Dr. Sadia Saeed

Dr. Sadia Saeed

Scientist

Email

ssaeed@hbku.edu.qa

Dr. Sadia Saeed

Scientist

Educational Qualifications

PhD in Human Genetics

MPhil in Molecular Biology

Entity

Qatar Biomedical Research Institute

Division

Diabetes Research Center

Biography

Dr. Sadia Saeed is a Scientist at the Diabetes Research Center, Qatar Biomedical Research Institute, with over a decade of experience in human genetics and functional genomics, specializing in obesity and related metabolic disorders. She began her research career at the University of Cambridge’s Institute of Metabolic Science and earned her PhD in Human Genetics from Imperial College London, where she investigated the genetic basis of severe early-onset obesity in consanguineous populations. She played a key role in establishing the Severe Obesity in Pakistani Population (SOPP) cohort, a deeply phenotyped cohort of children with severe early-onset obesity.

She subsequently held research positions at Imperial College London, CNRS, and INSERM at the University of Lille, combining genomic discovery with functional studies to identify and characterize novel genes and molecular pathways underlying metabolic disorders. Her research has contributed to the identification of several novel genes and disease mechanisms and has resulted in publications in leading journals, including Nature Genetics, Science, Journal of Clinical Investigation, and Diabetes.

Her work integrates genomic analysis, functional genomics, and clinical phenotyping to advance understanding of obesity and related metabolic diseases and to support translational and precision-medicine approaches.

PhD in Human Genetics

Imperial College London, UK

2016

MPhil in Molecular Biology

University of the Punjab, Pakistan

2007

MSc in Zoology

Government College University Lahore, Pakistan

2004

  • Genetic basis of obesity, diabetes, and related metabolic disorders.
  • Functional characterization of novel genes and molecular pathways.
  • Genomic and multi-omics approaches to disease-gene discovery.
  • Translational genomics and precision medicine in metabolic disease.

Scientist

Qatar Biomedical Research Institute, Hamad Bin Khalifa University

2026 – Present

Researcher

French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM), University of Lille, France

2023 – 2026

Honorary Research Fellow

Department of Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction, Imperial College London, UK

2019 – Present

Postdoctoral Researcher

French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), University of Lille, France

2018 – 2023

Research Assistant

Institute of Metabolic Science, University of Cambridge, UK

2008 – 2010

Saeed, S., Siegert, A.-M., Tung, Y. C. L., Khanam, R., Janjua, Q. M., Manzoor, J., Derhourhi, M., Toussaint, B., Lam, B. Y. H., Mahmoud, S. A., Vaillant, E., Falay, E. B., Amanzougarene, S., Ayesha, H., Khan, W. I., Ramazan, N., Saudek, V., O'Rahilly, S., Goldstone, A. P., . . . Yeo, G. S. H. (2025). Biallelic variants in SREK1 downregulating SNORD115 and SNORD116 cause a Prader-Willi–like syndrome. Journal of Clinical Investigation, 135(16), e191008. 

Saeed, S., Bonnefond, A., & Froguel, P. (2025). Obesity: Exploring its connection to brain function through genetic and genomic perspectives. Molecular Psychiatry, 30(2), 651–658.

Saeed, S., Khanam, R., Janjua, Q. M., Manzoor, J., Ning, L., Hanook, S., Canouil, M., Ali, M., Ayesha, H., Khan, W. I., Farooqi, I. S., Yeo, G. S. H., O'Rahilly, S., Bonnefond, A., Butt, T. A., Arslan, M., & Froguel, P. (2023). High morbidity and mortality in children with untreated congenital deficiency of leptin or its receptor. Cell Reports Medicine, 4(9), Article 101187.

Saeed, S., Ning, L., Badreddine, A., Mirza, M. U., Boissel, M., Khanam, R., Manzoor, J., Janjua, Q. M., Khan, W. I., Toussaint, B., Vaillant, E., Amanzougarene, S., Derhourhi, M., Trant, J. F., Siegert, A.-M., Lam, B. Y. H., Yeo, G. S. H., Chabraoui, L., Touzani, A., . . . Froguel, P. (2023). Biallelic mutations in P4HTM cause syndromic obesity. Diabetes, 72(9), 1228–1234.  
 

Saeed, S., Bonnefond, A., Tamanini, F., Mirza, M. U., Manzoor, J., Janjua, Q. M., Din, S. M., Gaitan, J., Milochau, A., Durand, E., Vaillant, E., Haseeb, A., De Graeve, F., Rabearivelo, I., Sand, O., Queniat, G., Boutry, R., Schott, D. A., Ayesha, H., . . . Froguel, P. (2018). Loss-of-function mutations in ADCY3 cause monogenic severe obesity. Nature Genetics, 50(2), 175–179. 

  • 2025: Société Francophone du Diabète (SFD) – AJD Fund 
  • 2023: European Genomic Institute for Diabetes (EGID) project fund 
  • 2021: Pakistan Academy of Sciences grant as co-PI 
  • 2019: French Foundation for Rare Diseases grant 
  • 2018: Medical Research Council (MRC) grant as a named investigator