Nature Middle East Launches

LONDON, March 17, 2010 - Nature Middle East launches today at
www.nature.com/naturemiddleeast. The new website from Nature
Publishing Group (NPG) showcases scientific and medical research from the
Arabic-speaking Middle East region and is continuously updated with articles
in English and Arabic. The King Abdullah International Medical Research
Center (KAIMRC), at King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences
(KSAU-HS), Saudi Arabia, is sponsoring Nature Middle East.

Nature Middle East features news, features, and short 'Research
Highlights'. Written by the Nature Middle East editorial team, 'Research
Highlights' are summaries of interesting, recently-published papers, authored
by researchers based in the Middle East region, from across the scientific
and medical literature. Local job listings are provided by NatureJobs, and
event listings by Nature Events. A blog, House of Wisdom, and a forum on
Nature Network enable the community to connect, network and exchange
information and ideas.

"We are proud to be launching Nature Middle East, which reflects our
growing commitment to a region with a proud scientific history and a
promising future," comments David Swinbanks, Publishing Director for NPG. "We
believe this launch is particularly timely, as nations from across the region
increase their investment in science and medical research facilities and
programmes. Nature Middle East will be the place to keep in touch with these
exciting new developments."

Nature Middle East currently covers the following: Algeria, Bahrain,
Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestinian
territories, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab
Emirates, and Yemen. Additional countries in the region may be added as
Nature Middle East develops.

"We are happy to partner with NPG on this important initiative," said Dr
Bandar Alknawy, President of the King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for
Health Sciences (KSAU-HS. "Nature Middle East is an important resource to
facilitate communication between researchers and champion the best of the
research from Arabic-speaking nations in the Middle East." Dr Mohammed
Aljumah, The Executive Director of the King Abdullah International Medical
Research Center also commented: "We are confident that this initiative among
many other capacity building initiatives that we are undertaking will help
leapfrog our region to the forefront of discovery and innovation."

Nature Middle East Editor Mohammed Yahia has been actively promoting
science in the Middle East region for a number of years. Prior to joining
Nature Middle East, Mohammed was the MENA region coordinator for the website
SciDev.Net and has worked as a reporter, editor, and consultant.

Nature Middle East is NPG's third major portal focusing on emerging areas
in scientific and medical research, following the launch of Nature India in
February 2008 and Nature China in 2007. Nature.com regions pages are also
available, including dedicated pages for several non-Arabic speaking
countries in the Middle East. These sites bring together relevant
high-quality research, news, opinion and business content, from the Nature
family of journals, Scientific American and other NPG resources.

The launch of Nature Middle East will be formally celebrated at the Saudi
eHealth conference (www.saudiehealth.org) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in
May 2010.

Links:

Nature Middle East: www.nature.com/naturemiddleeast

House of Wisdom blog: blogs.nature.com/houseofwisdom/

Nature Middle East forum:
network.nature.com/groups/nmiddleeast/forum

Nature regions: www.nature.com/regions

Launch of Nature India (press release, February 2008):
www.nature.com/press_releases/nature_india.pdf

Launch of Nature China (press release, February 2007):
www.nature.com/press_releases/Nature_China_launches.pdf

About The King Abdullah International Medical Research Center (KAIMRC)

The King Abdullah International Medical Research Center (KAIMRC) was
created with the primary vision of becoming the leading translational medical
research center in the region. They aim to provide the infrastructure
necessary for all health care providers of NGHA, from Saudi Arabia and the
region at large to engage in translational research, with broad collaborative
research capabilities. For more information, see www.kaimrc.med.sa/

About Nature Publishing Group (NPG):

Nature Publishing Group (NPG) is a publisher of high impact scientific
and medical information in print and online. NPG publishes journals, online
databases and services across the life, physical, chemical and applied
sciences and clinical medicine.

For more information, please go to www.nature.com.

Contact: Grace Baynes, Corporate Public Relations, Nature Publishing Group, T:+44(0)20-7014-4063, g.baynes at nature.com