Established in 1994, the Biomedical Center Complex at Al-Quds University is a joint center for five faculties: Dentistry, Pharmacy, Science & Technology, Health Professions, and Medicine. It is the first medical school in Palestine and the center of accreditation for all medical laboratories in Palestine. Al-Quds tests and analyzes the results generated by all of the country’s medical laboratories.

In addition to undergraduate offerings in health sciences, Al-Quds offers Master’s degrees in medical imaging, public health, and pharmaceuticals. They have also been accredited to offer Palestine’s first PhD program in public health.

Al-Quds University is the first institution in Palestine to receive an Instrumental Access award.

While there is no cure for cancer, many chemical compounds contain potent anticancer properties. Mohammad Abul Haj, PhD, (right) associate professor and dean of the Faculty of Science and Technology at Al-Quds University, is working to synthesize and characterize new compounds that have such properties.

As a chemist who specializes in metallic compounds, Dr. Mohammad is taking one particular organic compound and combining it with platinum group metals, a process known as complexation. He then plans to characterize the combination and test it for anticancer properties.

The project is also an opportunity to train graduate students in the field of synthetic organic chemistry, which requires an intense amount of hands-on experience in the lab. Mentoring graduate students, in particular, is one of Dr. Mohammad’s passions and "the most important part" of his life.

In addition to increasing access for graduate students, Instrumental Access equipment will help the faculty at Al-Quds collaborate with other cancer researchers across the world. Dr. Mohammad sees the potential for this equipment to make collaboration seamless.

"My type of research needs collaboration with experts working in the field to test the synthesized drugs for their activity," he says. "Having the right instrumentation is very important for the progress of these types of projects."