2016 Harrington Fellow
Nima Sharifi, M.D is the Kendrick Family Endowed Chair for Prostate Cancer Research and Director of the Genitourinary Malignancies Research Center at Cleveland Clinic.
His laboratory and translational research is focused on the discovery and clinical implications of new mechanisms of hormone therapy resistance. He is the recipient of the Top 10 Clinical Research Achievement Award of the Clinical Research Forum, AACR Award for Outstanding Achievement in Cancer Research, the Richard Weitzman Award of the Endocrine Society, and is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and an elected member of the Association of American Physicians.
Dr. Sharifi's research group discovered that prostate cancer becomes resistant to androgen deprivation therapies using a genetically-encoded enzyme missense that allows tumors to make their own androgens from extragonadal precursor steroids – effectively enabling cancers to feed themselves. He also showed that men who have this genetic variant enzyme have tumors that progress on treatment more quickly and that this impacts on survival. Currently, he is working on developing new and more effective therapies to personalize treatment for men with prostate cancer.