Dr. Sheema Almozyan

Dr. Sheema Almozyan is a postdoctoral researcher at King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Centre (KFSHRC) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. She holds a Ph.D. in Pre-Clinical Oncology from the University of Nottingham, UK, and an M.Sc. in Molecular Medicine from Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.

Her doctoral research focused on a novel transcriptional regulator involved in intestinal stem cells and tumorigenesis, during which she gained extensive expertise in gene-editing technologies such as CRISPR-Cas9, and advanced 3D organoid and humanized mouse models. Her work earned multiple international awards and resulted in several high-impact, peer-reviewed publications.

Following her Ph.D., Dr. Almozyan completed an NIH-funded postdoctoral fellowship at Mount Sinai in New York, where she contributed to the development of CAR T-cell therapies for solid tumors. In 2023, she returned to Saudi Arabia and joined the Cell Therapy and Immunobiology Department at KFSHRC, where she currently works on advancing CAR T-cell therapies for solid tumors, with a particular focus on colorectal cancer.

As an IBK Fellow at MIT, Dr. Almozyan will join the laboratory of Professor Jianzhu Chen to lead a research project focused on the immunobiology and therapeutic potential of CAR T and CAR NK cells. Her work will explore strategies to enhance the efficacy and persistence of cell therapies in solid tumors using innovative biological platforms and immunoengineering approaches.

In addition to her research, Dr. Almozyan will contribute to teaching activities related to the biological and engineering principles of novel biotherapeutics. With a strong interest in biotechnology and entrepreneurship, she will also take advantage of local biotech networking opportunities and participate in professional development courses supported by the IBK-MIT Fellowship.