Omar Albagha

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After completing his PhD degree, Dr. Omar Albagha worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Aberdeen, UK and then he was appointed as an Arthritis Research UK lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Genetics of Bone disease at the Institute of Medical Sciences, University of Aberdeen, UK. In 2005 he moved to the University of Edinburgh as a Principal Investigator/Group leader at the Centre for Genomic and Experimental Medicine (CGEM). In 2014, he was appointed the Associate Director of the Paget’s Association Centre of Excellence, Edinburgh. In early 2017, Dr. Albagha joined Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU) as a Principal Investigator at the Qatar Biomedical Research Institute (QBRI) and in 2019 he joined the college of health and life sciences at HBKU as a Professor and program coordinator for the Genomic and Precision medicine graduate program. In Sep 2022 he was appointed as the acting executive director of QBRI. His current research focuses on Genomic Medicine, aiming at understanding the genetic determinants of complex diseases with emphasis on Type 2 Diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. He has active collaborations with Qatar Genome Project to investigate genetics of disease-related traits in Qatar. He has published in high impact journals (Nature Genetics, JAMA, Cell Reports) and his work has been featured in news outlets such as the BBC and other international media. Dr Albagha has received many awards from international organizations including the European Calcified Tissue Society (ECTS) and the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research (ASBMR). He has obtained multiple research grants totaling over US$ 10 million including the highly prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator fellowship.