Nature Middle East Launches

LONDON, March 17, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Nature Middle East launches today at http://www.nature.com/naturemiddleeast. The new website from Nature Publishing Group (NPG) showcases scientific and medical research from the Arabic-speaking Middle East region and is continuously updated with articles in English and Arabic. The King Abdullah International Medical Research Center (KAIMRC), at King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences (KSAU-HS), Saudi Arabia, is sponsoring Nature Middle East.

Nature Middle East features news, features, and short 'Research Highlights'. Written by the Nature Middle East editorial team, 'Research Highlights' are summaries of interesting, recently-published papers, authored by researchers based in the Middle East region, from across the scientific and medical literature. Local job listings are provided by NatureJobs, and event listings by Nature Events. A blog, House of Wisdom, and a forum on Nature Network enable the community to connect, network and exchange information and ideas.

"We are proud to be launching Nature Middle East, which reflects our growing commitment to a region with a proud scientific history and a promising future," comments David Swinbanks, Publishing Director for NPG. "We believe this launch is particularly timely, as nations from across the region increase their investment in science and medical research facilities and programmes. Nature Middle East will be the place to keep in touch with these exciting new developments."

Nature Middle East currently covers the following: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestinian territories, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Additional countries in the region may be added as Nature Middle East develops.

"We are happy to partner with NPG on this important initiative," said Dr Bandar Alknawy, President of the King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences (KSAU-HS. "Nature Middle East is an important resource to facilitate communication between researchers and champion the best of the research from Arabic-speaking nations in the Middle East." Dr Mohammed Aljumah, The Executive Director of the King Abdullah International Medical Research Center also commented: "We are confident that this initiative among many other capacity building initiatives that we are undertaking will help leapfrog our region to the forefront of discovery and innovation."

Nature Middle East Editor Mohammed Yahia has been actively promoting science in the Middle East region for a number of years. Prior to joining Nature Middle East, Mohammed was the MENA region coordinator for the website SciDev.Net and has worked as a reporter, editor, and consultant.

Nature Middle East is NPG's third major portal focusing on emerging areas in scientific and medical research, following the launch of Nature India in February 2008 and Nature China in 2007. Nature.com regions pages are also available, including dedicated pages for several non-Arabic speaking countries in the Middle East. These sites bring together relevant high-quality research, news, opinion and business content, from the Nature family of journals, Scientific American and other NPG resources.

The launch of Nature Middle East will be formally celebrated at the Saudi eHealth conference (http://www.saudiehealth.org) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in May 2010.

Links:

Nature Middle East: http://www.nature.com/naturemiddleeast

House of Wisdom blog: http://blogs.nature.com/houseofwisdom/

    Nature Middle East forum:
http://network.nature.com/groups/nmiddleeast/forum

Nature regions: http://www.nature.com/regions

Launch of Nature India (press release, February 2008): http://www.nature.com/press_releases/nature_india.pdf

Launch of Nature China (press release, February 2007): http://www.nature.com/press_releases/Nature_China_launches.pdf

About The King Abdullah International Medical Research Center (KAIMRC)

The King Abdullah International Medical Research Center (KAIMRC) was created with the primary vision of becoming the leading translational medical research center in the region. They aim to provide the infrastructure necessary for all health care providers of NGHA, from Saudi Arabia and the region at large to engage in translational research, with broad collaborative research capabilities. For more information, see http://www.kaimrc.med.sa/

About Nature Publishing Group (NPG):

Nature Publishing Group (NPG) is a publisher of high impact scientific and medical information in print and online. NPG publishes journals, online databases and services across the life, physical, chemical and applied sciences and clinical medicine.

For more information, please go to http://www.nature.com.

SOURCE Nature Publishing Group (NPG)