Rozbeh Jafari

Dr. Jafari obtained his PhD in biomedical sciences at the department of chemistry and biomedical sciences, Karlstad University, where he developed antibody fragments for cancer immunotherapy of solid tumors. As a postdoc with Prof. Pär Nordlund at the department of biochemistry and biophysics, Karolinska Institutet, he developed the Cellular Thermal Shift Assay (CETSA) and its proteome wide adaptation, Thermal Proteome Profiling (TPP) and studied target and off-target identification and interaction of oncology drugs. He was awarded a assistant professor position from Swedish Childhood Fund in 2016 and the starting grant from Swedish Research Council in 2017 to establish his own research group at the department of oncology-pathology at Karolinska Institutet to apply multi-omic analysis of leukemias. In February 2024, he was appointed Associate Professor of Cell and Molecular Biology in the Department of Oncology-Pathology. In the same year, he received the Senior Investigator Award from the Swedish Cancer Society.

We are utilizing and integrating state-of-the-art omics methods to obtain detailed molecular phenotypes of childhood and adult acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), aiming to identify precision medicine candidates for improved therapy. Building on our recent studies (Leo, I.R. et al., Nat Commun 13, 1691 (2022), PMID:35354797, Kurzawa, N. et al., Nat Chem Biol 19, 962–971 (2023), PMID:36941476), we are advancing the study and validation of precision medicine candidates, with a strong focus on their translational implementation.

A fundamental question we are currently addressing is how cancer genome aberrations influence the functional proteome by combining genomics with proteomics data, a field known as cancer proteogenomics. In addition to quantitative proteomics, we are enhancing our analysis by capturing the biophysical state of the proteome, regardless of its abundance, using thermal proteomics. This approach allows us to identify functional proteoforms as well as their association with drug sensitivity.

Furthermore, we are investigating the target landscape of current and emerging targeted therapeutics using orthogonal chemical proteomics approaches to understand their mechanisms of action and potential toxicities. Our research also focuses on molecular and cellular biology, aiming to translate our findings into clinical applications that can significantly improve patient outcomes.