need to provide the necessary support for the project to achieve its goals and emphasized the Ministry of Health's support for the program and promised to provide any facilities required from the Ministry to achieve success for this program.

She added that this serves the Ministry of Health plan, which has launched important national programs in the field of clinical trials.

Dr. Hisham Sadik, Board Member and Head of Cardiology Departments at Southwest University, Texas, USA praised the launch of such a program and indicated the expected impact of this program on health care in Egypt and the need for there to be a clear plan to take advantage of the project's outputs.

Dr. Magdy Yacoub indicated his confidence in the availability of Egyptian competencies capable of managing the program and achieving its goals with Egyptian hands, and that this program will help build the capabilities of young Egyptian researchers in several fields such as bioinformatics and others.

Dr. Muhammad Awad Tag El-Din, the President’s Health Adviser stressed the importance of the immediate start of the project and the necessity for concerted efforts from all state institutions to provide the means for success for this national program. He hoped that the bureaucracy had no role in stalling the project.

Prof. Dr. Mahmoud El-Matini, President of Ain Shams University, affirmed the university’s support for the program, expressing his happiness to participate in this national program and the need for research teams to be formed from distinguished youth in this field from the participating parties. Dr. Ashraf Abdel Basset, President of Mansoura University also emphasized capacity building and completion of projects. Ongoing.

Dr. Mohamed Hashem, Head of the National Research Center, and Dr. Hisham Gaber, Acting President of Alexandria University, stressed their happiness to participate in this national program and their pledge to provide all that their research teams need and to put all the capabilities available to their institutions in the service of the program, as they indicated the importance of building on existing projects. Related to the genome field and the accumulated experience of the agencies involved in the implementation.

Dr. Sameh Sorour, the Supervisor of the Specific Councils Sector at the Academy of Scientific Research and Technology, was chosen to be the Secretary of the Egyptian Genome Council.