Epidemiology & Biostatistics

The Sohrab Shah Lab

Sohrab Shah, PhD

The Shah lab focuses on the major topics of cancer evolution, single cell genomics and transcriptomics, mutational processes and prediction of drug response. We are interested in the major questions which underpin the cellular dynamics of cancer. Why do some cancer patients respond to treatment, while others succumb to their disease? Why are some treatments effective initially, but fail over time? How do cancer cells acquire the ability to spread from one part of the body to another? These are the fundamental yet unresolved questions which limit our understanding of cancer progression. Viewing cancer progression through the lens of evolution, our approach centers on studying cancer cells as fundamental units of information encoding biological properties that evolve in different contexts. At Memorial Sloan Kettering we are leveraging single cell technologies and cellular imaging combined with development and deployment of state of the art machine learning tools to study the cellular dynamics of cancer in patients before, during and after treatment. Our work cross cuts basic and translational science including technology and computational methods development with application to biological and clinical problems in ovarian and breast cancer.

Research Projects

Projects

Publications Highlights

Ovarian cancer mutational processes drive site-specific immune evasion. Vázquez-García I, Uhlitz F, Ceglia N, Lim JLP, Wu M, Mohibullah N, Niyazov J, Ruiz AEB, Boehm KM, Bojilova V, Fong CJ, Funnell T, Grewal D, Havasov E, Leung S, Pasha A, Patel DM, Pourmaleki M, Rusk N, Shi H, Vanguri R, Williams MJ, Zhang AW, Broach V, Chi DS, Da Cruz Paula A, Gardner GJ, Kim SH, Lennon M, Long Roche K, Sonoda Y, Zivanovic O, Kundra R, Viale A, Derakhshan FN, Geneslaw L, Issa Bhaloo S, Maroldi A, Nunez R, Pareja F, Stylianou A, Vahdatinia M, Bykov Y, Grisham RN, Liu YL, Lakhman Y, Nikolovski I, Kelly D, Gao J, Schietinger A, Hollmann TJ, Bakhoum SF, Soslow RA, Ellenson LH, Abu-Rustum NR, Aghajanian C, Friedman CF, McPherson A, Weigelt B, Zamarin D, Shah SP. Nature. 2022 Dec;612(7941):778-786.. Epub 2022 Dec 14. PMID: 36517593; PMCID: PMC9771812.

Single-cell genomic variation induced by mutational processes in cancer. Funnell T, O’Flanagan CH, Williams MJ, McPherson A, McKinney S, Kabeer F, Lee H, Salehi S, Vázquez-García I, Shi H, Leventhal E, Masud T, Eirew P, Yap D, Zhang AW, Lim JLP, Wang B, Brimhall J, Biele J, Ting J, Au V, Van Vliet M, Liu YF, Beatty S, Lai D, Pham J, Grewal D, Abrams D, Havasov E, Leung S, Bojilova V, Moore RA, Rusk N, Uhlitz F, Ceglia N, Weiner AC, Zaikova E, Douglas JM, Zamarin D, Weigelt B, Kim SH, Da Cruz Paula A, Reis-Filho JS, Martin SD, Li Y, Xu H, de Algara TR, Lee SR, Llanos VC, Huntsman DG, McAlpine JN; IMAXT Consortium; Shah SP, Aparicio S. Nature. 2022 Dec;612(7938):106-115. Epub 2022 Oct 26. PMID: 36289342; PMCID: PMC9712114.

Multimodal integration of radiology, pathology, and genomics for prediction of response to PD-(L)1 blockade in patients with non-small cell lung cancer. Vanguri RS, Luo J, Aukerman AT, Egger JV, Fong CJ, Horvat N, Pagano A, Araujo-Filho JAB, Geneslaw L, Rizvi H, Sosa R, Boehm KM, Yang SR, Bodd FM, Ventura K, Hollmann TJ, Ginsberg MS, Gao J; MSK MIND Consortium; Hellmann MD, Sauter JL, Shah SP. Nat Cancer. 2022 Oct;3(10):1151-1164.Epub 2022 Aug 29. PMID: 36038778; PMCID: PMC9586871.

