Dr. Ayman Saleh received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from London Health Science Center at the University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada in 1998, then he went on to a 3-year post-doctoral fellowship under an NIH Training Grant in Kimmel Cancer Research Center at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia to study the signal transduction of apoptosis. He was one of the pioneers to delineate the role of mitochondria in apoptosis. After that he held his first Assistant Professor and Senior Research Scientist position in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at the United Arab Emirates University for 4 years (2001-2005). Between 2010 and 2012, Dr. Saleh served as Associate Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular & Cellular Biology in Both Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine at Florida International University, Miami Florida, and Lake Erie College of Medicine and School of Pharmacy (LECOM), Erie Pennsylvania, USA. Subsequently, he joined King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University in 2012 as Associate Professor of Medical Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in the. He is also holding a Scientist position at King Abdullah International Medical Research Center. Dr. Saleh’s research is focused on signal transduction of diseases including cancer and neurodegeneration, and synthesis of novel anticancer agents. Dr. Saleh is an author of more than 54 research publications in molecular aspects of apoptosis, novel synthetic and natural anticancer and anti-neurodegeneration drugs, organophosphate toxicity, transcription regulation and medical enzymology. Dr. Saleh’s publications have been cited over than 4000 times.
SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE
Dr. Bandar Alghanem, PhD in Pharmaceutical sciences from University of Geneva
My research focused on developing tools mass spectrometry and Proteomics. I am interested in profiling and quantifying proteins from different biological samples and studying the post translational modification proteins. Particularly, I am interested in discovering novel biomarkers in Cancer, infectious diseases, and others. Also, I have interest in investigating protein-protein interactions and functional analysis.
Dr. Taoufik Nedjadi has recently joined King Abdullah International Medical Research Center (KAIMRC) as a Research Scientist in cancer Biology. Dr. Nedjadi gained his MSc in Physiology in the year 2000 from the University of Liverpool then successfully obtained his PhD in Biological and Biomedical Sciences from the same university in 2004. He remained in Liverpool for a further eight years where he was a Postdoctoral Research Associate working on molecular and proteomics aspects of pancreatic cancer at Liverpool Royal Hospital. In 2012 he took up an Assistant Professor position at King Abdulaziz University (KAU-Jeddah), establishing his own research group focusing on early detection of bladder cancer. His group’s research was funded by several KACST projects. Dr. Nedjadi has an extensive research, teaching and supervisory experience. He is also a regular reviewer of manuscripts submitted to well-respected journal as well as KACST grants.
Dr Sihem Aouabdi holds a PhD in molecular biology, toxicology and drug metabolism from the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom. After graduating in 2005, she joined Re-Neuron in Guildford working on fetal stem cells, and then moved to York to join Pro-Cure Therapeutics working on cancer stem cells. In 2012, Dr Sihem joined King Abdullah University for Science and Technology (KAUST) in Jeddah as a research scientist. Dr Sihem is currently working as a research scientist at the King Abdullah International Medical Research Center (KAIMRC) at the National Guard Health Affairs in Jeddah. Her main interests are adult stem cells for regenerative medicine.
Dr Khalid A Alsaleh, MBBS, FRCPC, FACP, MSc, CIP
Khalid Alsaleh is an assistant professor of Hematology and medical oncology, Internal medicine department, College of Medicine, King Saud University (KSU), Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He received his bachelor degree in medicine and surgery degree (2000) with an honor degree from King Saud university .He completed his training in internal medicine (2007) ,Hematology(2008) and medical oncology(2010) at Mcmaster University in Hamilton ,Ontario, Canada. Subsequently, he received his Master of Science degree in Health research methodology in 2011; He completed a fellowship in Lung cancer with Clinical investigator program (CIP) form the royal college of physicians in Canada (2011).
He heads the Oncology center at King Khalid University Hospital in King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He participated in national projects for cancer therapy and access to cancer care in Saudi Arabia.
Rawiah Alsiary, Associate Scientist at King Abdullah International Medical Research Center (KAIMRC). She has over three years of post-doctoral experience with emphasis on cancer research utilizing up-to-date technologies and approaches. She received her bachelor of science in Biochemistry from King Abdul-Aziz University and her Master of clinical laboratory science in cytopathology from Rhode Island University, cell and molecular department. She enrolled in one year cytology internship program organized by Rhode Island School of Cytotechnology. The internship training was undertaken at local Rhode Island’s hospitals. She became certified cytotechnologist in 2009 after passing American society for clinical pathology board exam. Currently, she received her PhD from University of Leeds completing a period of research training supported by a King Abdullah scholarship program, Ministry of Higher Education.
Dr. Naif Khalaf Alharbi is a virologist and vaccinologist at KAIMRC, MNG-HA, Riyadh. He has attained his BSc in Medical Microbiology (Qassim University), MSc in Molecular Medical Microbiology (University of Nottingham), and DPhil in Molecular Virology and Vaccinology (University of Oxford). He spent his postdoctoral fellowship in the Jenner Institute, University of Oxford, where he developed ChAdOx MERS, a novel vaccine against MERS-CoV, that is now heading to phase I clinical trial. Dr. Alharbi has published high impact research articles on the development of MVA (Modified Vaccinia virus Ankara) viral vector and ChAdOx1 MERS vaccine and has filed two patents with his Oxford collaborators on these developments.
At KAIMRC, Dr. Alharbi is a PI on two vaccine development grants and his research interest is focused on vaccines against emerging pathogens and on studying viruses that are of importance to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Middle East region.
Dr. Aljohani is originally from Saudi Arabia he received his bachelor degree from King Saud University in Riyadh in year 2000, his Master degree in Clinical Drug Development from Queen Mary University of London, School of Medicine and Dentistry in 2009, and his PhD in Clinical Pharmacology, Drug Bioequivalence from QMUL, School of Medicine and Dentistry, UK in year 2015.
Dr. Aljohani clinical and research skills and interests include the following: Clinical pharmacology, clinical trials, pharmaceutical bioequivalence, internal medicine. Therapeutics and therapeutic drug monitoring. Pharmaceutical analysis and laboratory skills, including working on mass spectrometric (MS), liquid chromatographic (LC) and capillary electrophoresis (CE), fluorescence, UV-Vis spectrophotometry according to GLP guidelines. Advanced expertise in dissolution testing.
Dr. Alhujaily received her BSc degree in the field of Biology (2002), and she completed her masters in the department of Cell Biology and Genetics in King Saud University, Saudi Arabia (2007). Then, she obtained her PhD from the University of Ottawa, Canada, from the department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine (2015).
In 2016, she was appointed as a post-doctoral fellow at The Medical College of Wisconsin, USA. During her training, she worked on multiple projects including, identifying novel targets for cancer immunotherapy and treating acute myeloid leukemia and multiple myeloma with novel CAR-T cells. She is interested mainly in cancer immunotherapy and gene therapy. Now, she is a post-doctoral researcher at King Abdullah International Medical Research Center.