Dr. Nehad Alajez earned his PhD in tumour immunology from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in USA, and subsequently completed his post-doctoral training at the Princess Margaret Cancer Center (University Health Network), a premier cancer research institute in Canada. His main research interest is to investigate the role of the Polycomb gene family and non-coding microRNAs in driving cancer progression and their potential utilization for targeted therapies. Dr. Alajez is a recipient of several prestigious awards and has published more than 100 articles in top-tier ISI-indexed journals including Blood, Cancer Research, Cell Death and Differentiation, Cell Death and Disease, Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy, Molecular Therapy (family journals), EMBO Molecular Medicine, and in Science Translational Medicine. Dr. Alajez currently has close to 5000 citations and an h-index of 35 and i10-index of 74.
Prior to his current appointment, Dr. Alajez was appointed as the Associate Professor at King Saud University College of Medicine, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Dr. Alajez’s main research interests are focused on ‘translational oncology research’ with main emphasis on novel biomarker discovery and targeted therapeutics for breast cancers. In particular, Dr. Alajez’s team is studying noncoding RNAs (micoRNAs and lncRNAs) as disease and predictive biomarkers for patients’ response to therapy. Dr. Alajez has strong expertise in transcriptome analysis, noncoding RNAs, and biomarker discovery field and is currently ranked among the top 2% most cited scientist globally. He is a recipient of several major grants, including funding from Qatar National Research Fund, in addition to his editorial roles on several journals.
Dr. Alajez main research interests are focused on precision medicine aiming at the discovery of novel tumour and circulating biomarkers for breast cancer diagnosis, prognosis, and therapy. Additionally, Dr. Alajez’s group is conducting CRISPR-Cas9 genomic screens to elucidate the role of miRNAs and lncRNAs in driving breast cancer survival and resistance to standard therapies.
Translational Oncology Research Center, Qatar Biomedical Research Institute
2022 - PresentTranslational Cancer and Immunity Center, Qatar Biomedical Research Institute
2018 - 2022College of Medicine, King Saud University
2015 - 2018College of Medicine, King Saud University
2011 - 2015University of Pittsburgh, USA
2003San Francisco State University, USA
1999Islamic University of Gaza, Palestine
1995