Dr Seyed Mehdi Jafarnejad obtained his PhD in Experimental Medicine from The University of British Columbia in Vancouver (2008-2012), working on dysregulated mechanisms of gene expression during melanoma metastasis. This was followed by postdoctoral training at McGill University in Montreal (2013-2018), during which his research on mRNA biology led to several important discoveries, revealing the processes by which mRNA translation is dysregulated in diseases such as cancer, neurological disorders, and during viral infections.
Mehdi joined the Patrick Johnston Centre for Cancer Research at Queen’s University Belfast in 2019 as a Principal Investigator. His group currently focuses on mechanisms of regulation of mRNA translation and decay, alterations in these mechanisms induced by chemotherapeutic drugs, and how these mechanisms contribute to therapy-resistance in cancer.