Arab Health 2022: A new paradigm of health and wellness

During the last week of January, Eagle Genomics’ Senior Scientist Dr Neerupma Bhardwaj attended Arab Health 2022 and Expo 2020 in Dubai, UAE. She described the event as "a great platform to network, have thought provoking conversations, boost innovations, develop future visions, and help fill the gaps with new potential collaborations.” 

Arab Health is the largest healthcare exhibition and congress in the Middle East. It brings the healthcare world together every year to network, learn about the latest innovations, share experience and conduct business.

Dr Neerupma Bhardwaj, Senior Scientist at Eagle Genomics, delivering a presentation. Image credit: Ellis Emwanta. 

From the conversations, panel discussions and talks held at both conferences, attendees took away a very important message: It is important to better identify and study the differences and boundaries between healthcare and 'sick care'.  

This means developing a better understanding of how to stay healthy and avoid reaching a certain stage of sickness, including how our lifestyle, food, environment, and day-to-day activities affect health and well-being. We should invest more in maintaining a healthy state by promoting prevention, early diagnostics and personalized treatments. 

To help achieve this, we can apply technology-based solutions to healthcare at a global level. Having one common AI-augmented platform, for example, would enable us to understand and analyze data at both regional and individual levels, as well as prevention and treatment measures, in a way that could empower data-driven innovations in the sector.

Snapshot of the session ‘How will we Thrive?’ at the UK pavilion, Expo 2020. Image credit: Neerupma Bhardwaj.

At Eagle Genomics, we are looking forward to further engaging with Arab organizations to develop AI-driven solutions in healthcare and other areas, especially to help combat regional challenges such as metabolic health and cancer.  

Finally, we would like to thank the organizers of Arab Health and Expo 2020 and congratulate them for a fantastic event. A special recognition to the UK’s Department for International Trade (DIT), the UK Pavilion and DIT’s Ellis Emwanta and Tarah Stevenson for all their support.