NEWS
November 2023- Head & Neck Cancer Awareness with SRDS
The Sheffield Dental School Research Society (DSRS) and Prof Khurram organised an internationa food event to help with awareness of head and neck cancers and raise funds. Students and staff brought amazing food, and the event raised over £500. This would not have been possible without the hardwork of Faisal Alhedyan, Ben Raven, Shivani Joshi, Cerys Evans, maria Luna Perciato and Samie-Jo Terry. David Baxter, a trustee of the Swallows Charity also attended the event and spoke on behalf of the charity thanking everyone for their support.
November 2023- NEOPATH at The Swallows Patient Conference
Prof Khurram and Paul delivered invited talks at the International Head and Neck Cancer Conference 2023 in Torbay. They opened the meeting with a session titled 'Pathologists, the invisible companion in your cancer journey'. Paul's talk was titled 'Pathologists, with you from the first step of your journey' whereas Prof Khurram spoke about 'Technologies in head and neck cancer diagnosis'. Both talks were extremely well received and generated a lot of discussion amongst patients, carers and healthcare professionals.
November 2023- Farewell Anza
Anza Shakeel finished her CR UK Postdoctoral Fellow Position at Sheffield in November 2023 and has taken up a Senior Research Associate Position in Cancer Data Science at the University of Bristol.
We will her the best of luck in her new role.
October 2023- John joins the team
John Charlton has joined NEOPATH as a Postdoctoral John is a Research Associate working on detection and understanding of salivary gland cancers. He graduated with a Masters from the University of Manchester in 2016 and his PhD in
2023 from the University of Sheffield. John is joining the team for a project funded by the Life Arc Rare Disease (Pathfinder) Scheme. The project will develop novel and bespoke Artificial Intelligence
Algorithms for profiling of a multicentre salivary gland cancer dataset.
SEPTEMBER 2023- Chris joins the team!
Chris is currently working as a Speciality Registrar in Oral Medicine. Recently, Chris was awarded the joint RCS England and BISOM pump-priming research grant to explore the role of computational pathology in the diagnosis and prognosis of pre-cancerous oral verrucous lesions. Chris is actively involved in national societies, including as Treasurer for the Oral Medicine & Pathology Group of BSODR and as previous Member’s Representative for BISOM.
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SEPTEMBER 2023- NEOPATH at BSODR 2023 and success for Hanya!
JUNE 2023- Prof. Khurram chairs session at PathSoc Summer Meeting, Liverpool
Professor Khurram chaired a session on the application of AI to Pathology at the summer 2023 meeting of the Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland (Liverpool, Pathology). As part of the session he also delivered a talk related to head and neck pathology. Other speakers included Dr Catarina Eloy (IPATIMUP, University of Porto) and Dr Faisal Mehmood (Harvard University).
MARCH 2022- Congratulations Dr Ibrahim!
Ibrahim Alsanie had his PhD viva in March 2023. After a thorough viva, he passed his PhD with only minor corrections recommended for his thesis. He was examined by Dr Selvam Thavaraj (King's College) and Professor Daniel Lambert (Sheffield). Congrats Dr Ibrahim!
FEBRUARY/MARCH 2022- FAREWELL NEDA
Congratulations to Dr Neda Azarmehr for securing an Assistant Professor position at the University of West London. We will be sad to see her leave but wish her all the best in her new roel and future endeavours.
SEPTEMBER 2022- NEOPATH at PER-IADR 2022
NEOPATH was well represented at the recent PER-IADR Congress in Marseille, France. Dr Khurram was one of the invited speakers in the BSODR Innovative Technologies Symposium whereas Ibrahim presented his work on Salivary Gland Tumours at the Senior Colgate Competition. Hanya also did an oral presentation building on her previous work on oral dysplasia and won the BSODR Oral Pathology and Oral Medicine Prize.
The group's work was very well received with excellent feedback and discussions.
JULY 2022- NEDA WINS PRIZE AT MIUA
Congratulations to Neda for winning the 3rd prize in the Women in MIUA poster competition at the MIUA Conference (Medical Image Understanding and Analysis), which was held in Cambridge between 27-29 of July. Her poster was titled 'A neural architecture search based framework for segmentation of epithelium, nuclei and oral epithelial dysplasia grading'. Well done Neda!
APRIL 2022- SUCCESS FOR HANYA at BSOMP 2022
Hanya Mahmood presented a part of her PhD work (recently published in Nature Modern Pathology at the 2022 BSOMP Annual Conference. She was awarded The Potts Prize (Best Research Presentation by a PhD Student or an ECR) at the conference in recognition of the quality of her work and talk. Congratulations Hanya!
JAN 2022- WELCOME TO CLAUDIA
We welcome Dr Claudia Kirsch, who joins as a remote PhD student. Claudia is Clinical Professor of Radiology at Yale University who specialises in neuroradiology and H&N imaging with a focus on developing innovative methodologies to enhance patient care. Her PhD explores Viral mediated disease utilising high resolution MRI imaging with Dr Khurram, Professor Daniel Lambert (Sheffield) and Professor Priti Balchandani (Mount Sinai Medical Center). She has extensive clinical and research experience and was previously the Neuroradiology Division Chief at Northwell Health Zucker Hofstra School, New York.
OCT 2021- TAQI COMMENCES HIS PHD
October 2021 has been a busy month for NEOPATH and the latest addition to our group is Syed Taqi Ahmed who has joined us for PhD. Taqi obtained his MDS in Oral Pathology from Mumbai, India in 2008 following which he worked as an academic clinician in India (Government Dental College & Hospital and Bharati Vidyapeeth Dental College and Hospital) and Saudi Arabia (King Khaled University Faculty of Dentistry and Najran University Faculty of Dentistry). His PhD will involve exploring digital markers of diagnosis and prognosis in squamous cell carcinoma using image analysis and machine learning tools.
