Royan Stem Cell – Royan institute for Stem Cell Biology and Technology (RI-SCBT)

Marzieh Ebrahimi Ph.D.
Stem Cells and Developmental Biology
Professor

Email:mebrahimi@royaninstitute.org
Tel:+98 21 23562512
Fax:
CV:CV-2022-ebrahimi.pdf

Dr. Marzieh Ebrahimi leads the Hematopoietic and Cancer Stem Cells Group, directs the Royan Cancer Initiative, and manages the institute’s Flow Cytometry Core Facility. She also serves as CEO of Kian Immune Cell, a knowledge-based biotechnology company.

Dr. Ebrahimi earned her B.Sc. in Cell and Molecular Biology from the University of Tehran (1996) and completed her M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Medical Immunology at Tarbiat Modares University (2000 and 2007). Her doctoral research focused on tumor immunotherapy and dendritic cell differentiation. Since joining the Royan Institute in 2003, Dr. Ebrahimi has been instrumental in establishing several key clinical and research infrastructure platforms.

These include the Royan Public Cord Blood Bank and the Peripheral Blood Stem Cell Bank (2011), as well as the Royan Amniotic Membrane Bank (2012), which provides amniotic membrane-derived products for clinical use in wound healing. Her current research focuses on cancer immunotherapy, with an emphasis on the development of natural killer (NK) cell-based therapies for the treatment of brain tumors, neuroblastoma, and other aggressive solid tumors. Dr. Ebrahimi’s contributions have been recognized nationally and internationally.

She has received awards from the Iranian Presidential Office’s Center for Women and Family Affairs for research excellence (2008), was a nominee for iChallenge in Diabetic Dressing Innovation (2017), participated in the BRICS Women’s Accelerator in Healthcare and Medicine (2024), and was honored at the 8th National Young Scientists Festival (2024).

She has authored over 128 peer-reviewed publications and is a frequent presenter at international scientific meetings.

Hematopoitic stem cell expansion and development, Cancer stem cell, Immune cell therapy, tumor biology, resetting of tumor cells. Dr. Ebrahimi and his team emphasize on two main scopes; hematopoietic stem cells and cancer stem cells. The priority of the research in hematopoietic stem cells is finding methods for expansion and differentiation of cord blood CD34+ cells with potential to use in cellular therapy and achieving to blood farm. Our objectives in hematopoietic stem cells are to: • Identifying signaling pathway to improve expansion without differentiation of HSCs • Improving the long term cryopreservation of HSCs • Identifying small molecules to induce differentiation of CD34 cells into erythrocyte cells • Developing biological products from cord and amnion applicable in clinics. Another main research focus is to develop new therapeutic strategies specifically targeting and destroying cancer stem cells especially for breast, pancreatic, gastric, pancreatic and skin cancers. Establishment animal cancer models are another goal of cancer stem cell group. The most of area of our research are providing in vitro models derived from cancer stem cells that improve our knowledge to better understand the mechanism of metastasis and drug resistance in patients with solid tumors. Investigations in this area are performed according to a “Bedside to Bench and Back” approach. The ultimate goal is to develop novel approaches to early detection of metastasis and also its targeting. Our objectives in cancer stem cells are to: • Understanding the mechanisms of regulation of self-renewal, resistance to drug and metastasis and finding their regulatory net work using high throughput data analysis. • Early detection of metastasis using cancer stem cell and in vitro models. • Targeting melanoma stem cells through inhibition of important regulatory pathways. • Inhibiting the key pathways of cancer stem cells using small molecules. • To investigate the interaction between cancer stem cells and immune system. • Immune targeting of cancer stem cells using primed DCs and activated NK cells. • To Identify clinical agents selectively targeting blood cancer (leukaemia) stem cells. without harming normal stem cells. • Micro-fluidic approach to isolate circulating tumor cells. • Improving in 3D cultivation of cancer stem cells for drug screening. • Developing tumoral model for glioblastoma, AML, ovarian cancer, melanoma. – Resetting of tumor and cancer stem cells using iPSCs approaches.

