This Saudi Gazette piece reports on a Saudi researcher, working on his PhD in the UK, who discovered and patented four new genes related to anti-antibiotic activity. I think it goes to show that there’s nothing wrong with Saudi minds, but those who are restricted to Saudi educational facilities have a steeper hill to climb in seeking scientific achievement. It also suggests that the Saudi government knows very well what it is doing in providing foreign scholarships to Saudi students.

Saudi student discovers four new genes

London – The Scientific community in Edinburgh, UK, has celebrated a breakthrough by a Saudi student.

Abdurrahman Bin Abdulhadi Al-Sultan, a Saudi postgraduate student, has patented four new genes he had recently discovered.

Sultan outlined the new genes in a doctorate thesis he is pursuing at Edinburgh University in Scotland.

The four new genes, of type OXA, are classified among 55 other geneses that strip antibiotics of their effectiveness. They are called “Lactam Antibiotics.”

The four new genes Sultan patented belong to the OXA type. They had been isolated from diabetic patients in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province. Sultan named them OXA-130-131-OXA-132-OXA-90.

Abdul-Rahman has registered the new discovery in his name and under the name of Edinburgh University at the Central Gene Bank at Lehigh Clinic in the US.

The four genes have been documented and registered classified under the following numbers:
OXA-90EU547445, OXA-132, EU54744, OXA131-EU547443, OXA -130.

The discovery of the genes came within a PhD thesis that Sultan had been working on it about three years.

The importance of the discovery stems from the fact that these genes neutralize antibiotics in patients suffering from “Acinetobacter Baunmannii,” a species of pathogenic bacteria that forms opportunistic infections. It preys exclusively on weaker patients.
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