Samira Kiani
Alma materTehran University of Medical Sciences
Known forCRISPR
Scientific career
InstitutionsMassachusetts Institute of Technology
Arizona State University

Samira Kiani (Persian: سمیرا کیانی) is an Associate Professor in the department of Pathology of University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Pittsburgh Liver Research Center. Formerly, she was a Health Systems Engineer at Arizona State University. Her work combines Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat (CRISPR) with synthetic biology. She is a 2019 AAAS Leshner Fellow.

Early life and education

Kiani is from Iran.[1] She earned her medical degree at the Tehran University of Medical Sciences.[2] She completed a thesis on the molecular mechanisms of tissue injury.[2] She joined the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle upon Tyne, where she was trained in general medicine.[2] She joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, working as a postdoctoral researcher in synthetic biology at MIT Synthetic Biology Center.[2] She has acted as an advisor for the MIT International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) team.[2] She collaborated with George Church and Ron Weiss to advance CRISPR technology.[3][4] They developed a CRISPR based a modular transcriptional repression architecture that can be used to create functional cascaded circuits.[4]

Research and career

Kiani joined Arizona State University in 2016 and later moved to University of Pittsburgh in January 2020.[1][5][6] She was awarded a DARPA fellowship to investigate hearing loss caused by traumatic injuries.[7] The loud noises of combat zones can result in a health threat to military personnel.[7] Kiani works on safer gene therapies, including Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat (CRISPR). The Cas9 protein works to cleave DNA, and can be targeted using a gRNA.[8] When the gRNA reaches the target site it performs a double strand break, enabling gene disruption or editing.[8] The Kiani lab looks to control where and when this gene disruption occurs. She has investigated whether CRISPR could be used to restore hearing loss after acoustic trauma and aminoglycoside.[8] She working on the optimisation of CRISPR gene editing using RNA pol II.[8] She has discussed her work on the Future Tech podcast.[9]

Her research is also supported by two grants from National Institute of Health, the most recent one being $2,600,000 from the National Institutes of Health.[10][11] The proposal looks to develop a human liver-on-a-chip using CRISPR.[12][13]

Public engagement

In 2019 Kiani was announced as a Leshner Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.[14] She is working with Cody Sheehy to create a documentary entitled The Human Game. Kiani serves as the co-producer on the project, which looks to create a deeper discussion between the public and scientists about CRISPR technologies. In addition, together with Cody Sheehy, they are promoting a public engagement initiative called Tomorrow.Life aimed at increasing participation of broader stakeholders in decisions about future of science through collaborative visual story telling.[15]

References

  1. 1 2 "Meet your new SBHSE faculty | Inner Circle". Retrieved 2019-02-20.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 "Samira Kiani". TheInnovationInstitute.Org. Retrieved 2019-02-20.
  3. ↑ "Samira Kiani". www.aiche.org. 2017-10-19. Retrieved 2019-02-20.
  4. 1 2 Weiss, Ron; Li, Yinqing; Xie, Zhen; Richard N. Hall; Huh, Jin; Ebrahimkhani, Mohammad R.; Beal, Jacob; Kiani, Samira (2014). "CRISPR transcriptional repression devices and layered circuits in mammalian cells". Nature Methods. 11 (7): 723–726. doi:10.1038/nmeth.2969. ISSN 1548-7105. PMC 4228775. PMID 24797424.
  5. ↑ "Samira Kiani | iSearch". isearch.asu.edu. Retrieved 2019-02-20.
  6. ↑ "About Us". Kiani Lab. Retrieved 2019-02-20.
  7. 1 2 "Looking for bigger roles in game-changing leaps in tech capabilities". ASU Now: Access, Excellence, Impact. 2016-09-26. Retrieved 2019-02-20.
  8. 1 2 3 4 "Research". Kiani Lab. Retrieved 2019-02-20.
  9. ↑ Future Tech Podcast (2018-07-26), Amazing Genes – Samira Kiani, M.D. (PI), Kiani Lab, Arizona State University – Gene Editing Technolo, retrieved 2019-02-20
  10. ↑ Kiani, Samira. "CRISPR logic circuits for safer and controllable gene therapies". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  11. ↑ "Liver-on-a-chip, the ideal test environment for CRISPR". ScienceDaily. Retrieved 2019-02-20.
  12. ↑ "Liver-on-a-chip, the ideal test environment for CRISPR". EurekAlert!. Retrieved 2019-02-20.
  13. ↑ "Liver-on-a-chip, the ideal test environment for CRISPR". ASU Now: Access, Excellence, Impact. 2018-10-12. Retrieved 2019-02-21.
  14. ↑ "2019-2020 Leshner Leadership Institute Public Engagement Fellows: Human Augmentation". American Association for the Advancement of Science. Retrieved 2019-02-20.
  15. ↑ "Advisors & Team". Code of the Wild. Retrieved 2019-02-20.
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