3rd Qatar Proteomics Conference

For about 22 years, Frank Schmidt has been working in the field of host-pathogen interactions with a strong focus on proteomics and immunoproteomics. He has a strong background in the biochemistry of proteins and their analysis by mass spectrometry. In previous work, he mainly studied the patho-mechanisms of bacteria such as mycobacteria, streptococci, salmonella and staphylococcus after contact with human cells at the proteome level using various single or multiplex methods. For the past 12 years, he has extended his research to human liquid biopsies and has studied cohort material from various studies. In addition to mass spectrometry, he also performs analysis using Olink or Flexmap 3D and specializes in the measurement of proteins and their bioinformatic analysis. He is currently Professor of Biochemistry at WCMQ in Qatar and Honorary Professor in Krems, Austria. He has published about 130 research papers in the field of proteomics and is a member of the BD-HPP and Chromosome teams at HUPO. His current group consists of 10 members and he runs a unique proteomics platform including all the above mentioned methods.

Karsten Suhre is a Professor of Physiology and Biophysics at Weill Cornell Medicine and the Director of the Bioinformatics and Virtual Metabolomics Core at the Cornell campus in Doha, Qatar. Before joining Cornell in 2011, Dr. Suhre held a Professorship for Bioinformatics at the Department of Biology of the Ludwig-Maximillian-University in Munich, Germany, where lead the Metabolomics Research Group at the Institute for Bioinformatics and Systems Biology of the Helmholtz Center Munich. Between 1994 and 2006, he served at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), first as a Charge and then as a Director of Research, with a two-year interruption from 2000 to 2001, where he worked as a Project Engineer in the German Automotive Industry. After a very interdisciplinary career in the Theoretical Physics, Atmospheric Sciences, Bacterial and Viral Genomics, and Protein Bioinformatics, he is now investigating how human genetics, metabolomics and proteomics interact with environmental challenges and lifestyle factors in the development of complex disorders, especially diabetes, cancer, heart and kidney diseases.

Bernd Wollscheid, Ph.D., is founder of DISCO Pharmaceuticals. He is a Professor of Molecular Health and Head of the Institute of Translational Medicine at the Department of Health Sciences and Technology at ETH Zürich, Switzerland. As the chairman of EC of the ETH domain Strategic Focus Area, “Personalized Health and Related Technology (PHRT),” he aims to bridge the gap between scientific discoveries and their practical applications in healthcare. Bernd’s research team pioneers developing and applying next-generation technologies at the intersection of biology, chemistry, medicine, and bioinformatics. This research contributes to understanding how molecular nanoscale organization influences cellular function and opens up new opportunities for theranostics. Bernd studied Chemistry and holds a Ph.D. in Molecular Immunology from the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology in Freiburg, Germany. He performed post-doctoral research at the Institute of Systems Biology, Seattle, USA.

Anna Halama is Assistant Professor of Physiology and Biophysics at Weill Cornell Medicine–Qatar (WCM-Q), Doha, Qatar. Her research focuses on the application of omics technologies, in particularly metabolomics to define complex diseases, with a primary emphasis on cancer. Her group explores metabolic vulnerabilities and drug resistance mechanisms using integrative omics approaches to support the development of precision oncology. Anna is also actively involved in medical education, with a strong interest in using innovative technologies to enhance student learning. She conducted her Ph.D. research at Helmholtz Zentrum München, earning her doctorate from the Technical University of Munich (TUM), Germany. She performed her postdoctoral research at Weill Cornell Medicine–Qatar.

