UAE healthcare sector advances in 2025 with rare surgeries, innovative treatments
18 Apr 2025 14:13
ABU DHABI (WAM)The UAE's healthcare sector has reinforced its leading position since the beginning of the year through a series of rare surgical procedures and the adoption of innovative treatments for critical illnesses, underscoring the high calibre of medical expertise across various specialties.The UAE has transformed its healthcare system into a globally advanced model by investing in cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence, therapeutic robots, and 3D printing to enhance the quality and sustainability of care.Kings College Hospital London Dubai announced on Thursday the city's first liver transplant on an infant, a 13-month-old child, with the support of Al Jalila Foundation – the philanthropic arm of Dubai Health. The child was born with a rare condition known as biliary atresia, which caused his health to deteriorate despite an earlier surgical procedure to connect his liver to his intestines. He was also diagnosed with a congenital heart defect (atrial septal defect). The child was referred to King's College Hospital in Dubai by Al Jalila Children's Hospital, following the cardiac repair procedure.Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi performed the world's first remotely conducted transcontinental robotic-assisted focal therapy for prostate cancer. Focal therapy is a non-invasive treatment that precisely targets a specific section of the prostate using ultrasound beams, eliminating the need for major surgery or radiation. The Focal-One system enhances this approach with a robotic arm that ensures precise and controlled ultrasound delivery.In January, Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi also announced the UAE's first simultaneous robotic kidney transplant procedure for a donor and recipient using one robot.Corniche Hospital has successfully performed a minimally invasive laparoscopic procedure for egg collection and freezing, a cutting-edge technique representing a significant leap forward in reproductive medicine.The UAE's medical sector has also seen significant progress in implementing new and innovative treatments this year. In January, the Abu Dhabi Stem Cells Centre reported promising results in treating Type 1 diabetes using umbilical cord-derived mesenchymal stem cell (UC-MSC) therapy.The Emirates Health Services (EHS) unveiled two innovative projects – an Artificial Heart Transplantation and an Pancreatic Cell Transplantation at Arab Health 2025 in January.In April, the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi also completed a groundbreaking clinical trial in Abu Dhabi. The treatment, StromaForte, has shown a favourable safety profile and significant therapeutic potential for knee osteoarthritis, marking a significant step in evaluating cell-based therapies for degenerative joint diseases.M42, a leading global health technology company powered by AI, is meanwhile set to build a heavy ion therapy facility at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, bringing one of the most advanced and effective cancer treatment technologies to the Middle East.
During Abu Dhabi Global Healthcare Week 2025, which concluded on Thursday, Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi also unveiled initiatives and new technologies to improve cancer patient care, including an innovative remote monitoring programme, using the BioButton wearable device, for cancer patients at the Fatima Bint Mubarak Centre.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Al Etihad
an hour ago
- Al Etihad
UAE showcases sustainable vision for human development, and balanced, agile labour market at International Labour Conference
4 June 2025 20:23 GENEVA (WAM)The UAE joined the 113th International Labour Conference held in Geneva, Switzerland, where it showcased its pioneering experience, sustainable vision for human development, leadership in embracing innovative economic strategies, and efforts to develop a balanced and agile labour were some key highlights in the keynote address delivered by Dr. Abdulrahman Al Awar, Minister of Human Resources and Emiratisation, Acting Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, and head of the UAE delegation to the main session of the Conference. The meeting is set to continue until June 13, 2025, bringing together representatives from the governments of ILO member states, along with advocates for employers and workers.'The Report of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Director-General being discussed at this year's Conference presents a comprehensive vision that resonates with the UAE's approach to developing a balanced and agile labour market that places people at the core of