Supporting the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's efforts to promote scientific research and education, SEDCO Holding Company, the Jeddah-based private Islamic wealth management company, has made a research grant to King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), with which the university's Development and Global Collaborative Research has created the SEDCO Research Excellence Award, a new program that will fund a three-year multidisciplinary research project at KAUST. The recipient of the SEDCO Research Excellence Award is a team of six senior faculty members of KAUST who submitted the winning research proposal titled "The Deep-Sea Brine Pools of the Red Sea: From Novel Extreme Organisms to Commercial Applications." The winning team will be led by Professor Ulrich Stingl, Assistant Professor, Marine Science, and includes Dr. Vladimir Bajic, Director of the Computational Bioscience Research Center; Dr. Kenneth Minneman, Dean, Chemical and Life Sciences and Engineering; Dr. Jorge Eppinger, Assistant Professor, Biochemistry; Dr. Samir Hamdan, Assistant Professor, Molecular Biology; and Dr. Niveen Khashab, Assistant Professor, Chemical Engineering. The selected researchers will be undertaking work on energy, environmental quality, water and coastal zone resources management, agriculture, aquaculture, biodiversity, industrial bioprocesses, human health, high-performance computing, new computer architectures, advanced computational techniques, applied mathematics, nanotechnology, or industrial materials. Dr. Adnan Soufi, CEO of SEDCO Holding Company, said "KAUST has a mission to be a world-class research hub and that mission requires resources to make it possible for outstanding researchers to tackle challenges facing mankind today … such as how to provide water and food to sustain our populations and how to steward the Earth's ecosystems for generations to come." Moreover, Dr. Soufi said "involving six of the world's finest scientists, the KAUST research mission reflects SEDCO's own mission to grow wealth by investing in viable, competitive, and Shariah-compliant business activities with best in class people, process, product, and performance. As a group of companies, SEDCO is committed to achieving excellence by selecting talented individuals of the highest caliber and empowering them to grow, develop, and mature their expertise for the benefit of all our stakeholders and to enhance Saudi Arabia's standing in the world." Professor Jean Frechet, Vice President for Research at KAUST, said "SEDCO's support of KAUST through this new research grant allows the University to further its commitment to advancing science and technology through transdisciplinary research, education, and innovation." Dr. Abdullah Almojel, Vice President for University Development, KAUST, said the "award is significant not only for the financial impact that it has on an important area of collaborative research based here at KAUST, but also because it is symbolic of the growing trust and allegiance between business leaders in the Kingdom and the research and discovery at KAUST. We believe that this mutual relationship is critical for economic growth in the Kingdom, and for addressing the global challenges of our time."