Peter Nilsson is Professor in Proteomics since 2011 at the Department of Protein Science at SciLifeLab and KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. He is head of Protein Array Technologies within Human Protein Atlas since 2003, head of Division of Affinity Proteomics and Platform Scientific Director in the Proteomics platform at SciLifeLab. The research is devoted to highly multiplex and high-throughput protein and antibody profiling in body fluids based on various aspects of affinity proteomics. This is enabled through the development and utilization of bead-based and planar protein array formats using proteins and antibodies from the Human Protein Atlas. The protein, autoantibody and serology profiling has mainly been applied within autoimmune, neurodegenerative and infectious diseases, which has generated more than 260 co-authored publications. To enable broad and large-scale seroprevalence studies, a current emphasis is on the development of an extensive resource for multi-disease serology. This is including a wide range of antigens representing various respiratory and infectious diseases, such as coronas, influenza, RSV, EBV, CMV, Mpox, Zika, Dengue, West Nile, Yellow fever, Chikungunya etc

Ruth Huttenhain, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology at Stanford University, CA, USA. Her group at Stanford aims to decipher how GPCRs decode extracellular cues into dynamic and context-specific cellular signaling networks to elicit diverse physiologic responses. Ruth’s team exploits quantitative proteomics to capture the spatiotemporal organization of signaling networks combined with functional genomics to study their impact on physiology. Ruth is the elected Secretary General of the Human Proteome Organization (HUPO). She studied pharmaceutical sciences at the University of Bonn, Germany, and holds a PhD from ETH Zurich, Switzerland. She performed her postdoctoral research at the University of California San Francisco, CA, USA.

Dr. Mohamed Abu-Farha is a distinguished Principal Scientist at Dasman Diabetes Institute (DDI) in Kuwait, where he leads the Proteomics Core Facility and heads the Special Services Department. He earned both his bachelor's and master’s degrees from Carleton University in Canada, followed by a Ph.D. from the University of Ottawa in 2009. He then completed postdoctoral training at the Montreal Clinical Research Institute before joining DDI in 2011.
Dr. Abu-Farha is internationally recognized as a leading expert in diabetes and metabolic diseases, with a particular focus on lipid metabolism and Proteomics. He has authored over 145 peer-reviewed publications, including original research articles, reviews, and book chapters published in high-impact journals such as Diabetes Care, Journal of Lipid Research, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM), Progress in Lipid Research, Molecular & Cellular Proteomics, and Obesity. His work has received more than 6,500 citations, with an h-index of 42 and an i10-index of 85, reflecting the broad influence and scientific impact of his research.
Among his most notable contributions is his work on angiopoietin-like protein 8 (ANGPTL8), which has significantly advanced our understanding of its role in diabetes and obesity. His studies have elucidated key regulatory mechanisms of ANGPTL8, demonstrating its strong association with insulin resistance and lipid biomarkers. A landmark discovery from his team showed that insulin—rather than glucose—is the primary driver of ANGPTL8 expression in humans, shifting a long-standing paradigm in metabolic regulation. In addition to his work on diabetes, Dr. Abu-Farha leads several research programs investigating non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), diabetes prevention strategies, and emerging therapies for type 1 diabetes. His interdisciplinary and collaborative approach continues to inform the development of novel therapeutic interventions and enhance clinical understanding of metabolic disorders.
Beyond his research leadership, Dr. Abu-Farha serves as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio. He is deeply committed to academic mentorship, having supervised several graduate students, numerous summer interns, and undergraduate research projects. He has also served as a teaching assistant for first- through fourth-year courses, contributing substantially to the education and development of future scientists. His dedication to global collaboration and capacity building underscores his broader mission to advance science and education on an international scale.

Dr. Clare Paterson is Director of Clinical Research & Development at Standard BioTools (Formerly SomaLogic). Following her bachelor’s degree in Immunology and Pharmacology Clare earned her PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Glasgow in partnership with GlaxoSmithKline. Subsequently, she developed her longstanding expertise in ‘omics research through a fellowship at the Clinical Brain Disorders Branch at the National Institutes of Health and academic career at The University of Colorado School of Medicine. Within the scope of biomarker research Clare is a recipient of Federal, academic, and philanthropic funding awards, has authored peer-reviewed publications in top-rated journals, and is named on multiple patents. At SomaLogic Dr. Paterson brings together her experience in pre-clinical, translational, and clinical R&D leading a team of talented scientists expanding, qualifying, and applying the portfolio of SomaScan™ products to optimize the efficiency of the translational process from biomarker discovery to clinical implementation.

