Khalid Al Balushi

• PhD Therapeutics
• Dean at National University of Science and Technology, Oman

Proteolysis-targeting technology is a new emerging technique to target mutated, denatured, and misfolded proteins that accumulate in various parts of the body. The accumulation of these aggregated harmful proteins, such as β-amyloid (Aβ), tau, mHTT, polyglutamates, and other proteins in the brain, are some of the reasons for the development of neur...

Variation in genes involved in the absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion of drugs (ADME) can influence individual response to therapeutic treatment. Study of ADME genetic diversity in human populations has led to evolutionary hypotheses of adaptation to distinct chemical environments. Population differentiation in measured drug metabo...

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that still has no permanent cure. The drugs prescribed in the present days are only for symptomatic relief for the patients. Many studies correlating the reduction in the incidence of AD with the diet consumed have been published. These studies showed that a diet rich in polyphenol...

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurological disorder that leads to dementia i.e., progressive memory loss accompanied with worsening of thinking ability of an individual. The cause of AD is not fully understood but it progresses with age where brain cells gradually die over time. According to WHO, currently 50 million people worldwide are affected b...

Introduction Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is one of the most common and prevalent forms of neurodegenerative diseases. Coumarin is a versatile scaffold that exhibits a wide range of biological properties including cholinesterase inhibitory activity and therefore is an important heterocyclic moiety to develop anti-AD drugs. Objectives This study aimed...

Background: Busulfan (Bu) is an alkylating drug used in many preparative regimens before hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). It is conjugated in the liver mainly by glutathione S-transferase isoenzyme A1-1 (GSTA1). Genetic polymorphisms in these isoenzymes may affect the pharmacokinetics of Bu and the clinical outcomes of HSCT. This st...

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative old age disease that is complex, multifactorial, unalterable, and progressive in nature. The currently approved therapy includes cholinesterase inhibitors, NMDA-receptor antagonists and their combination therapy provides only temporary symptomatic relief. Sincere efforts have been made by the research...

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a major progressive and perplexing cortical degenerative disease of the brain in the elderly. It contributes to a significant socio-economic burden on patients, families, and care providers in comparison to cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and stroke in general. Recently, a hybridized approach based on multi-target direc...

Introduction Malaria, a devastating infectious parasitic disease, has been recognized by the World Health organization (WHO) as a major public health problem worldwide. It is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in the developing countries. There are fewer number of the antimalarial drugs available in the market to combat this deadl...

Objectives: We sought to assess medications prescribed to patients attending the Dental and Maxillofacial Surgery (DMS) clinic at Sultan Qaboos University Hospital (SQUH), Oman. Methods: This was a retrospective cross-sectional study covering a six-month period from January to June 2018 including a sample of patients attending the DMS clinic. Dr...

Background A novel corona virus-2 disease has spread to 213 countries and territories across the globe. The corona pandemic has claimed more than 548,934 deaths worldwide till the evening of 8th of July 2020 and the number of confirmed cases is increasing at an alarming rate. Therefore, there is an urgent need to find a treatment or a vaccine for C...

Introduction and Objective Cytochrome P450 enzymes are the major drug-metabolizing enzymes in humans and the importance of drug transport proteins, in particular P-glycoprotein, in the variability of drug response has also been highlighted. Activity of cytochrome P450 enzymes and P-glycoprotein can vary widely between individuals and genotyping and...

Drug prescribing to the elderly increases the risk of potential adverse drug reactions as well as potentially inappropriate medications. The goal of this study was to describe drug prescribing patterns in elderly patients and to measure the prevalence of potentially inappropriate medications using updated Beers’ criteria and the STOPP criteria. Thi...

We investigated some reproductive actions of hookah smoke (HS) exposure (30 min/day, for 30 days) in male mice, and the possible mitigative effect of the prebiotic agent gum acacia (GA) thereon. Control mice were air-exposed (AE). Twenty-four hours after the last exposure, the levels of some plasma reproductive hormones, biochemical markers of infl...

