Dr Sheeba Irshad

Dr Sheeba Irshad is a breast cancer clinician-scientist, specializing in tumor immunology, and pursuing a combined academic and clinical career in Medical Oncology. 

Following her return as a visiting scientist at The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at John’s Hopkins University, Baltimore; Dr Irshad was appointed as a Clinical Deputy Head of King’s College London Breast Cancer Now Research Unit Programme in 2018.  She specialises in researching hard to treat breast cancers, such as those that are resistant to chemotherapy. Her research is focused on understanding the tumour-immune cell cross talk in chemotherapy resistant cancers with particular emphasis on understanding mechanisms that underpin how cells from the immune system move within tumours. The goal is to find effective immunotherapy treatments for patients.

Dr Irshad led the multi-centre clinical trial investigating the immune responses against Sars-Cov-2 in cancer patients.  Findings from her Sars-cov-2 fOr cAncer Patients (SOAP) study, published in several high-impact papers directly contributed to changes in vaccine policy in the UK, providing the world’s first cancer specific COVID19 immune response dataset; and were also the first to report on immune protection after the Pfizer-COVID-19 vaccine in immunocompromised patient populations. She is also the translational lead and coordinating investigator for a clinical trial platform to explore the potential interactions between DNA damage response inhibitors and immunotherapy in high-risk Triple Negative Breast Cancers.