After her distinction in the field of scientific research, the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Health, Dr. Abdullah Mufreh Al-Asiri, congratulated the Saudi researcher, Dr. Maryam Al-Issa, for participating in the largest research in the world in the field of psychological genetics, specifically schizophrenia.
Speaking to “Arabia.net”, Dr. Maryam Al-Issa stressed the importance of studying human groups to identify susceptibility to disease and its impact on diseases in general and on mental illnesses in particular.
Al-Issa said that she obtained a master’s degree from Scotland in the field of complex medical genetics, and from there began researching psychological genetics, where she chose a master’s research on “Digorge syndrome” and its association with psychosis, and completed a doctorate in the field of complex genetics from “University College London” in Britain and obtained a Fellowship in Genetic Engineering and Genetic Informatics from the Massachusetts Institute of Science and Technology (MIT) in the United States. To return to the Kingdom and work as the Head of the Genetics Department at the Public Health Authority, an assistant professor at Al-Faisal University in the College of Medicine and Artificial Intelligence, and an innovation advisor.
Al-Issa touched on the research, indicating that the research focuses on psychological diseases, stressing that the existing treatments are old and often not effective due to the different symptoms from one patient to another. The reason is that each person has a specific genetic makeup that contributes to the formation of the disease is different from the other, and not all biological pathways associated with the disease have been discovered, as existing treatments do not treat all mental patients.
She explained that this research was global, and it is a new discovery, during which a genetic survey was conducted for 77,000 people with schizophrenia, and a group of variables related to neurons were extracted. It has not been determined what contributes to the formation of the disease, and through research, a defect was discovered in the neuron, which has certain problems that cause this damage.
Al-Issa cautioned that she is a research associate with an integrated and collaborative research team that did the research through a group work, and individual work cannot reach this level and achieve great and great success in the world, and this study is considered the largest in the world in schizophrenia. This was not the first research, as other international research and collaborations have been discovered and genetic associations with diseases such as bipolar, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s have been discovered.
And she added that this study in the world was carried out in cooperation with a group of institutions around the world, and there is unfortunately no institutional participation from the Kingdom, and there is insufficient support for such research, and she calls for the start of psychological research, “there is no one of us who does not carry variables related to mental illness, but Their weight and number vary from person to person, and their expression varies from person to person, which gives our personality.”
She stressed the importance of the existence of research studies in the Kingdom in this field, knowing that mental illness constitutes a great burden on the state and on the family due to those suffering from diseases and the length of stay of the psychiatric patient in hospitals and clinics.
And locally, I worked inside the Kingdom with a research team in the National Guard to study the variables most prevalent in the Kingdom, which contribute to creating a priority for pre-marital examinations and preventing their inheritance, which are important for marriage examinations.
She also stressed that it is a new and promising science and contributes to solving many chronic genetic problems, but this type of studies needs research support and the establishment of laboratories and laboratories specialized in this field, and “it is our duty to try to benefit from what we have learned and apply it in the Kingdom.”
As for the family’s support, she confirmed that her upbringing in the house of knowledge, as her parents are passionate about science, reading and research, and this is what gave her the passion to search for information and answer all questions, in addition to the parents’ invitations to participate in all the successes.
She concluded her speech that scientific research is one of the pillars of innovation, and that “we need more and more attention to scientific research to catch up with scientific excellence worldwide, and this is what she aspires to.”