Jameel Fund
The Jameel Fund offers up to USD 65,000 for short-term, impactful projects at Imperial College London and King Abdulaziz University (KAU) to advance understanding, prevention, and treatment of coronaviruses and infectious diseases.
Established in 2021 by Community Jameel, the fund also fosters research collaboration between Imperial and Saudi universities.
The first round focused on coronaviruses, while the second expanded to include other respiratory diseases. Faculty researchers at Imperial and KAU are eligible to apply.
Documentary films
Research recipients
Each year, the Jameel Fund provides grants of up to $65,000 to propel short-term, high-impact project that aim to understand, prevent, diagnose and treat coronaviruses and other infectious diseases.
In 2021, the chosen projects included ground-breaking technology that enables rapid and effective RNA testing outside of laboratories, new methods to track variants, research into severe COVID-19 in children, and customisable respiratory protective equipment, highlighting the breadth of innovation happening at Imperial in the face of a global pandemic.
The projects are divided between Imperial College London and King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, with the aim of encouraging international research collaboration in this field.
The project chosen from King Abdulaziz University were:
Mohamed Ahmed Alfaleh (Faculty of Pharmacy): Retooling DPP4 immunoadhesins as decoy receptor to treat and prevent MERS-CoV infection
Muhammad Yasir Wali (King Fahd Center for Medical Research): Alteration of nasopharyngeal microbiota with COVID-19 and identification of secondary respiratory infections.
Hani Abdullah Alhadrami (College of Applied Medical Sciences): Nano Formulations of natural products-based SARS CoV-2 Mpro inhibitors as effective treatments for COVID-19.
Ayat Tariq Zawawi (College of Applied Medical Sciences): The potential use of helminth immunomodulatory products for COVID-19.
Thamir Alandijany (College of Applied Medical Sciences): Assessment of COVID-19 vaccine efficiency in inducing neutralizing immunity.
Ahdab A. AlSaieedi (College of Applied Medical Sciences): Characterizing the TCR repertoire diversity in COVID19 and MERS patients.
Leena Hussein Bajrai (College of Science): Insilico designing and evaluation of potential drugs against SARS-CoV-2.
Rowa Y. Alhabbab (College of Applied Medical Sciences): Combining serological testing and RT-PCR test for efficient detection of COVID19.
The projects chosen from Imperial College London were:
Dr Connor Myant (Dyson School of Design Engineering): Creating a 3D facial scanning mobile app for mass customisation of respiratory protective equipment (RPE) (e.g. masks and face shields)
Professor Paul Freemont and Dr Michael Crone (Department of Infectious Disease): Developing rapid diagnostic screening
Dr Vanessa Sancho-Shimizu (Department of Infectious Disease): Understanding severe illness in children linked to COVID-19
Dr Jesus Rodriguez Manzano (Department of Infectious Disease): DragonFly – a frugal, rapid, and sustainable point-of-care colorimetric solution for multi-pathogen detection
Dr Nishel Shah (Department of Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction): Do pregnancy-related immune changes modify immunity post COVID-19 infection and vaccination?
Each year, the Jameel Fund provides grants of up to $65,000 to propel short-term, high-impact project that aim to understand, prevent, diagnose and treat coronaviruses and other infectious diseases.
In 2021, the chosen projects included ground-breaking technology that enables rapid and effective RNA testing outside of laboratories, new methods to track variants, research into severe COVID-19 in children, and customisable respiratory protective equipment, highlighting the breadth of innovation happening at Imperial in the face of a global pandemic.
The projects are divided between Imperial College London and King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, with the aim of encouraging international research collaboration in this field.
The projects chosen from King Abdulaziz University are:
Dr Mohamed Ahmed Alfaleh (Department of Pharmaceutics): Tetravalent IgG-Fc fusion subunit vaccine against the two highly pathogenic human coronaviruses: MERSCoV and SARS-CoV-2
Dr Ayat Zawawi (Department of Medical Laboratory Sciences): Molecular mechanisms of host innate antiviral immune evasion by SARS-CoV2
Dr Maimonah Alghanmi (Department of Medical Laboratory Sciences): Isolation novel antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 for diagnostic applications using antibody phage display library
Dr Tarfa Altorki (Department of Medical Laboratory Sciences): Understanding the humoral and cellular immune response to SARS-CoV-2 infection or vaccine using Nasal-Associated Lymphoid Tissues model
Dr Ahmed Mohamed Sharif Hassan (Department of SIAU): Metagenomic of respiratory virome as an early warning and surveillance system for coronaviruses and other emerging and re-emerging zoonotic infections
Dr Isra Alsaady (Department of Medical Laboratory Sciences): Characterisation of extracellular vesicles from MERS-CoV infected cells
Dr Ahbad Abdulazim Alsaieedi (Department of Medical Laboratory Sciences): T-cell powerhouse: Exploring mitochondrial function and oxidative stress in COVID-19
The projects chosen from Imperial College London are:
Dr Roya Haghighat-Khah and Professor Andrea Crisanti (Department of Life Sciences): Functional genomics for prognosis on clinical nasopharyngeal swab samples
Professor Danny Altmann (Department of Immunology and Inflammation): Mechanisms of Long COVID variation over the menstrual cycle: does hormonal contraception ameliorate cyclical symptoms?
Dr James Harker (National Heart & Lung Institute): Investigating the role and mechanism of respiratory epithelial dysfunction in long COVID
Dr Cecilia Johansson (National Heart & Lung Institute): Understanding immunopathology after SARS-CoV-2 infection using a mouse model
Dr Nishel Shah (Department of Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction): Do pregnancy-related immune changes modify immunity post COVID-19 infection and vaccination?
Dr Aran Singanayagam (Department of Infectious Disease): Investigation into the role of airway microbial dysbiosis as a driver of post-viral lung fibrosis
