Dr. Mana Alshehri, Associate Research Scientist in the Department of Cellular Therapy and Cancer Research at the King Abdullah International Medical Research Center (KAIMRC), has recently joined the team of the Connell and O'Reilly Families Cell Manipulation Core Facility (CMCF) at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard University.
Dr. Alshehri is going to spend one year fellowship at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard University to manufacture different forms of immunotherapies including: CAR-T cells, CAR-NK cells, CAR-macrophages and cancer vaccines.
Immunotherapy is an advance for of treatment that uses a person's own immune system to fight cancer. For instance, CAR T-cell therapy is a form of immunotherapy that uses specially altered T cells to fight cancer. In this for of cancer immunotherapy, a patient's T cells are collected from the blood, then modified to produce special structures called chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) on their surface. When these CAR T cells are reinfused into the patient, the new receptors (CARs) enable them to latch onto a specific antigen on the patient's tumor cells and kill them.
After completing his fellowship, Dr. Alshehri will return to KAIMRC to contribute at the local manufacturing of different forms of immunotherapies that will be used to treat some of cancer patients within Saudi Arabia.
Dr. Alshehri holds a bachelor degree in clinical laboratory sciences from King Saud University in Saudi Arabia, a master degree in molecular medicine from Sheffield University in UK, a PhD in cancer biology from the University of Calgary in Canada and completed the high impact cancer research program at Harvard University.
Dr. Alshehri has won several scientific awards from different international institutions such as: The Arnie Charbonneau Cancer Institute, Canadian Institute of Health Research, Dubai Harvard Foundation for Medical Research Research, Middle East Molecular Biology Society among others.
