‘Sleeping’ cancer cells
Intensive research has resulted in Dr Sheheryar Kabraji developing "a novel method for finding ‘sleeping’ cancer cells in human tumors using automated microscopy,” noted a write-up forwarded in September by his 91-year-old grandfather Nadershaw Kabraji of Pakistan. Sheheryar’s studies show "how dormant cancer cells are responsible for resistance to chemotherapy in patients with breast cancer” and have the potential "to identify which patients will respond to existing treatment as well as help develop novel treatments in breast cancer.”
Currently on a Sovereign/Santander Hematology/Oncology Fellowship at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Cancer Center in Boston, Maryland, Sheheryar’s research is also supported by The Jerry Younger, MD, Grants for Clinical and Translational Breast Cancer Research. According to the website of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, their Hematology/Oncology Fellowship Program admits six new fellows per year: "The fellows spend one year in full-time clinical work and two or more years in research training, depending on previous training and interests… The object of the training program is to provide the highest quality clinical and research training in hematology/oncology so that our fellows become excellent clinicians and independent investigators making substantive contributions to biomedical research.”
Sheheryar Kabraji at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center in Boston
Son of Aban and Kairas Kabraji, Sheheryar studied at the Karachi Grammar School where he was the head boy for two years. Subsequently he earned his BS from the Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut; BA from the University of Cambridge, UK when he won the 2005 Jennings Prize; and BM, BCh (bachelor of medicine, bachelor of surgery) from the University of Oxford, UK when he was the recipient of the 2008 Radcliffe Infirmary Prize. He then did his internship from the Royal Free Hospital, London and since 2013 has been affiliated with the MGH. In fact on the MGH Research Day in his first year he was honored for the Best Clinical Vignette.
Married to Yureeda, he is described as "a staunch Zarathushti” by his grandfather, a valued Parsiana subscriber who last communicated with us eight days before he passed away on September 25. Referring to the rapport he shared with his grandfather, Sheheryar stated, "As the only physician in our family, I had become his reference point in all health-related matters, his personal ‘doctor sahib’. He was keenly interested in my work… As a proud Parsi, I believe he saw my work as continuing in a long tradition of outsize contributions to human achievement, despite our minuscule number.”