Raising Genomics Literacy, Knowledge, and Awareness

Azhar Rahma, MPH, PhD, is a lecturer at the Institute of Public Health (IPH), CMHS, United Arab Emirates University (UAEU). Azhar earned a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy from the AUST-UAE in 2001, and MPH and PhD (with honor) from UAEU in 2015 and 2021. She holds an American board in Medical Quality and Patient Safety. She is a mentor in the Global Health Mentorships. Azhar is a member of the Emirates Public Health Association (EPHA) and the Editor in Chief of the IPH newsletter. Azhar had been awarded as the Best Pharmacist in 2018 and 2019. Moreover, she has won the readiness individual category of the Federal Authority for Government Human Resources (FAHR) for continuous learning and acquiring future skills at the “Jahiz Forum.” Azhar has published in high-impact journals and presented at national and local conferences. George P. Patrinos is a Professor of Pharmacogenomics and Pharmaceutical Biotechnology in the University of Patras (Greece), Department of Pharmacy, and Head of Division of Pharmacology and Biosciences of the same department and holds adjunct Full Professorships at Erasmus MC, Faculty of Medicine, and Health Sciences, Rotterdam (the Netherlands), and the United Arab Emirates University, College of Medicine, Department of Genetics and Genomics, Al-Ain (UAE). Also, from 2018 until the end of 2024, he was Chair of the Global Genomic Medicine Collaborative (G2MC). He served 12.5 years as a full member and Greece’s National representative in the CHMP Pharmacogenomics Working Party of the European Medicines Agency (EMA). George has more than 340 publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals, some of them in leading scientific journals, such as The Lancet, Nature Genetics, Nature Reviews Genetic, Nucleic Acids Research, Genes & Development. He has also coauthored and coedited more than 15 textbooks, among which the renowned textbook Molecular Diagnostics, published by Academic Press, now in its 3rd edition, while he is the editor of Translational and Applied Genomics book series, published by Elsevier. Furthermore, he serves as the Editor-In-Chief of the prestigious Pharmacogenomics Journal (TPJ), published by Nature Publishing Group, Associate Editor, and member of the editorial board of several scientific journals, and advisory and evaluation committees. Apart from that, George is the main coorganizer of the Golden Helix Conferences, an international meeting series on Pharmacogenomics and Genomic Medicine with more than 50 conferences organized in more than 25 countries worldwide.