its priorities,' he said in his address.'Guided by the forward-thinking vision of its wise leadership, the UAE has succeeded in transforming global challenges into development opportunities built on economic efficiency, equity, and a strong commitment to decent work standards," Al Awar Awar explained that the UAE has adopted a pioneering model for economic diversification, with non-oil sectors contributing 74% of the country's GDP by the end of last year, and GDP expected to grow by more than 4% this year, according to a World Bank report. He noted that this forms part of a holistic vision for an economic model centred around partnership, flexibility, and an empowering environment that champions innovation and the knowledge economy, and embraces modern technological developments in the labour market, all while maintaining the UAE's strategic approach to invest in people and empower human Awar further highlighted the UAE's human development efforts, which led to the Emirates being ranked in the Very High Human Development category in the 2025 Human Development Index Report issued by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), placing first in the region for the second consecutive year and ranking 15th globally among 193 milestone, Al Awar said, affirms the UAE's commitment to a comprehensive development vision that puts people at the heart of national policies through an integrated system serving vital sectors such as health, education, and living standards. In effect, this positions the UAE as a global model for sustainability, human capital empowerment, and building a future with vast prospects and empowerment opportunities.'According to the report, the UAE recorded the third-highest net global inflow of talent specialising in artificial intelligence via LinkedIn in 2023, showcasing the country's ability to attract global expertise and confirming its status as a leading talent hub in this vital field,'' Al Awar his remarks, he added, "The UAE has recognised the structural transformations underway in the labour market and the importance of adapting to them. To that end, the Emirates has sought to develop a pioneering legislative framework suited to this new era, reinforcing a robust system for labour protection, and working to ensure balance in safeguarding workers' and employers' rights. This included the launch of a range of initiatives covering all categories of workers in the UAE, including the Workers Protection Programme, Unemployment Insurance Scheme, the Savings Scheme, Wage Protection System, and Health Insurance System.'Al Awar went on to assert that the UAE's efforts have directly impacted its labour market and sustainable development. The UAE labour market experienced a 17% growth in new private sector companies, and an increase of over 12% in the overall workforce by the end of 2024, while the number of skilled professionals rose by over a 13%, more than half of whom are young people. Similarly, women's participation in the national labour market also grew by around 21%.Al Awar confirmed that this remarkable growth in the labour market, coupled with the UAE's modern regulatory frameworks, has allowed the country to earn the top global ranks in nine global competitiveness indicators in 2024, including employment rate, talent attraction, and labour market flexibility. The achievements are the result of the UAE's forward-thinking and agile policies and its continuous focus on attracting and investing in talent and UAE delegation to the International Labour Conference 2025 included Shayma Alawadhi, Acting Undersecretary of Labour Market Development & Regulation, and Assistant Undersecretary for Communications & International Relations at MoHRE; Hind bint Suleiman, Vice President of the Employers' Group at the Arab Labour Organisation (ALO); and Counsellor Zayed Al Shamsi, Chairman of the UAE Association for the Coordination of Professional Associations, along with ministry officials, business leaders, and representatives of civil organisations in the Conference aims to deepen understanding and align perspectives on proposed solutions to fundamental labour market challenges, focusing on promoting social justice and underlining the critical role equality plays in ensuring sustainable economic Conference also stresses the significance of integration between elements of the 'Development Triangle', comprising employment, rights, and growth, highlighting how economic growth leads to decent job creation and fosters respect for labour rights. The meeting flags an array of key challenges including technological advancements, demographic shifts, climate change, and fluctuating trade dynamics, calling for closer inspection of these factors to present sustainable, adaptable responses to them.
