Dr Al-Ejeh’s team at QBRI investigates new diagnostics and therapeutics approaches for aggressive types of cancer to improves outcomes, particularly groups of breast cancer patients who do not benefit from the current treatments. The research aims to bridge translational and discovery research and clinical research and practice.

This research team at the Translational Cancer Research Group ( TCRG ) integrates two sub-themes: Clinical Research and Preclinical Research. The team deploys an interdisciplinary approach with a diversity of methods and techniques to achieve both immediate and long-term strategic objectives. The team's approach relies heavily on strong collaborations with oncologists and pathologists.

Clinical Research (objectives 1-4): Develop multi-marker diagnostics based on multi-omics from different sources, including the published Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) data and data generated from Qatar using retrospective and prospective samples. The research is conducted in collaboration with clinicians and pathologists to build the Qatar BRCA TMAs - Qatar Breast Cancer tissue microarrays. 

Preclinical Research (objectives 5-7): Develop preclinical models from patient tumors at the Qatar BRCA Cell Bank . Investigate novel biomarkers to characterize their function in driving cancer progression and their potential as new therapeutic targets.

Research Team

Dr. Fares Al-Ejeh

Senior Scientist

Qatar Biomedical Research Institute

Dr. Sujitha Subash Padma Jeya

Postdoctoral Fellow

Qatar Biomedical Research Institute

Sarra Mestiri

Senior Research Associate

Qatar Biomedical Research Institute

Current Projects

Discovery from the published TCGA data for breast cancer to identify biomarkers that predict survival after the different treatment regimens used in the TCGA cohort.

Panel profiling of archival cancer tissue from HMC to identify gene mutations, RNA, and protein biomarkers that predict treatment response and survival. The results will be compared to findings from the TCGA data to identify common and unique prognostic and predictive biomarkers for breast cancer in Arabs compared to non-Arabs.

The breast cancer tissue microarrays (TMAs) are a product of a collaboration with HMC. Once constructed, the TMAs will be characterized for known breast cancer biomarkers and novel biomarkers discovered from breast cancer profiling.

Begin development and training for medium-to-high-throughput functional screening of functional biomarkers and potential new therapeutic targets using breast cancer cells.

Latest Publications

Pubmed
Casciello F, Al-Ejeh F , … Lee JS (2020). G9a-mediated repression of CDH10 in hypoxia enhances breast tumour cell motility and associates with poor survival outcome. Theranostics 10(10):4515-4529. Patent WO/2020/047604A1
Ferreira MA, Gamazon ER, Al-Ejeh F , et al. (2019). Genome-wide association and transcriptome studies identify target genes and risk loci for breast cancer. Nature Communications 10 (1), 1-18.
Wu L, Shi S, Long J, Guo X, Michailidou K, Beesley J, Bolla ML, Shu XO, Lu Y, Cai Q, Al-Ejeh F , et al. (2018). A transcriptome-wide association study of 229,000 women identifies new candidate susceptibility genes for breast cancer. Nature Genetics 50 (7), 968-978.
Saunus JM, … Al-Ejeh F* , Lakhani SR* (* co-senior). (2018). Multidimensional phenotyping of breast cancer cell lines to guide preclinical research. Breast Cancer Res Treat 167(1):289-301.
Al-Ejeh F , et al. (2014). Meta-analysis of the global gene expression profile of triple-negative breast cancer identifies genes for the prognostication and treatment of aggressive breast cancer. Oncogenesis 3(4), e100-e100. Patent WO/2015/135035A2
Al-Ejeh F , et al. (2014). Postchemotherapy and tumor-selective targeting with the La-specific DAB4 monoclonal antibody relates to apoptotic cell clearance. Journal of Nuclear Medicine 55:772-9. Granted Patents WO/2004/073739A1 WO/2008/043153A1 . In clinical trials 2020 Telix Pharmaceutical.