S.M. Mansour Haeryfar

Dr. Mansour Haeryfar is a tenured Professor of Departments of Microbiology and Immunology, Medicine, and Surgery at Western University (aka. The University of Western Ontario) in London, Ontario, Canada. He obtained his Doctorate in Laboratory Medicine from National University of Tehran in 1996, his M.Sc. in immunology from University of Manitoba in 1999, and his Ph.D. in immunology from Dalhousie University in 2003. During his postdoctoral training (2003 – 2006), Dr. Haeryfar studied CD8+ T cell cross-priming and immunodominance in the laboratory of Drs. Jonathan Yewdell and Jack Bennink at National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

Dr. Haeryfar’s basic, translational and clinical research program is focused on protective and pathogenic immune responses mediated by conventional and innate-like T lymphocytes. He investigates activation signals and checkpoint pathways that govern mouse and human cytotoxic T cell responses to tumor/viral antigens and also explores the therapeutic benefits of targeting invariant natural killer T (iNKT) and mucosa-associated invariant T (MAIT) cells in the contexts of malignancy, polymicrobial sepsis and influenza. Members of Haeryfar’s laboratory strive to invent and optimize novel immunotherapies for cancer and infectious diseases. These lines of investigation have been supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health research (CIHR), Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), Cancer Research Society Inc., and Prostate Cancer Canada among other granting agencies.

Dr. Haeryfar is a member of the Canadian Society for Immunology (CSI), the American Association of Immunologists (AAI), and the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR). He has received numerous prestigious awards and distinctions, including but not limited to a Fogarty International Fellowship from NIH, an Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation Early Researcher Award, and a Leaders Opportunity Fund from Canada Foundation for Innovation. He also held a “Canada Research Chair” between 2010 and 2015.