Multimodal data integration using machine learning improves risk stratification of high-grade serous ovarian cancer. Boehm KM, Aherne EA, Ellenson L, Nikolovski I, Alghamdi M, Vázquez-García I, Zamarin D, Long Roche K, Liu Y, Patel D, Aukerman A, Pasha A, Rose D, Selenica P, Causa Andrieu PI, Fong C, Capanu M, Reis-Filho JS, Vanguri R, Veeraraghavan H, Gangai N, Sosa R, Leung S, McPherson A, Gao J; MSK MIND Consortium; Lakhman Y, Shah SP. Nat Cancer. 2022 Jun;3(6):723-733. Epub 2022 Jun 28. PMID: 35764743; PMCID: PMC9239907.

Clonal fitness inferred from time-series modelling of single-cell cancer genomes. Salehi S, Kabeer F, Ceglia N, Andronescu M, Williams MJ, Campbell KR, Masud T, Wang B, Biele J, Brimhall J, Gee D, Lee H, Ting J, Zhang AW, Tran H, O’Flanagan C, Dorri F, Rusk N, de Algara TR, Lee SR, Cheng BYC, Eirew P, Kono T, Pham J, Grewal D, Lai D, Moore R, Mungall AJ, Marra MA; IMAXT Consortium; McPherson A, Bouchard-Côté A, Aparicio S, Shah SP. Nature. 2021 Jul;595(7868):585-590. Epub 2021 Jun 23. PMID: 34163070; PMCID: PMC8396073.

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People

Sohrab Shah, PhD

The Shah lab focuses on the major topics of cancer evolution, single cell genomics and transcriptomics, mutational processes and prediction of drug response.
PhD, University of British Columbia (Canada)

Members

Cynthia Berry
Associate Director, Translational Research Programs

Nicholas Ceglia
Computational Biologist, Sr II

Seongmin Choi
‪Bioinformatics Software Engineer III

Diljot Grewal
Bioinformatics Software Engineer IV

Matthew Myers
Senior Computational Biologist I

Asher Preska Steinberg
‪Senior Computational Biologist I

Nicole Rusk
Managing Editor/Grant Writer

Nuria Gendrau Sanclemente
Graduate Research Assistant

Matthew Zatzman
‪Senior Computational Biologist I

Lab Alumni

Douglas Abrams
Bioinformatics Software Engineer I

Viktoria Bojilova
Bioinformatics Software Engineer I

Pegah Khosravi
Senior Computational Biologist II

Samantha Leung
Bioinformatics Software Engineer I

Kevin Nguyern — Kevin Nguyen
Bioinformatics Software Engineer I

Arfath Pasha
Bioinformatics Software Engineer

Negar Safinianaini
Graduate Research Assistant

Lab Affiliations

Achievements

Susan B Komen Scholar (2018, 2021)
Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researchers (2018)
Nicholls-Biondi Endowed Chair in Computational Oncology

Open Positions

To learn more about available postdoctoral opportunities, please visit our Career Center

To learn more about compensation and benefits for postdoctoral researchers at MSK, please visit Resources for Postdocs

Faculty Positions in Computational Oncology

The Computational Oncology Program at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) is inviting applications for tenure track faculty positions at the level of Assistant and Associate Member.

Apply now

Disclosures

Doctors and faculty members often work with pharmaceutical, device, biotechnology, and life sciences companies, and other organizations outside of MSK, to find safe and effective cancer treatments, to improve patient care, and to educate the health care community.

MSK requires doctors and faculty members to report (“disclose”) the relationships and financial interests they have with external entities. As a commitment to transparency with our community, we make that information available to the public.

Sohrab Shah discloses the following relationships and financial interests:

AstraZeneca
Professional Services and Activities

Imagia Canexia Health Inc.
Equity

The information published here is for a specific annual disclosure period. There may be differences between information on this and other public sites as a result of different reporting periods and/or the various ways relationships and financial interests are categorized by organizations that publish such data.

This page and data include information for a specific MSK annual disclosure period (January 1, 2022 through disclosure submission in spring 2023). This data reflects interests that may or may not still exist. This data is updated annually.

Learn more about MSK’s COI policies here. For questions regarding MSK’s COI-related policies and procedures, email MSK’s Compliance Office at [email protected].

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