Dr. Simona Ghanem | Hamad Bin Khalifa University

Qatar Biomedical Research Institute QBRI

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Hamad Bin Khalifa University

FACULTY BIOGRAPHIES

Dr. Simona Ghanem

Dr. Simona Ghanem

Postdoctoral Researcher
Neurological Disorders Research Center
Qatar Biomedical Research Institute

Biography

Dr. Ghanem obtained a Bachelor of Science in Biology and completed her Master of Science in Human Morphology at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon. During her Masters, she studied the relationship of certain genes expression in regards to inflammatory bowel disease in an animal model of Sprague Dawley rats. She then went on to work on several interesting projects mainly investigating genes associated with autism in the Lebanese population. Dr. Ghanem completed her PhD in Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases in the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology at the University of Toledo, Ohio, USA. As part of her doctoral studies, she primarily focused and explored the mechanisms underlying insulin resistance, obesity, and insulin action in animal models. During her doctoral period, she was awarded a fellowship from the Middle-East Diabetes Research Center (MEDRC).

Dr. Ghanem joined Dr. Omar El-Agnaf’s team in October 2017. She is currently working as a postdoctoral researcher in the Neurological Disorders Research Center at QBRI.

 

Research Interests

Dr. Ghanem’s research interest lies in understanding and exploring the molecular pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases, especially Parkinson’s disease for future development of novel diagnostic and therapeutic tools.

  • Parkinson’s disease is a neurodegenerative disorder that is characterized by neuronal inclusions known as Lewy Bodies with phosphorylated alpha synuclein being the major component. Identifying the toxic species of alpha synuclein and understanding the seeding effect of these forms on the aggregation of the protein allow us to understand alpha-synuclein-induced toxicity implicated in neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s disease.

Selected Publications

  • Ghanem SS, Muturi HT, DeAngelis AM, Hu J, Kulkarni RN, Heinrich G, Najjar SM.

    “Age-dependent insulin resistance in male mice with null deletion of the carcinoembryonic antigen-related cell adhesion molecule 2 gene”. Diabetologia. 2017 May 31.

     2017

  • Ghanem SS, Heinrich G, Lester SG, Pfeiffer V, Bhattacharya S, Patel PR, DeAngelis AM, Dai T, Ramakrishnan SK, Smiley ZN, Jung DY, Lee Y, Kitamura T, Ergun S, Kulkarni RN, Kim JK, Giovannucci DR, Najjar SM.

    “Increased Glucose-induced Secretion of Glucagon-like Peptide-1 in Mice Lacking the Carcinoembryonic Antigen-related Cell Adhesion Molecule 2 (CEACAM2)”. J Biol Chem. 2016 Jan 8; 291(2): 980-8.

     2016

  • Ramakrishnan SK*, Russo L*, Ghanem SS*, Patel PR, Oyarce AM, Heinrich G, Najjar SM.

    “Fenofibrate Decreases Insulin Clearance and Insulin Secretion to Maintain Insulin Sensitivity”. J Biol Chem. 2016 Nov 11; 291(46): 23915-23924.

     2016

  • Russo L*, Ghadieh HE*, Ghanem SS*, Al-Share QY, Smiley ZN, Gatto-Weis C, Esakov EL, McInerney MF, Heinrich G, Tong X, Yin L, Najjar SM.

    “Role for hepatic CEACAM1 in regulating fatty acid metabolism along the adipocyte-hepatocyte axis”. J Lipid Res. 2016 Dec; 57(12): 2163-2175.

     2016

  • Alshahrani MM, Yang E, Yip J, Ghanem SS, Abdallah SL, deAngelis AM, O'Malley CJ, Moheimani F, Najjar SM, Jackson DE.

    “CEACAM2 negatively regulates hemi (ITAMbearing) GPVI and CLEC-2 pathways and thrombus growth in vitro and in vivo”. Blood. 2014 Oct 9; 124(15): 2431-41.

     2014

  • Soueid J, Kourtian S, Makhoul NJ, Makoukji J, Haddad S, Ghanem SS, Kobeissy F, Boustany RM. “RYR2, PTDSS1 and AREG genes are implicated in a Lebanese population-based study of copy number variation in autism”.

    Sci Rep. 2016 Jan 8; 6:19088.

     2016
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