STAT News annually recognizes a small group of up-and-coming scientists and researchers as “Wunderkinds” – the next generation of scientific superstars. This year, Natasha Sheybani, PhD, was recognized among the awardees.
Dr. Sheybani serves as Senior Scientist at the Focused Ultrasound Foundation, where her role involves supporting research programs in glioblastoma, gene therapy, and cancer immunotherapy. She is also a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Stanford University, where her appointment is shared among the Departments of Oncology, Radiology, and Biomedical Data Science. Her research focuses on applications of liquid biopsy and radiomics/radiogenomics for advancing precision immuno-oncology.
Dr. Sheybani’s graduate research at the University of Virginia centered on leveraging image-guided focused ultrasound to potentiate immunotherapy for solid tumors, including glioblastoma and metastatic breast cancer. During her training, she was supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship and the Robert R. Wagner Fellowship, and she currently holds the prestigious National Cancer Institute F99/K00 Predoctoral-to-Postdoctoral Fellow Transition Award.
“I consider it such an honor to have received this recognition. It is incredibly inspiring and motivating to be in the company of such remarkable early career scientists who share a desire to bear meaningful impact on patient lives through research,” said Dr. Sheybani. “I owe a great deal to the many mentors – most notably my PhD advisor, Dr. Richard Price – who have championed my ambition to bring focused ultrasound and imaging to the forefront of immuno-oncology.”
The 2020 Wunderkind recipients were announced during the organization’s 2020 STAT Summit, which addressed the changes we’re seeing in society and healthcare due to COVID-19 and aimed at answering the question, “What’s next?”
Congratulations, Natasha!