Message of the Director : Professor Reza Malekzadeh
Fifteen years ago, when I first moved from Shiraz University to Shariati Hospital of Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS) to continue my career in gastroenterology, I was the only faculty member. At that time, I was responsible for three gastroenterology fellows and a ward with 18 impatient beds. There was also a small endoscopy room. Teaching facilities were sparse and conducting meaningful research was a rather distant dream. Inspired by the enthusiasm and dedication of my young colleagues, the outline of a digestive disease research center was aketched. In 1993, with extensive help from my first research fellow, Dr. Behrooz Ziad Alizadeh, and Professor Sadegh massarat, who joined us a few months later, we informally established the first Iranian digestive disease research center now known as DDRC. We originally employed 5 of our gradates in gastroenterology, and 5 general physicians as research fellows.
With the establishment of DDRC, we were able to obtain institutional support from TUMS administration. We also received special financial support form the Ministry Of Health (MOH) and the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran. In 1996, with the persistent endeavor of its members, the MOH officially registered DDRC as the first independent digestive research center of Iran affiliated with Tehran University of Medical Sciences. Our primary goal was to function as a multidisciplinary center and to present a new model of clinical and translational research in Iran.
Our main aims were:
- Promote gastrointestinal and hepatic disease
– related research in an integrative, collaborative and multidisciplinary manner.
- Establish and implement programs for training young investigators in digestive disease-related research.
- Attract young talented graduates from TUMS and other Iranian Universities and help them pursue a carrier of combined clinical and research instead of a pure clinical carrier.
- Facilitate the transfer of basic research findings to combined clinical research.
- Focus research on main local and regional health issues by promoting collaborative research with other national and international research center.
The DDRC has since rapidly improved in terms of working space, facilities, research activities, and personnel. The most important part of the DDRC is its outstanding faculty and energetic research assistants whose timely, thoughtful and expert use of resources has made all the progress possible. These cohesive groups of enthusiastic researchers, trained physicians, and expert personnel in each field, have created an ideal setting for research and for providing diagnostic and therapeutic care in digestive and liver diseases to serve patients.
Currently we have a coherent and dedicated research group comprising 13 faculty members and more than 35 research fellow actively involved in various research fields including upper GI cancer, gastroesophageal reflux disease, Helicobacter pylori, inflammatory bowel disease, functional bowel disease, chronic hepatitis (especially viral and autoimmune) with emphasis on noninvasive markers and stem cell research, nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, celiac disease and gastrointestinal motility disorders especially achalasia.
Our main research is on GI cancers which constitutes 40% of all cancers in Iran. We have established two well equipped satellite research clinics for clinical and translational research in high incidence areas of esophageal and gastric cancer in north-east and north-west of Iran respectively. We have already finished our pilot phase of a large cohort study looking at the etiology of upper gastrointestinal malignancy in collaboration with IARC and other international research centers and have already started the main phase of this cohort study in north-east of Iran.
We have obtained several major grants from national and international research funding organization and the pharmaceutical industry and have established active research collaboration with first class research organization including NCI/NIH, IARC and many universities including John Hopkins, Cambridge, Glasgow, Leeds, Karolinska, Sydney, Melbourne, and Toronto.
According to the formal report of the national evaluation of medical research centers performed by the research deputy of MOH, our center is now (2004-2005) the top medical research center in clinical medicine and has had the highest scientific output in the country among all medial research centers. We have also received several prizes for our achievements.
The DDRC will continue to set the standard of excellence in patient care and clinical research and to serve millions of Iranian who suffer from GI cancers, chronic liver disease, gastroeesophageal reflux disease, inflammatory bowel disease, and other digestive and liver diseases by training world class gastroenterologists and performing clinical and translation research well into the 21st century.
