Email

navid.sobhani@bcm.edu

Positions

Postdoctoral Fellow

Medicine - Epidemiology & Population Science
Baylor College of Medicine
Houston, US

Ph.D Degree

Department of Medical, Surgical and Health Sciences
University of Trieste
Trieste, Friuli Venezia Giulia Italy
Investigation of the prognostic and drug-predictive role of the immune system in solid tumors.

Associate Researcher

Department of Cancer Stem Cells
Istitute of National Health
Rome, Lazio Italy
Biological evaluation of the efficacy of peptide-drug conjugates drug delivery to cancer cells and cancer stem cells.

Associate Researcher

Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology
University of Cambridge
Cambridge, Cambridgeshire United Kingdom
• Developed novel methods for blood based biomarker discovery in Schizophrenia using LC-MSe and MRM mass spectrometry. • Implemented an efficient method for exosome isolation from serum for proteomic profiling.

MSc Thesis

Institute FIRC of Molecular Oncology
IFOM
Mlilan, Lombardia Italy
• Explored the opposing role of TALE family transcription factors Meis 1 and Prep 1 proteins in breast cancer pathogenesis, through infection of MCF10A with vectors altering expression level of these two proteins.

Addresses

One Baylor Plaza (Office)

Houston, TX 77030
United States

Education

PhD from University of Trieste

03/2020 - Trieste, Italy

MS from University of Cambridge

12/2014 - Cambridge, United Kingdom

MSc from University of Aberdeen

07/2013 - Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire United Kingdom

Professional Interests

• Guest Editor of Cancers

Selected Publications

• "PAK6-Associated Support Vector Machine Classifier: A New Way to Evaluate Response and Survival of Gastric Cancer Treated by 5-FU/Oxaliplatin Chemotherapy.." EBioMedicine.2017/August;22:18-19. Pubmed PMID: 28688823
• "Efficacy of extended aromatase inhibitors for hormone-receptor–positive breast cancer: a literature based meta-analysis of randomized trials.." Annals of Oncology.2016/November;:
• "The prognostic value of PI3K mutational status in breast cancer: A meta-analysis.." J Cell Biochem.2018;119:4287–4292.
• "Immune system and angiogenesis-related potential surrogate biomarkers of response to everolimus-based treatment in hormone receptor-positive breast cancer: an exploratory study." Breast Cancer Res Treat.2020/August7;: Pubmed PMID: 32770287

Projects

AI-Assisted Therapeutic CTLA-4 Strategies

Baylor College of Medicine

Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) I would like to have millions of possible targeting compounds screened to find the best cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated protein 4 (CTLA-4) inhibitors to elicit an immune-response to solid tumors. CTLA-4 plays an important role in hindering the anticancer immunity and novel solutions to therapeutically intervene could prove of a great benefit in advanced tumors. After detecting the most efficient leads I would like to investigate their mode of action in cancer cells. In an area where FDA-approved immunotherapies targeting CTLA-4 and PD-1/PD-L1 elicit strong antitumor T-cell responses in various types of cancers, there is still a lack to completely understand the role of T-cells in cancer immunology. The area excites my interest to pioneer new structures that could powerfully elicit the immune system while lowering adverse events. In this context I am looking at the two roles of CTLA-4: from one side antagonist can be used to boost the immune system against cancer; on the other side agonist could be used to block the immune reactions in the context of auto-immune diseases and more spectacularly it would be great to have drugs efficient against SARS and the current COVID-19.

DNA Therapeutic Cancer Vaccine Delivery Against PD-1

Baylor College of Medicine (05/2020 - present)

As the field of vaccination has been tremendously growing culminating with FDA-approval of great RNA vaccines against COVID-19, I would like bridge this field with the production of RNA- or even DNA-based cancer vaccines. Ferritin nanoparticle is a self-assembling multimeric vaccine platform that has been used previously for displaying antigens like Influenza and Epstein-Barr virus. Currently, I am looking into the generation of DNA vaccines against PD-1 in ferritin nanoparticle, possibly improving current methods of Plasmid delivery in-vivo through different techniques.

Intellectual Property

NEW AND MORE 'POWERFUL MOLECULES FOR THE TREATMENT AND DIAGNOSIS OF neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) E OF STEM CELLS OF NETs

Product Patent (Approved)

Languages

Italian, Farsi