We investigated some effects of water pipe smoke (WPS) exposure (30 min/day, for 30 days) in male mice, and the possible ameliorative of gum acacia (GA) coadministration thereon. Controls were exposed to air‐only (AE). Twenty‐four hours post last exposure, the levels of some plasma reproductive hormones, biochemical markers of inflammation, oxidati...

There is a worldwide increase in the popularity of water pipe (shisha) tobacco smoking including in Europe and North America. However, little is known about the effects of water pipe smoke (WPS) exposure on male reproductivity. We have recently demonstrated that WPS exposure in mice induces testicular toxicity including inflammation and oxidative s...

Potassium bromate (KBrO3) is used in many countries in cosmetic and food industries. In this work, we investigated in male Sprague-Dawley rats, the effect of four graded oral doses of KBrO3 (5, 15, 45 and 135 mg/kg/day for 28 days) on renal function tests, inflammation, oxidative damage, and apoptosis, as well as on histopathology, using several tr...

There is a global increase in the popularity of water-pipe tobacco smoking including in Europe and North America. Nevertheless, little is known about the male reproductive effects of water-pipe smoke (WPS), especially after long-term exposure. Here, we assessed effects of WPS exposure (30 min/day) in male mice for 6 months. Control mice were expose...

Objectives: The objective of this study was to evaluate the drug prescribing trends in the intensive care unit (ICU) and correlate them with the disease patterns and patients’ outcomes. Methods: The case records of patients admitted to the ICU at Sultan Qaboos University Hospital, a teaching hospital in Oman, during a 5-month period between June 1s...

Introduction: Inappropriate use of antifungal agents is implicated in the global burden of antifungal resistance, adverse outcomes like persistent infections, unnecessary exposure and increased cost. Data collection from time to time is to be done in order to have a check on the resistance/sensitivity pattern of the commonly prescribed antifungal...

Objective This study evaluates the patterns of prescription drugs use among women attending antenatal clinic at Sultan Qaboos University Hospital (SQUH) and SQUH Family and Community Medicine clinic (FAMCO), Oman. Methods The study was a descriptive retrospective cross-sectional study on pregnant women who attended the antenatal clinic at SQUH and...

Objectives: This study aimed to assess the distribution of missense mutations in the adrenoceptor β2 (ADRB2) gene in an Omani cohort. Methods: This study was carried out between May 2014 and March 2015 at the Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Oman. Blood samples were taken from 316 unrelated Omani subjects. Genotyping for rs1042713 (c.46A>G, p.A...

Subjects with chronic renal failure (CRF) exhibit oxidative genome damage, which may predispose to carcinogenesis, and Gum acacia (GumA) ameliorates this condition in humans and animals. We evaluated here renal DNA damage and urinary excretion of four nucleic acid oxidation adducts namely 8-oxoguanine (8-oxoGua), 8-oxo-7,8-dihydro-2'-deoxyguanosine...

Background/aims: Water-pipe smoking (WPS) is popular in the Middle East and is starting to gain popularity in several Western countries as well. It is widely and erroneously perceived to be less harmful than other forms of tobacco use. The reproductive adverse effects of cigarette smoking have been studied before with conflicting results, but data...

Objectives: This study aimed to evaluate antibiotic prescribing patterns for paediatric patients at Sultan Qaboos University Hospital (SQUH), a tertiary care hospital in Muscat, Oman. Methods: This retrospective cross-sectional study included all 1,186 prescriptions issued for 499 patients at the paediatric outpatient clinic and paediatric inpat...

Different modes of exercise are reported to be beneficial in subjects with chronic kidney disease (CKD). Similar benefits have also been ascribed to the dietary supplement gum acacia (GA). Using several physiological, biochemical, immunological, and histopathological measurements, we assessed the effect of swimming exercise (SE) on adenine -induced...

To investigate the effect of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) on acute renal injury (ARI), we used here a rat model of acute tubular necrosis induced by the anticancer drug cisplatin (CP). GABA was given orally (100 or 500 mg/kg/day for ten consecutive days), and on the 6th day, some of the treated rats were also injected intraperitoneally with eithe...

