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Published online 2 April 2008 | Nature 452, 517 (2008) | doi:10.1038/452517b
News in Brief
Muslim nations raise status of science
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Please note this is News in Brief, and so will be a short article.
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A welcome news indeed. For adding value to this "Nature" news, I would like to point out to the readers the recent "Science" News (Jeffrey Mervis. Saudi Start-Up Hopes Grants Will Buy Time. Science 28 March 2008)that reports on a novel approach by King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Saudi Arabia, towards launching its research programs. In brief, KAUST, backed by a $10 billion endowment, has recently awarded 12 researchers in other countries up to $10 million each over 5 years for research at their home institutions. Interestingly, these researchers will be free to use the award money as they wish. Only thing is that they will have to spend a minimum of 3 weeks per year at KAUST, under an interactive program that may possibly include delivering guest lectures, organizing worshops and symposia and two-way exchanges between KAUST faculty and students and members of recepients' labs.
The Islamic culture encouraged reasoning, science and discovery. This culminated in establishing one of the most sophisticated cultures that ruled the world. This was in the past. Today, our scientists look for their "DAILY BREAD", suffer from poor infrastructure and are infact discouraged. December issue of nature 2006 summarised our situation well by stating that our oil rich counties spend 0.1% of GDP on R&D (compared to 4-5% in Western hemisphere). As a clinical Scientist in Kuwait, it takes me 2-3 years to get my research projects approved and I have to buy reagents in a tender and choose the cheepest quote. By the time they arrive one really forgot why one bought them. The situation is discraceful because we are also asked to compete in publishing our work in international journals. I have been trying to gather funds for the Arabian Genome project for 5 years now, but no one believes when I say that the next major discovery will come from decifering our genome. The rate of consanguineous marraiges is up to 70% in our area of the world, This alone is a good reason to start the project. The other reason is the Arabian/Islamic genome has been ignored completely by the Human genome project. Yet it is such a huge source of variation and homogeneity! Where are our business men/women!? where are our governments? I am, as are my colleagues, frustrated, tired and broken! I will not buy this "Joke" by the OIC because we Arabian scientists have and will be sidelined. Really no one believe we are capable. But I know we are. If you want to help please write to me: Dr. Fahd Al-Mulla Associate Professor Faculty of Medicine Kuwait University email: fahd@al-mulla.org