Haifa Shen, MD, PhD

Dr. Shen earned his M.D. degree in 1985 from Zhejiang University Medical School in Hangzhou, China and his Ph.D. degree in 1997 from the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Texas at Houston and MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. After completing a four-year postdoctoral fellowship at the National Cancer Institute, he entered the pharmaceutical industry as a drug development scientist. He returned to Academia in 2010. Dr. Shen is currently Professor of Nanomedicine, Houston Methodist Academic Institute, Full Member, Houston Methodist Research Institute, and Member of Houston Methodist Cancer Center. He is also on faculty at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, New York.

Dr. Shen's research interest is on the development of effective treatments for human cancers. His research team has designed and developed (1) an injectable nanoparticle generator platform for targeted delivery and in situ activation of prodrugs at the tumor lesions, (2) an inflammatory tumor vasculature-targeted delivery system for small molecule inhibitors and therapeutic siRNA, and (3) a highly potent therapeutic cancer nanovaccine platform. Researchers in the lab are applying these technology platforms to treat multiple cancer types. Multiple projects from Dr. Shen’s laboratory have been promoted from research to drug development and clinical applications.