Marzieh Ebrahimi Ph.D.

Department of Stem Cells and Developmental Biology

Associate professor

Email: mebrahimi@royaninstitute.org

Phone: +98 21 23562512

CV: Marzieh Ebrahimi CV 

Marzieh Ebrahimi received her B.Sc. in filed of cell and Molecular Biology from department of Biology at Tehran University in 1996, master’s degree and PhD in Medical Immunology form faculty of medicine at Tarbiat Modares University in 2000 and 2007, with focus on tumor therapy by herbal component (as Master thesis) and differentiation and activation of DCs from hematopoietic stem cells (as PhD thesis).
Dr. Ebrahimi was joined to department of stem cells at Royan Institute in 2003 as a researcher fellow. After completing her PhD in 2007, she served as group leader of hematopoietic stem cell with the main focus on isolation, preservation, expansion and differentiation of hematopoietic stem cells into different lineage. She also was scientific manger of private Royan cord blood bank since Jul. 2006 –July 2009. Since Jul. 2009- July 2010, she worked in Oncology surgery, ZLF, Unihospitale of Basel, Switzerland as postdoctoral fellow and evaluated the effect of bone marrow stromal cells on melanoma stem cells. After coming back to Royan Institute, she joined cancer stem cells research to hematopoietic stem cell group.
The effort of her research group and she, were conducted to establish public Royan cord blood bank and Royan peripheral blood stem cell bank in 2011, which cryopreserved the cord blood stem cells and immobilized stem cells of cancer patients before chemotherapy, respectively. Moreover, her group and she successfully established the Royan amniotic membrane bank at 2012 to provide the different product of amniotic membrane for using in clinic and dressing of skin wounds. She has published more than 70 in peer-reviewed national and international journals and has given numerous tutorials and invited talks in national and international congress.
She received award from Iranian presidential office, center for women and family affairs as a woman Elite in research.
Currently, she is group director of hematopoietic and cancer stem cells in Royan Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Technology and responsible for flowcytometry core facility.

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.

Research assistants:

Javad Firouzi

Monire Mohammad

Niloufar shayan

Maryam Momeni

Ph.D. Students:

Reyhaneh Khoshchehreh

Resetting the pancreatic cancer Using iPSC approach

Adeleh Taghikhani

Engineered Tumor exosomes to activate Dendritic cell against breast cancer

Atefeh SafarPour

nvestigate the effect of anti cancer of halophylic and halotolerant Bacterial

Farzaneh Sharifzad

Novel activation method for NK cells against Glioblastma

Somayeh Vafaii

Study on CTC and Exosomes of colorectal patients

Parisa Sahranavard

Investigate MiRNAs that target both Self renewal and metastasis in melanoma

Ali pourtalebi

Mojgan Barati

Vajihe Azimian

Morteza Zarrabi

MSCs Students:

Mahsa Rahimi

investigate miRNAs targeting Both Self-renewal and metastasis in Breast cancer stem cells

Alaleh RezaLotfi

study the effect of cancer stem cells on TH17/Treg balance

Bahareh Aliabadi

Sahar Sameian

The full list of publications can be find here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Marzieh+Ebrahimi

Selected publications:

  1. 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
  2. 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
  3. 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
  4. 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
  5. 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
  6. 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
  7. 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.
  8. 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
  9. 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
  10. 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
  11. 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
  12. 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