Said Dermime

Senior Scientist/ Director of Translational Cancer Research Facility, National Center for Cancer Care and Research, Hamad Medical Corporation

Clinical Professor of Biomedical Sciences Health Sciences Department of Qatar University, Doha, Qatar

Prof. Said Dermime is a highly experienced senior scientist in Cancer Immunology and Immunity, with over 30 years of expertise in academia and research. He also has over 25 years of experience in establishing research groups and/or departments. He obtained his Master's and PhD degrees in immunology from the University of Salford, Manchester, UK, in 1987 and 1992, respectively. After that, he joined the National Cancer Institute, Milan (Italy) from 1992-1994; then the NHLBI, NIH, Bethesda (USA) from 1995-1997 as a postdoctoral fellow.

After this, he was appointed as a Leader of the Lymphoma-Cancer Vaccine Team at the Paterson Institute for Cancer Research, Christie Hospital, Manchester (UK) for 5 years. After this period, he moved to King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Centre, Riyadh (KSA), as Senior Scientist, to establish and lead the Tumor Immunology Section for 6 years. In 2008, he relocated to Kuwait to establish the Department of Biomedical Research at the Dasman Diabetes Institute, where he served as its Chairman for four years.

In 2012, he joined King Fahad Specialist Hospital in Dammam, KSA, for three years to establish and lead the Department of Biomedical Research. In 2015, he joined the National Centre for Cancer Care and Research (NCCCR) at Hamad Medical Corporation, Doha (Qatar), to establish and direct the Translational Cancer Research Facility. Prof. Dermime has been recently appointed as a Clinical Professor of Biomedical Sciences at the Health Sciences Department of Qatar University, Doha, Qatar, in addition to his current position at Hamad Medical Corporation.

He has in-depth knowledge of designing therapeutic and prophylactic strategies and evaluating them in preclinical and clinical studies.

Dr. Dermime has developed complementary approaches to tumor immunity and cancer vaccines, contributing to several landmark scientific discoveries. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles in leading journals, including Molecular Cancer, Blood, Seminars in Cancer Biology, Cancer Research, Clinical Cancer Research, and Frontiers in Immunology.

His key achievements include:

• Identifying the cause of retinoic acid resistance in acute leukemia.
• Developing a novel leukemia vaccine targeting proteinase-3 and demonstrating lymphoma idiotype as a potential vaccine target.
• First to report PD-L1 expression and induction in breast cancer, and its role in immune escape.
• Discovering antigen-specific regulatory T cells in leukemia patients.
• Demonstrating biomarkers and immune profiles predicting response to PD-1 blockade and combined radio-immunotherapy.
• Recent discoveries on exosomal immuno-oncological proteins as biomarkers for immunotherapy outcomes in NSCLC.
• Comprehensive reviews on CAR-T, CAR-NK, and CAR-M cell therapies in solid tumors.

In addition, he has supervised numerous Master’s and PhD students, obtained multiple research grants, and contributed to seven COVID-19 projects with related publications.

Dr. Dermime also serves as a reviewer and editorial board member for several international journals, and as an associate editor for Frontiers in Immunology, Frontiers in Oncology, Heliyon Cancer Research, and other peer-reviewed journals. He is an active member of research and advisory committees, including HMC’s Research Advisory Committee and the Best of ASCO Research Committee.