To determine the status of blood sugar control by using fasting blood sugar (FBS) of ≤6.1mmol/l and glycosyted hemoglobin A1c (HbAc1) of <7% as indictors of glycemic control and to assess the influence of demographic, blood pressure (BP) and lipid characteristics on glycemic control. This retrospective study included all Omani patients with type 2...

The aim of this study was to assess the prescribing trends and costs of drugs in the emergency department (ED) at Sultan Qaboos University Hospital (SQUH), a tertiary care hospital, in Muscat, the Sultanate of Oman. This was a retrospective cross-sectional study of all patients (n = 300) who attended the ED at SQUH in May 2012. Analyses were perfor...

The aim of this study was to describe the antimicrobial prescription patterns of patients with hematological malignancies who developed febrile neutropenia (FN) at Sultan Qaboos University Hospital (SQUH) in Oman. This was a retrospective observational study covering a period of 3 years (January 2007-February 2010). FN episodes were studied in pati...

Evidence suggests that medication errors have a higher incidence in children and infants than in adults. At present, there is limited local data that investigates the drug prescription trends in pediatric populations. This study aims at understanding drug utilization patterns in pediatric patients at Sultan Qaboos University Hospital (SQUH), Oman....

Objective: To compare blood pressure (BP) control in patients receiving irbesartan/hydrochlorothiazide (HCTZ) and valsartan/HCTZ at a tertiary care university hospital in Oman. Subjects and methods: This was a retrospective observational study, where 232 patients' medical records were reviewed during a 3-month period, July to September 2010, at...

Pulmonary function measures reflect respiratory health and are used in the diagnosis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. We tested genome-wide association with forced expiratory volume in 1 second and the ratio of forced expiratory volume in 1 second to forced vital capacity in 48,201 individuals of European ancestry with follow up of the top...

Pulmonary function measures reflect respiratory health and are used in the diagnosis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. We tested genome-wide association with forced expiratory volume in 1 second and the ratio of forced expiratory volume in 1 second to forced vital capacity in 48,201 individuals of European ancestry with follow up of the top...

Pulmonary function measures reflect respiratory health and are used in the diagnosis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. We tested genome-wide association with forced expiratory volume in 1 second and the ratio of forced expiratory volume in 1 second to forced vital capacity in 48,201 individuals of European ancestry with follow up of the top...

This study was conducted to determine the frequency of CYP2C9 alleles in Omani patients receiving warfarin and to correlate genotyping data with warfarin dosage. The Omani population has Asian and African ethnicities. CYP2C9 genotypes were determined by the polymerase chain reaction restriction fragment length polymorphism method. Non-parametric Kr...

Functionally relevant polymorphisms of the beta2-adrenoceptor gene (ADRB2) are common in white populations, but their contribution to the burden of airways disease in the population is uncertain. We aimed to relate the long-term prevalence of asthma or wheeze to functional coding region polymorphisms in the ADRB2 gene. The British 1958 birth cohort...

Hypertension is a complex multifactorial disorder with genetic, environmental and demographic factors contributing to its prevalence. The genetic element contribution to blood pressure variation ranges from 30 to 50%. Therefore, identifying hypertension susceptibility genes will help understanding the pathophysiology of the disease. In addition to...

To describe the pharmaceutical use, health care resource utilisation patterns, and annual direct medical cost of epilepsy as well as determining the impact of various demographic and clinical characteristics on total costs of epilepsy in Oman. Medical and pharmacy data were collected for 6 months on all patients aged > or =13 years attending the Su...

to determine the genotypes of arylamine N-acetyltransferase (NAT2) among 127 unrelated apparently healthy Omanis. Identify the most common known polymorphisms of NAT*2 gene namely, G(191)A, C(282)T, C(341)T, C(481)T, G(590)A, A(803)G and G(857)A using PCR-RFLP analysis. Eleven allele variants (3 alternative) and 30 different genotypes were determin...

To get an insight into the type and aetiology of epileptic seizures; to describe the drug utilization pattern of anti-epileptic drugs (AEDs) for the treatment of various forms of epileptic seizures in this tertiary referral centre in Oman; and to compare our drug utilization pattern with that from other countries. In addition, the tolerability of A...