Team

Dr. Alaamery is currently the Head of the Developmental Medicine Department (DMD) at the King Abdullah International Medical Research Center (KAIMRC). The DMD is currently composed of three labs: First, the Brain Genome Lab (BGL) which focuses on brain disorders because of their prevalence in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East. Second, the Birth Defects Lab (BDL), which will address a broad spectrum of birth defects such as congenital heart defects. Finally, the Therapy Developmental Lab (TDL) is intended to take what is learned in the Brain and Birth defects labs and begin converting the discoveries into improved treatments and prevention tools.

Furthermore, Dr. Alaamery is the Director of the KACST-satellite NGHA Saudi genome lab. In addition, she is the principal investigator of the therapy development joint KACST-KAIMRC program and the principle investigator of the KAIMRC genetic analysis and mapping in families with brain malformation study as well as the study of genetic analysis in patients with non-syndromic congenital heart defects. In addition, she is the Co-principal investigator of the genetic track of the Biomedicine Center of Excellence BWH-Harvard affiliated hospital-KACST (CEBM) that focuses on modulation of sphingolipid metabolism to arrest neurodegeneration.

Formerly, Dr. Alaamery was an instructor at the Harvard Medical School and Children’s Hospital Boston where she received her clinical and post-doctorate training at the Harvard Medical School Genetics Program. She completed her training at the Laboratory of Molecular Medicine (LMM) at Harvard University and at the Walsh lab at Children’s Hospital Boston. During her training she focused on Neurological disorders, Hypertrophic and Dilated Cardiomyopathies, Hearing loss, Noonan spectrum, Connective tissue disorders, and Pharmacogenetics. She also holds a Doctoral (Ph.D.) degree in Molecular Genetics & Biology from Boston College where she used classical genetics with molecular biology to study cAMP signaling pathway in yeast and further utilized this mechanism to conduct high-throughput drug screens at the Broad Institute which led to the discovery of novel compounds that have potential in treating certain types of cancer. In addition, she holds a Master of Science in Clinical Microbiology from Thomas Jefferson University. In her Master studies she focused on analyzing the genetic variation of HIV-1 to study the mechanism of molecular evolution of HIV-1.