Faculty Research
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Abdulrazaq S. Al-Jazairi, |
Dr. Al-Jazairi is a Clinical Pharmacy Consultant in the field of Cardiovascular Pharmacotherapy and the Director of Pharmaceutical Care Division at the prestigious King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center (KFSH&RC), Riyadh Saudi Arabia. He received his Doctor of Pharmacy degree from Campbell University at Buies Creek, North Carolina, USA, and a general Pharmacy Practice Residency at Duke University Medical Center (DUMC), Durham, NC. In 2000, Dr. Al-Jazairi completed a two-year Specialty Residency in Cardiovascular Pharmacotherapy from Philadelphia College of Pharmacy (PCP), University of the Sciences in Philadelphia in conjunction with the Hospital University of Pennsylvania (HUP), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. More recently, 2014, Dr. Al-Jazairi earned a Master degree in Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Business from Mayes College, University of the Sciences in Philadelphia. Dr. Al-Jazairi is a board certified pharmacotherapy specialist with Cardiology added-qualification.
Dr. Al-Jazairi has more than 30 original research publications, and delivered many national and international presentations. Dr. Al-Jazairi is the Lead Founder of the Saudi Clinical Pharmacy Society, 2018. Currently he is chairing the Saudi Scientific Pharmacy Board. He is an editorial board member of prime journals, including Annals of Pharmacotherapy and the Annals of Saudi Medicine, for more than 10 years. He sets in several committees in Saudi-FDA, Saudi Commission for Health Specialties and Saudi Health Council. He is also chaired the Clinical Research Committee in the Research Center at KFSHRC- Riyadh for the three terms. Dr. Al-Jazairi enjoys training students and residents in Cardiology and Evidence-based Medicine. Dr. Al-Jazairi is the Director of the first and only Cardiology Residency Program accredited by ASHP outside the States, at King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center (KFSH&RC). He also serves as an Associate Professor, School of Pharmacy in Qassim University, Al-Faisal University, and adjunct Assistant Professor in Princess Nora University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
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Dr. Ibrahim M. Salman |
My primary research goal is to better understand how the autonomic nervous system controls cardiovascular functions, both under normal conditions and in the presence of pathological disorders that elevate blood pressure. A myriad of clinical conditions presents with high blood pressure including, but not limited to, essential hypertension, chronic kidney disease, obesity and sleep apnea. As these conditions continue to become more prevalent, the cardiovascular disease that accompanies them also becomes a major health issue worldwide. In fact, many of these conditions alter how the brain controls blood pressure, but the mechanisms underlying this effect are poorly understood. We believe that the disease process progressively impacts the autonomic neuroregulation of cardiovascular function, thereby contributing central deficits in both tonic and reflex control of blood pressure. To systematically investigate this, we employ a multi-disciplinary research approach ranging from whole animal physiology and pharmacology to electrophysiology (e.g., whole fiber neural recordings and neurostimulation). These experimental strategies are generally integrative and allow for acute and chronic measurements of blood pressure, organ perfusion and whole nerve activity (e.g., vagus nerve, aortic nerve and a range of sympathetic nerve beds) in conscious and anesthetized rats. A major focus of our current research activity is elucidating the impact of neural laterality on central integration of baroreceptor afferent input and how this would modulate overall reflex hemodynamic control under normal and high blood pressure conditions. A second recent focus of our research is to understand the pathophysiological link between neuromodulation of renal nerve activity and the expression of cardiorespiratory functions in the Zucker fat rat model of obesity-related hypertension and sleep apnea. A comprehensive research profile can be found here.
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Dr. Mohammed Khanfar |
Dr. Khanfar’s research involves the use of state of the art pharmaceutical, computational and medicinal chemistry technologies to design, synthesize and evaluate new molecules for the treatment of human disease and to probe biological systems with a particular emphasis on cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. Dr. Khanfar’s research focuses on developing novel computational and molecular modeling technologies to understand protein-drug interactions and to design and discover novel and active drugs. His research team uses the many existing methods of computer-aided drug design, such as multidimensional QSAR, docking, conformational analysis, and pharmacophore modeling for understanding drug action and designing and discovering new therapeutics. Alternatively, Dr. Khanfar applied synthetic and medicinal chemistry techniques to design and synthesis new therapeutics targeting oncology and neurodegenerative diseases. For example, Dr. Khanfar synthesized very potent mTOR inhibitors as anticancer agents and selective SIRT2 inhibitors targeting Huntington's disease.