Khaleej Times
3 hours ago
- Khaleej Times
UAE: Student develops AI system to help police detect crimes before they happen
A member of Dubai Police, and inspired researcher, has developed a homegrown system that could take crime prevention one step further — by detecting it before it happens. Dr Salem AlMarri, the first Emirati to earn a Ph.D. from the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI), has designed a video anomaly detection (VAD) system capable of identifying unusual behaviour in real-time. The technology could, in theory, alert authorities to suspicious or harmful activity before a formal complaint is ever made, or even before a crime is committed. 'Today, we understand how a human or object looks and moves. But how do we understand something that breaks the pattern, [like] an anomaly?' AlMarri said in an interview with Khaleej Times. 'A person walking in a very weird manner could mean something is going on. It could be an accident, or a hazard, or a fight unfolding. Anomalies have different meanings in real life; and we're training AI to recognise them.' While the field of anomaly detection has existed for decades, AlMarri's research brings the concept into the realm of video and audio. Using AI, his model is trained to distinguish between normal and abnormal footage. For example, learning to identify when an incident like a robbery or assault is taking place, even if it unfolds in a subtle or non-violent manner. As an example, he cited a hypothetical scene where a man walks up to a cashier and asks for money, politely. 'A normal camera won't know what's happening, it will just see a generous cashier handing money to somebody.' But beneath the surface, the AI model may detect subtle cues like body posture, tone, micro-behaviours — that point to coercion or threat. The model must first 'understand what is normal and what is abnormal,' by being trained on large amounts of labelled footage, he explained. 'We need to show it footage of people just handling money in the normal fashion. And then we tell it, okay, this is where something bad happens — robbery, burglary, or whatever. It learns to tell the differences, like a human child. And if it predicts correctly, it gets rewarded.' Thousands of experiments AlMarri's research, carried out during his secondment from Dubai Police, involved thousands of training experiments using real-world datasets. To overcome a key challenge — that many videos don't clearly indicate when an abnormal event begins, he designed a new approach. 'I shuffled different segments of videos to create a custom dataset, one moment showing a road accident, the next showing people walking normally in a mall, then a street fight,' he explained, 'this way, the model learned to recognise when something shifted from normal to abnormal.' His work also tackled real-world obstacles that could hinder performance. He developed a benchmark that allows the model to function even when one input, audio or video, is corrupted. This has major implications in the UAE, where weather conditions like fog can obstruct video clarity. 'If there's heavy fog or noise distortion, many models fail. So we trained ours to rely on one modality if the other is compromised. This is crucial for environments like autonomous driving or surveillance during poor visibility,' he pointed. The flagship findings are part of his Ph.D. thesis at MBZUAI, conducted under the supervision of Professor Karthik Nandakumar in the Sprint AI lab, which focuses on security, privacy, and preservation technologies. Like father, like son AlMarri's journey is rooted in a childhood filled with invention. His father, an engineer, built a screw-free wind turbine in the 1990s, a computer interface for people with no limbs, and a digital attendance system for police officers — long before such technologies were mainstream. 'It was a personal challenge for me, to at least try to come close to his achievements, to carry on his legacy.' After joining Dubai Police in 2016 and working on robotics and drones, he pursued further education in AI to stay relevant as the department transformed into a data-driven force. 'Within the police, our department went from being a smart service department to an AI department. I felt like I was being outpaced,' he recalled. Following a master's in electrical engineering at Rochester Institute of Technology, he was selected for MBZUAI's first Ph.D. cohort in computer vision - a move he describes as transformative. "MBZUAI humbled me,' described the 30-year-old. 'I had won competitions and worked on great projects, but this was something different. I was challenged over and over. When I walked out the door, I thought I didn't know anything. But when I came into reality, I realised I had been equipped to face any challenge.' The road ahead AlMarri is now preparing to return to Dubai Police and hopes to present his work to senior leadership. While the system has not yet been implemented by the police, he believes it could have significant value.'They have done exceptionally,' he said, referring to the force's AI capabilities. '[The technology] works. It can be deployed. It's up to them how they want to use it.' He expressed confidence that Dubai Police, a recognised leader in smart policing, would be well-positioned to integrate the research. 'They've reached a high level of maturity in AI. I believe I'm returning to an entity that can make effective use of what I've worked on, and I hope to contribute to their development journey. If we have this conversation in a year, the impact will be evident,' he said confidently. As for what's next, AlMarri hopes to publish research regularly, mentor young talent, and continue innovating - always with the goal of giving back to his country. 'I've been blessed to be the first Emirati Ph.D. from MBZUAI,' he noted. 'That comes with responsibility. Research is one way to give back, not just to science, but to the UAE.'
Al Etihad
3 hours ago
- Al Etihad
At least 97 Palestinians killed over last 24 hours
4 June 2025 18:48 GAZA (WAM)Over the last 24 hours alone, 97 Palestinian bodies, including two recently recovered, were brought to hospitals, alongside 440 wounded sources in Gaza reported Wednesday that the death toll from Israel's ongoing military offensive has reached 54,607, the vast majority of whom are women and children, since the start of the war on October 7, 2023. Since March 18, 2025, health authorities report 4,335 deaths and more than 13,300 injuries—figures that continue to climb daily.
