Sharjah researchers push local data and AI for earlier cancer detection

Researchers at the University of Sharjah are calling for cancer screening and treatment strategies built on local evidence in the UAE, arguing that regional patterns require different age thresholds and diagnostics. The symposium also highlighted how biomarkers and carefully validated AI tools could improve earlier detection and more precise care.

Why it matters: - Cancer patterns in the UAE do not always match global trends, so screening programs built for other populations can miss risk patterns seen locally. - Researchers said locally driven strategies could reduce cancer burden by improving early detection, earlier treatment, and more precise care. - The symposium framed AI, biomarkers, and routine lab testing as tools that can support earlier diagnosis, but only if they are validated on regional data.

What happened: - The University of Sharjah held a two-day symposium, “Cancer Research: Genomics, AI, and Targeted Therapies,” on 20-21 May. - Researchers, clinicians, laboratory specialists, computer scientists, and drug discovery experts from the UAE, Spain, and Russia took part. - Discussions focused on breast, thyroid, colorectal, and prostate cancers, with an emphasis on adapting screening and treatment to local patient populations. - The event centered on the UAE, but speakers said the message applies more broadly to cancer care systems that rely on imported evidence.

The details: - Professor Riyad Bendardaf, director of the Centre of Excellence for Cancer Research at the University of Sharjah, said UAE cancer patterns differ from global trends and need population-specific prevention strategies. - Bendardaf said proper screening and diagnostic tools could cut the cancer burden in the UAE by 40%. - He said screening programs for breast, thyroid, and colorectal cancers could reduce that burden by 56.7%. - Bendardaf pointed to thyroid cancer as a local outlier, noting that the UAE profile does not mirror international figures. - He said 43.8% of female cancer patients in the UAE are under 50. - Based on that age distribution, Bendardaf said screening should begin 10 years earlier than age 40. - Dr. Noura Ali Alikhayal, laboratory director at University Hospital Sharjah, said routine lab tests remain the foundation of cancer monitoring and treatment safety. - Alikhayal said hemoglobin levels can help assess disease severity, treatment toxicity, tolerance, and transfusion need. - She said lymphocyte counts can reflect immune status, while an elevated neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio has been associated with poor prognosis. - Alikhayal said electrolyte imbalance is among the most common metabolic complications in oncology patients. - She said proactive electrolyte monitoring and early intervention are essential to prevent life-threatening complications during treatment. - Prof. Rifat Hamoudi, director of the Research Institute for Medical and Health Sciences at UoS, presented work on early-stage colorectal cancer biomarkers using convolutional neural networks. - Hamoudi said colorectal cancer is one of the top three cancers worldwide and has high incidence and mortality. - He said the disease is hard to catch early because symptoms can be subtle. - Hamoudi said interdisciplinary collaboration at UoS across pharmacy, health sciences, oncology, and pathology can produce more meaningful answers. - He said focusing on only one field can limit understanding of how cancer works.

Between the lines: - The symposium showed a clear split between AI’s promise and its current clinical limits. - Speakers treated AI as a support tool, not a replacement for pathology, clinical judgment, or local evidence. - Generative AI drew the most caution, with researchers warning that outputs can look convincing while still being wrong. - The emphasis on local data reflects a broader push in precision medicine: therapies and screening schedules matter more when they match the population being treated.

What's next: - Researchers want screening programs and diagnostic pathways to be recalibrated using UAE-specific cancer data. - Future work will likely focus on stronger regional datasets, validated biomarkers, and AI models that are explainable and clinically relevant. - Dr. Svetlana Illarionova’s work on virtual staining points to more research on whether generative AI can safely support pathology workflows. - Dr. Maxim Sharaev said generative AI is best used for research tasks such as multimodal data integration, synthetic dataset generation, and expert knowledge embedding. - Sharaev said generated images should not be used directly in clinics, but can improve training and detection models.

The bottom line: - The University of Sharjah symposium argued that better cancer outcomes in the UAE depend on one core shift: use local evidence to guide screening, diagnosis, and AI-assisted care.