Khalid Shah

Harvard Medical School, USA

Title: Gene Edited and Engineered Cell based therapies for Cancer: From Bench to Bedside

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Biography

Dr. Shah is the Vice Chair of Research at BWH and an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School. He is also the Director of the Center for Stem Cell Therapeutics and Imaging at BWH and the joint Center of Excellence in Biomedicine with KACST and BWH. He and a Principal Faculty at Harvard Stem Cell Institute in Boston. Dr. Shah and his team have pioneered major developments in translational cell therapy field, successfully developing experimental models to understand basic cancer biology and therapeutic cells for cancer. These studies have been published in a number of very high impact journals. Previously, Dr. Shah's translational stem cell work has caught the attention in the public domain and as such it has been highlighted in the media world-wide including features on BBC and CNN. Recently, Dr. Shah’s laboratory has reverse engineered cancer cells using CRISPR/Cas9 technology and utilized them as therapeutics to treat cancer. This work was published in journal Science Translation Medicine and highlighted world-wide including features on Scientific American, New York Times and Scientific American. Dr. Shah holds current positions on numerous councils, advisory and editorial boards in the fields of stem cell therapy and oncology. In an effort to translate the exciting therapies develped in his laboratory into clinics, he has founded two biotech companies whose main objective is the clinical translation of therapeutic stem cells in cancer patients.

Abstract

Cell based therapies are emerging as a promising strategy for cancer. We have developed cell surface receptor targeted adult stem cells, cancer cells and T cells expressing novel bi-functional immunomodulatory proteins. Using our recently established tumor models that mimic clinical settings, we have explored the fate and efficacy of different engineered cell based therapies. Our findings demonstrate the strength of using innovative approaches and clinically relevant preclinical models that pave a path for clinical translation. This presentation provides data and rationale for assessing combined cell based studies in preclinical studies and translating the most promising studies into the clinic.