Samira Kiani ( fa, سمیرا کیانی) is an Associate Professor in the department of Pathology of

University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine The University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine is a medical school of the University of Pittsburgh, located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The School of Medicine, also known as Pitt Med, is consistently ranked as a "Top Medical School" by '' ...

and Pittsburgh Liver Research Center. Formerly, she was a Health Systems Engineer at

Arizona State University Arizona State University (Arizona State or ASU) is a public research university in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, ASU is one of the largest public universities by enrollment in t ...

. Her work combines Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat (

CRISPR CRISPR () (an acronym for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) is a family of DNA sequences found in the genomes of prokaryotic organisms such as bacteria and archaea. These sequences are derived from DNA fragments of bac ...

) with synthetic biology. She is a 2019

AAAS AAAS may refer to: * American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a learned society and center for policy research; the publisher of the journal ''Dædalus'' * American Association for the Advancement of Science, an organization that supports scientifi ...

Leshner Fellow.

Early life and education

Kiani is from

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkm ...

. She earned her medical degree at the

Tehran University of Medical Sciences Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS) ( fa, دانشگاه علوم پزشکی تهران, ''Danushgah-e 'lum Pezeshki-ye Tehran'') is the largest and most highly ranked medical university of Iran. In September 2008, Iran's Mini ...

. She completed a thesis on the molecular mechanisms of tissue injury. She joined the

Freeman Hospital The Freeman Hospital is an 800-bed tertiary referral centre in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. The hospital is managed by the Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and is a teaching hospital for Newcastle University. History The Free ...

Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle upon Tyne ( RP: , ), or simply Newcastle, is a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. The city is located on the River Tyne's northern bank and forms the largest part of the Tyneside built-up area. Newcastle is a ...

, where she was trained in general medicine. She joined the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern t ...

, working as a postdoctoral researcher in

synthetic biology Synthetic biology (SynBio) is a multidisciplinary area of research that seeks to create new biological parts, devices, and systems, or to redesign systems that are already found in nature. It is a branch of science that encompasses a broad ran ...

at MIT Synthetic Biology Center. She has acted as an advisor for the

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) team. She collaborated with George Church and Ron Weiss to advance

technology. They developed a

based a modular transcriptional repression architecture that can be used to create functional cascaded circuits.

Research and career

Kiani joined

in 2016 and later moved to University of Pittsburgh in January 2020. She was awarded a

DARPA The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. Originally known as the Ad ...

fellowship to investigate hearing loss caused by traumatic injuries. The loud noises of combat zones can result in a health threat to military personnel. Kiani works on safer gene therapies, including Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat (

). The

Cas9 Cas9 (CRISPR associated protein 9, formerly called Cas5, Csn1, or Csx12) is a 160 kilodalton protein which plays a vital role in the immunological defense of certain bacteria against DNA viruses and plasmids, and is heavily utilized in genetic ...

protein works to cleave DNA, and can be targeted using a gRNA. When the gRNA reaches the target site it performs a double strand break, enabling gene disruption or editing. The Kiani lab looks to control where and when this gene disruption occurs. She has investigated whether

could be used to restore

hearing loss Hearing loss is a partial or total inability to hear. Hearing loss may be present at birth or acquired at any time afterwards. Hearing loss may occur in one or both ears. In children, hearing problems can affect the ability to acquire spoken la ...

after

acoustic trauma Acoustic trauma is the sustainment of an injury to the eardrum as a result of a very loud noise. Its scope usually covers loud noises with a short duration, such as an explosion, gunshot or a burst of loud shouting. Quieter sounds that are concent ...

and

aminoglycoside Aminoglycoside is a medicinal and bacteriologic category of traditional Gram-negative antibacterial medications that inhibit protein synthesis and contain as a portion of the molecule an amino-modified glycoside ( sugar). The term can also refer ...

. She working on the optimisation of

CRISPR gene editing CRISPR gene editing (pronounced "crisper") is a genetic engineering technique in molecular biology by which the genomes of living organisms may be modified. It is based on a simplified version of the bacterial CRISPR-Cas9 antiviral defense syst ...

using RNA pol II. She has discussed her work on the Future Tech podcast. Her research is also supported by two grants from National Institute of Health, the most recent one being $2,600,000 from the

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U ...

. The proposal looks to develop a human liver-on-a-chip using

Public engagement

In 2019 Kiani was announced as a Leshner Fellow of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsi ...

. She is working with Cody Sheehy to create a documentary entitled ''The Human Game.'' Kiani serves as the co-producer on the project, which looks to create a deeper discussion between the public and scientists about CRISPR technologies. In addition, together with Cody Sheehy, they are promoting a public engagement initiative called Tomorrow.Life aimed at increasing participation of broader stakeholders in decisions about future of science through collaborative visual story telling.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kiani, Samira American people of Iranian descent Iranian medical researchers Iranian women scientists Iranian women academics Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty Arizona State University faculty Tehran University of Medical Sciences alumni Living people Year of birth missing (living people) 20th-century Iranian women 21st-century Iranian scientists 21st-century Iranian women scientists