The Infectious disease research department (IDRD) is a prime department at King Abdullah International Medical Research Center. The IDRD is divided into the following units: i) Microbial Genomics and AMR Unit, ii) Virology and Vaccine Development unit, and iii) Biosafety Level 3 laboratory (BSL3). The department is dedicated to enhancing prevention and treatment of infectious diseases through diversified basic, translational, and clinical research activities, surveillance programs and reference laboratory services. This will be seamlessly integrated with education and training development to become the next generation of leaders in this field and attracting interdisciplinary national and international collaborators.
Microbial Genomics and AMR Unit
The global dissemination and the emergence of antimicrobial-resistant (AMR) pathogens have highlighted the importance of, and need for, understanding the role of high-risk clones and key antimicrobial resistance mechanisms in the dissemination of resistance. The bacteriology unit has a fully established laboratory that focused on high-priority research initiatives are intended to build capacity to use and undertake research in hospital-associated infection, emerging/re-emerging AMR pathogens, molecular epidemiology, virulence and pathogenicity, and drug development. For efficient epidemiology and infection prevention and control, a state of the art whole-genome sequencing (WGS) based surveillance program is developed for monitoring AMR and identify the burden and prevalence of AMR in our region. In addition to the research activities and surveillance program, we are providing reference laboratory services to meet the need for a wide variety of research and clinical tests using advanced technologies. The bacteriology unit offers a verity of services to relevant collaborators including antimicrobial susceptibility testing, molecular identification and typing, targeted sequencing, next-generation sequencing, and bioinformatics analysis.
Virology and Vaccine Development Unit
The goal of this unit is to serve the purposes of national and international research in virology field with a focus on viral pathogens that are of importance and relevance to the national public health. The unit also focuses on vaccine development from the bench in vitro evaluation to animal testing and human clinical trials. Vaccines against MERS-CoV are among the priority of this unit with collaborations from a number of international institutes to further evaluate a number of MERS-CoV vaccines in animals and humans. Different platforms for the vaccine are under developments in the unit such as DNA vectors, adenoviral vectors, and poxviral vectors. These platforms are being utilized to develop vaccines against viral and bacterial pathogens relevant to the national public health.
Biosafety Level 3 Laboratory (BSL3)
The mission of this lab is the inclusion of research projects on emerging BSL3 pathogens such as dengue fever virus, rift valley fever virus, MERS-CoV, and others by using microbiological techniques to cultivate and study the genetic, cellular, and molecular biology aspects of such pathogens. In addition, there would be important outcomes associated with the usage of the BSL3 research to understand the mechanisms of disease and identify drug targets which may culminate with both drug and vaccine development.