Monireh mohammad

PhD students

Niloufar Shayan Asl

PhD students

Masoumeh Azimi

PhD students

Davood Sanooghi

PhD students

Reyhane Ahangar Parvin

PhD students

Seyedeh Nasim Mirbahari

PhD students

Fatemeh Sadat Hosseini Mazinani

PhD students

Soroor Eslahi

MSc Alumni

Parisa Shams

MSc Alumni

Sahel Ahmadpour Torkamani

MSc Students

Mina Mobin Rahni

MSc Students

Sadaf Sorouri

MSc Students

Fateme Elyasifar

MSc Students

Roshanak Balalak

MSc Students

Narjes Jamshidi

MSc Students

Seyyedeh Zahra Azizi

MSc Students

Nadia Hamedani

MSc Students

The full list of publications can be find here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Marzieh+Ebrahimi Selected publications: Momeni M, Zarehaghighi M, Hajimiri M, Khorasani G, Dinarvand R, Nekookar A, Sodeifi N, Khosravani P, Shayanasl N, Ebrahimi M*. In vitro and in vivo investigation of a novel amniotic-based chitosan dressing for wound healing. Wound Repair Regen. 2018 Jan;26(1):87-101. doi: 10.1111/wrr.12618. Epub 2018 Mar 10. PMID: 29424945 Baradaran-Rafii A, Asl NS, Ebrahimi M*, Jabbehdari S, Bamdad S, Roshandel D, Eslani M, Momeni M. The role of amniotic membrane extract eye drop (AMEED) in in vivo cultivation of limbal stem cells. Ocul Surf. 2018 Jan;16(1):146-153. doi: 10.1016/j.jtos.2017.11.001. PMID: 29104070 Farzan R, Moeinian M, Abdollahi A, Jahangard-Rafsanjani Z, Alipour A, Ebrahimi M, Khorasani G.Effects of amniotic membrane extract and deferoxamine on angiogenesis in wound healing: an in vivo model. J Wound Care. 2018 Jun 1;27(Sup6):S26-S32. doi: 10.12968/jowc.2018.27.Sup6.S26.PMID: 29883292 Azimian-Zavareh V, Hossein G, Ebrahimi M*, Dehghani-Ghobadi Z.Wnt11 alters integrin and cadherin expression by ovarian cancer spheroids and inhibits tumorigenesis and metastasis. Exp Cell Res. 2018 Aug 1;369(1):90-104. doi: 10.1016/j.yexcr.2018.05.010. Epub 2018 May 16. PMID: 29753625 Rajaee Z, Khoei S, Mahdavi SR, Ebrahimi M, Shirvalilou S, Mahdavian A. Evaluation of the effect of hyperthermia and electron radiation on prostate cancer stem cells. Radiat Environ Biophys. 2018 May;57(2):133-142. doi: 10.1007/s00411-018-0733-x. Epub 2018 Feb 17. PMID: 29453555 Zarrabi M, Afzal E, Asghari MH, Mohammad M, Es HA, Ebrahimi M*. Inhibition of MEK/ERK signalling pathway promotes erythroid differentiation and reduces HSCs engraftment in ex vivo expanded haematopoietic stem cells. J Cell Mol Med. 2018 Mar;22(3):1464-1474. doi: 10.1111/jcmm.13379. PMID: 28994199 Roudi R, Ebrahimi M, Shariftabrizi A, Madjd Z. Cancer stem cell research in Iran: potentials and challenges. Future Oncol. 2017 Aug;13(20):1809-1826. doi: 10.2217/fon-2017-0091. PMID: 28776391. Sepantafar M, Maheronnaghsh R, Mohammadi H, Radmanesh F, Hasani-Sadrabadi MM, Ebrahimi M, Baharvand H. Engineered Hydrogels in Cancer Therapy and Diagnosis. Trends Biotechnol. 2017 Nov;35(11):1074-1087. doi: 10.1016/j.tibtech.2017.06.015. PMID: 28734545 Dadras P, Atyabi F, Irani S, Ma’mani L, Foroumadi A, Mirzaie ZH, Ebrahimi M, Dinarvand R. Formulation and evaluation of targeted nanoparticles for breast cancer theranostic system. Eur J Pharm Sci. 2017 Jan 15;97:47-54. doi: 10.1016/j.ejps.2016.11.005. PMID: 27825919 Roudi R, Madjd Z, Ebrahimi M, Najafi A, Korourian A, Shariftabrizi A, Samadikuchaksaraei A. Evidence for embryonic stem-like signature and epithelial-mesenchymal transition features in the spheroid cells derived from lung adenocarcinoma. Tumour Biol. 2016 Sep;37(9):11843-11859. PMID: 27048287 Dashti A, Ebrahimi M, Hadjati J, Memarnejadian A, Moazzeni SM. Dendritic cell based immunotherapy using tumor stem cells mediates potent antitumor immune responses. Cancer Lett. 2016 Apr 28;374(1):175-185. doi: 10.1016/j.canlet.2016.01.021. PMID: 26803056 Nouri M, Deezagi A, Ebrahimi M. Reprogramming of human peripheral blood monocytes to erythroid lineage by blocking of the PU-1 gene expression. Ann Hematol. 2016 Mar;95(4):549-56. doi: 10.1007/s00277-015-2583-9. PMID: 26758270