“We are putting the final touches for the center which will be opened in September to coincide with the new academic year,” Dr. Waleed Al-Shaqha, vice dean of the college of medicine for postgraduate education and research at the Imam University, told Arab News yesterday.

Al-Shaqha was speaking to Arab News on the sidelines of the First Saudi International Medical Conference (SIMEC 2012), which is being currently held at the King Faisal Hall in the capital.

The five-day international conference that concludes tomorrow (Thursday), is dedicated to recent developments and research in the medical education and will cover a variety of topics, including innovation in medical education, international dimensions, and curriculum trends in medical education among other issues of current importance and interest. More than 1,500 participants from Saudi Arabia and other countries are attending the grand event.

The conference was inaugurated by the University Rector Suleiman bin Abdullah Aba Al-Khail on Sunday.

The vice dean said the college of medicine has some 400 students on its roll with more than 100 faculty staff who are from the Kingdom and other parts of the globe. The first batch of medical students will pass out from the college of medicine in 2014.

He said that the proposed research center is being built on an area of 10,000 sq. feet and would have all the modern components to carry out state-of-the art medical research studies.

Fields of research would cover genomes, infectious diseases, cancer, metabolic diseases, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, which are among the research priorities in the Kingdom.

Dr. Arezki Azzi, associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biology and head of the research center laboratory equipment acquisition group, said the college of medicine was awarded seven research grants by Imam University.

He added that it had also signed a number of knowledge transfer agreements with world renowned universities such as the college of medicine at the George Washington University, radiology department of the University of Pennsylvania and Laval University in Quebec, Canada.

The research center will also have an animal faculty where pre-clinical experimentations will be carried out.

“Among our visiting professors, we are lucky to have Emeritus Professor Fernand Labrie from Laval University, who is a King Faisal prize winner,” he said, adding that Imam University had already presented several scientific papers on various subjects related to medicine.

During the scientific session held yesterday, Dr. Maha Altuwaijri, speaking on the medical education challenges at the Ministry of Health hospitals in Saudi Arabia, said a major challenge is the integration of a non-academic clinical faculty that is focused almost exclusively on patient care into educational and academic roles.