Iman Achkar

Iman Achkar

Senior Research Associate

Email

iachkar@hbku.edu.qa

Iman Achkar

Senior Research Associate

Educational Qualifications

MSc in Molecular Medicine

BSc in Biology

Entity

Qatar Biomedical Research Institute

Division

Neurological Disorders Research Center

Biography

Iman Achkar earned her MSc in Molecular Medicine from Imperial College London, UK. She has since gained extensive research experience in molecular biology, specializing in designing and executing functional cell-based assays for drug efficacy studies. Her more recent experience focuses on developing and optimizing immunoassays for biomarker discovery and validation, with an emphasis on diagnostic and monitoring applications for Parkinson's disease and related disorders.

In 2016, she started as a research associate at the Translational Research Institute (TRI), Hamad Medical Corporation, assessing anti-cancer drugs and investigating cell death mechanisms. In 2018, she joined Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar as a research specialist in the Suhre lab, executing high-throughput drug screens and mapping key metabolic pathways to inhibit cancer cell proliferation. In 2024, she joined Dr. Omar El-Agnaf's lab at NDRC-QBRI as a research associate, and in 2026, she was promoted to senior research associate, supporting the biomarkers team with immunoassay-based strategies for Parkinson's disease while overseeing cell culture lab operations and screening in-house nanobodies and CMC compounds for neuroprotective activity.
 

MSc in Molecular Medicine

Imperial College London, UK

2016

BSc in Biology

University of Portsmouth, UK

2015

  • Assay development for neurodegenerative diseases
  • Biomarker discovery and validation
  • Cell death mechanisms and metabolic pathways
  • High-throughput drug screening for efficacy studies

Senior Research Associate

Neurological Disorders Research Center, Qatar Biomedical Research Institute, Hamad Bin Khalifa University

2026 - Present

Research Associate

Neurological Disorders Research Center, Qatar Biomedical Research Institute, Hamad Bin Khalifa University

2024 - 2025

Research Assistant

Qatar Diabetes Research Center (QDRC), Hamad Medical Corporation

2023 - 2024

Research Specialist

Suhre Lab, Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar

2018 - 2022

Research Associate

Translational Research Institute (TRI), Hamad Medical Corporation

2016 - 2017

Vaikath, N. N., Achkar, I. W., Sudhakaran, I. P., Abdi, I. Y., Ponraj, J., & El-Agnaf, O. M. A. (2026). Distinct Molecular Mechanisms Underlie Modulation of Seeded α-Synuclein Aggregation and Toxicity by Salvianolic Acid B and Dihydromyricetin. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 27(9), 3843.

Achkar, I. W., Kader, S., Dib, S. S., Junejo, K., Al-Bader, S. B., Hayat, S., Bhagwat, A. M., Rousset, X., Wang, Y., Viallet, J., Suhre, K., & Halama, A. (2020). Metabolic Signatures of Tumor Responses to Doxorubicin Elucidated by Metabolic Profiling in Ovo. Metabolites, 10(7), 268. 

Abdul Kader, S., Dib, S., Achkar, I. W., Thareja, G., Suhre, K., Rafii, A., & Halama, A. (2022). Defining the landscape of metabolic dysregulations in cancer metastasis. Clinical & experimental metastasis, 39(2), 345–362.

Siveen, K. S., Prabhu, K. S., Achkar, I. W., Kuttikrishnan, S., Shyam, S., Khan, A. Q., Merhi, M., Dermime, S., & Uddin, S. (2018). Role of Non Receptor Tyrosine Kinases in Hematological Malignances and its Targeting by Natural Products. Molecular cancer, 17(1), 31.

Bhat, A. A., Uppada, S., Achkar, I. W., Hashem, S., Yadav, S. K., Shanmugakonar, M., Al-Naemi, H. A., Haris, M., & Uddin, S. (2019). Tight Junction Proteins and Signaling Pathways in Cancer and Inflammation: A Functional Crosstalk. Frontiers in physiology, 9, 1942.

  • First Prize for Best Poster Presentation in the Research Specialist Category, 2019, WCMC-Q Ninth Annual Research Retreat for the poster entitled “Impact of combined cytotoxic drug doxorubicin and metabolic agent on cancer cell fitness.”