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Dr.Omar Z. Ameer |
Research interests: My research focuses on investigating mechanisms underlying the antihypertensive effects of drugs, xenobiotics or plant-based medicinal compounds, and assessing pathways altering endothelial and non-endothelial dependent signalling mechanisms within the vasculature. This involves the use of a range of experimental approaches including in-vitro isolated tissue preparation and organ bath studies as well as in-vivo monitoring of cardiovascular parameters in conscious and anaesthetized animal studies. Furthermore, my work involves neurostimulation of selected neurovascular beds in different rats to assess hemodynamics and altered target-organ perfusion in many pathophysiological or drug-induced conditions. Another area of my research is dedicated to investigating modulation of arterial functionality in various cardiovascular pathological conditions (e.g., hypertension, diabetes, chronic kidney disease) and its potential contribution to the increased risk of morbidity and mortality in this population. We also employ the use of engineering elastic modulus and stress-strain relationship to assess vascular stiffness. This is backed up by measurements of tissue and biochemical pathological markers and comprehensive histomorphometric analyses of histological sections acquired from arterial specimens. To this end, we assess changes in structural arterial components including, but not limited to, elastin, collagen and calcium in response to elevated blood pressure. My current project activity involves investigation of regional functional and structural aortic functions in insulin-resistant high fat diet rat model. For a comprehensive list of publications, please refer to the following link.
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Dr.Nasser Alqahtani |
Dr.Nasser Alqahtani works for the first Central Health Cluster – Ministry Of Health (MOH) as an executive director for drug and pharmaceutical affairs and acting executive director for population health management directorate. He is one of the Alfaisal University’s faculty members and works as an adjunct assistant professor of pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics He used to serve as a director for drug safety and risk management dept at Saudi Food and Drug Authority (SFDA) for 13 consecutive years.
He receives his B.S. in Pharmacy from King Saud University, M.Sc. in clinical pharmacy from the UCL - UK and Ph.D. in pharmaceutical policy and outcomes research (Major: Pharmacoepidemiology) from Auburn University – Alabama, USA. He holds a certificate of higher diploma in pharmacovigilance and pharmacoepidemiology from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM).
He is a member of a couple of professional societies: the International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology (ISPE), International Society of Pharmacovigilance (ISOP) International Society of pharmacoeconomics and outcomes research (ISPOR) American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS). Besides, he is a chairman of the national evidence-based practice committee at Saudi Health Council (SHC) He is a reviewer for certain number of peer-reviewed journals, namely; the Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety (PDS) journal, Saudi pharmaceutical journal (SPJ), and Saudi journal of health sciences. He, also, used to chair the scientific committee, member of ethics committee of the SFDA’s research center, and a senior research associate for the medication safety research chair-KSU. He is a member of the national pharmacovigilance Advisory Committee and national drug pricing committee - SFDA. He is one of the members who established the national pharmacovigilance system in Saudi Arabia. Dr. Alqahtani is a research collaborator with the Observational Health Data Sciences and Informatics (OHDSI) organization housed in Columbia University – New York, USA
His area of research focuses on the development and application of epidemiologic and statistical methods for evaluating the safety of medical products and patterns of their utilization in large healthcare databases.
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Dr Manal M Alem, |
My research background involves clinical studies focusing on cardiovascular risk factors. As an example, arterial stiffness is now a recognized and independent cardiovascular risk factor. It can be assessed non-invasively via the shygmocardiography technique. This involves using a bedside technology that records the radial artery pulse wave and utilizes that to derive central aortic pulse wave, central arterial blood pressure and related indices such as augmentation index, aortic pulse wave velocity, and brachial pulse wave velocity. All of these indices will give a comprehensive idea about the biological age of the arterial tree. With this, it may be found that an individual’s arterial tree may be as old as, younger than, or older than his/her chronological age.
Inter-related pathological processes such as endothelial dysfunction, left ventricular mass, and oxidative stress are other areas of interest that I like to investigate. These research interests fascinate me because cardiovascular risk factors can be modified favourably by current pharmacological agents well established for other indications. If a patient takes one medicine for normalizing his/her blood pressure, it would be extremely interesting to find out if it can reduce arterial stiffness, improve insulin sensitivity, or improve endothelial function as well.