Jochen M. Schwenk is a Professor of Translational Proteomics at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, and a group leader at the Science for Life Laboratory (SciLifeLab). His research aims to elucidate the dynamic molecular characteristics of human health and disease by developing innovative patient-centric proteomics approaches. His pioneering work focuses on advancing the application of proteomics technologies in biomedicine to investigate circulating blood proteins. His research team combines expertise in study design, method development, and data-driven bioinformatics. Jochen holds scientific director positions at the Human Protein Atlas and SciLifeLab’s Proteomics Platform. He is an elected council member of the Human Proteome Organization (HUPO) and chairs HUPO’s Plasma Proteome Project. He holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Tübingen, Germany, and conducted postdoctoral research at the Human Protein Atlas.

Dr. Anas M. Abdel Rahman is a leading clinical metabolomics, proteomics, and integrated multiomics expert, with over 110 peer-reviewed publications in personalized medicine and biomarker discovery. He is an Associate Professor at Alfaisal University and a key investigator in leveraging omics technologies to revolutionize personalized medicine and aging research. His groundbreaking studies have advanced the diagnosis and management of rare metabolic and age-related disorders while also identifying metabolomic and proteomic signatures that illuminate the molecular mechanisms of aging. Dr. Abdel Rahman’s work exemplifies the potential of multiomics to transform global healthspan and therapeutic precision.

• Sara Taleb is a virology and immunology researcher with a Ph.D. in Genomics and Precision Medicine from Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU), MSc degree in advanced research practices in biomedical sciences and BSc degree in Biomedical sciences from Qatar University (QU). She has more than 6 years’ experience in infectious diseases-related projects focused on virology and immunology field, resulting in multiple publications in peer-reviewed journals with a current h-index of 17. Sara recently completed a three-year clinical research associate role at Hamad Medical Corporation in parallel to her PhD project, where she focused on understanding the immune response of critically ill patients with COVID-19 at multiple OMICs levels, where she contributed to the study design, project management and coordination, data collection, experimental work and manuscript writing of most projects. She is currently in her third year as a postdoctoral research associate in biochemistry under the supervision of Prof. Frank Schmidt from Weill Cornell Medicine - Qatar, focusing on understanding the immuno-proteomic profile of patients with multiple conditions. Together with her team, Sara is working on unlocking the connection between infectious diseases, sepsis, and diabetes at the proteomics level using data generated from high-thruput technologies designed to measure multiple layers of proteomics.

Dr. Nayef A. Mazloum is an associate professor of microbiology and immunology at WCM-Q and joint associate professor at HBKU. He also serves as an associate dean for student research at WCM-Q. He joined WCM-Q in January 2011 and came from WCMC in New York, where he served since 2008 as instructor of microbiology and immunology. He graduated from the American University of Beirut in 1994, continuing his studies at New York Medical College in Valhalla, graduating with a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular biology in 2003. He started his postdoctoral training at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York before continuing at WCMC. Dr Mazloum’s lab studies altered molecular pathways in metabolic disorders including obesity, diabetes, and age-related diseases. His lab employs a combination of in-vitro cellular models, mouse models and human data to uncover novel mechanisms that modulate metabolism. He has on-going active collaboration with local stakeholders in Qatar including Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC), and Qatar University (QU), Qatar Diabetes Association (QDA), Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU). He has ongoing active collaboration with local stakeholders in Qatar including Hamad Medical Corporation, Qatar University, Qatar Biomedical Research Institute (QBRI), and Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU). His lab also in collaboration with investigators at Harvard Medical School, Mayo Clinic, Brown University, and the University of East Anglia.