OCT 2021- WELCOME TO ZAKI
A very warm welcome to Amir Zaki Abdullah Zubir who joins us as a Postdoctoral Fellow for 30 months on a British Council Funded Project exploring Prognostic Biomarkers in Oral Cancer. Dr Khurram is the UK PI of the study which has matched funding for Dr Asif Ali and colleagues at Khyber Medical University from the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan. The study aims to perform in vitro and ex vivo tissue analysis and sequencing on a oral cancer patient cohort as well as a cross-population analysis between UK and Pakistan.
OCT 2021- RANDEEP COMMENCES HIS PHD
We welcome Randeep who has joined us for a PhD jointly funded by the University of Sheffield and The Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) in Singapore. He is jointly supervised by Dr Khurram and Dr Pavitra Krishnaswammy (I2R, A*STAR). He holds a BSc in Mathematics and Philosophy, an MSc in Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Logic and has experience as a research assistant (University of Edinburgh), where he used machine learning to advance phenotypic drug discovery, gaining an MRes in the process.
SEP 2021- INVITED TALK FOR EMPAIA ACADEMY
Dr Khurram was invited to give a ltalk at the Ecosystem for Pathology Diagnostics with AI Assistance (EMPAIA) Academy sharing his and Hanya Mahmood' experience of the quality of AI research related to Head and Neck Cancers. This virtual event brought together renowned speakers from the IT, artificial intelligence and pathology to share experiences, use cases and the latest developments in digital pathology / AI for pathology.
JULY 2021- INVITED TALK- PATHLAKE MASTER CLASS
Dr Khurram was invited to give a talk on 'Computational Pahtology for Head and Neck Cancers' at the PathLake 2021 Master Classes. This second series of PathLAKE Masterclasses focussed around the theme of AI for pathologists with researchers, practitioners and industry specialists providing cutting-edge training on AI and related concepts as well as showcasing some of the latest developments in the area of computational pathology.
MAY 2021- INVITED LECTURE & HANYA'S SUCCESS AT ABAOMS MEETING
Dr Khurram was invited to give a lecture at the Annual meeting of the Association of British Academic Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons on 21 May 2021. His talk was titled 'Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology Version 2021: Making Sense of it as a Surgeon'. Hanya Mahmood also presented a poster at the same event and was awarded the Best Poster Prize.
APRIL 2021- PhD SUCCESS FOR NEDA
Congratulations to Neda for passing her PhD viva with minor corrections on 28 April. Neda's PhD study focused on developing automated models for 2D echocardiographic images interpretation using deep learning and computer vision algorithms at University of Lincoln. Her PhD was supervised by Professor Massoud Zolgharni, Professor Xujiong Ye and Dr Faraz Janan. She was examined by Professor Hui Wang (Ulster University) and Dr James Brown (University of Lincoln).
APRIL 2021- DR KHURRAM TALKS TO LINK FM
Dr Khurram was invited for a radio interview with LINK FM on 9 April 2021, which was broadcast in the Urdu language in the UK and Pakistan. The interview involved discussion about raising awareness of oral cancer in the public including causative factors, signs and symptoms, treatments as well as challenges and barriers. Oral cancer is the 2nd most common cancer in Pakistan with poor awareness of it as a disease, making it a very pertinent discussion.
MARCH 2021- WELCOME TO NEDA
A very warm welcome to Neda Azarmehr who joins us to work as a Postdoctoral Fellow for 30 months on the Cancer Research UK Funded ANTICIPATE study exploring the use of Artificial Intelligence for early detection of oral cancer. Dr Khurram is the Principal Investigator for ANTICIPATE, which is running in collaboration with the Professor Nasir Rajpoot (Co-PI, University of Warwick), Professor Hisham Mehanna, Dr Paul Nankivell (University of Birmingham) and Dr Jackie James (Queen's University, Belfast).
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FEB 2021- H&N CANCER CHARITY PATRONAGE FOR DR KHURRAM
Dr Khurram received the great honour of being invited to become a patron for The Swallows Head and Neck Cancer Support Charity, which is one of the leading charities in the world formed by like-minded cancer patients to support fellow sufferes and care givers.
Find out more about the charity and support it here:
JAN 2021- NIHR DOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP SUCCESS FOR HANYA
Hanya Mahmood who is an Academic Clinical Fellow in Oral Surgery and has been working with Dr Khurram (in collaboration with Professor Rajpoot, University of Warwick) for the last 2 years was recently awarded a NIHR Doctoral Fellowship worth £352,944 for her PhD over a 3 year period which explores the use of Artificial Intelligence for prognostic risk scoring of oral pre-cancer. Hanya commences her PhD from February 2021.
JAN 2021- DR KHURRAM SECURES BRITISH COUNCIL FUNDINGS
Dr Khurram has been awarded a 3 year International Collaborative Research Grant in collaboration with Dr Asif Ali and his research group at Khyber Medical University, Peshawar, Pakistan to undertake the first study of its kind exploring diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers of oral cancer in a Pakistani patient cohort. The scheme is funded by British Council Pakistan wtih matched funding from the Higher Education Commission, Pakistan. The UK component of the grant is worth £243,491.
NOV 2020- 12 HOUR MOUTH CANCER FUND RAISING VIRTUATHON
Dr Khurram hosted a 12 hour virtuathon on YouTube to raise funds for Mouth Action Month in collaboration with The Oral Health Foundation. Ali was joined by colleagues, mouth cancer survivors (including Chris Curtis from The Swallows & Eva Grayzel) as well as medical and dental experts to talk about experiences and challenges related to mouth cancer diagnosis, and discuss 'what happens behind the scenes'. Senior PR and Press Officer of the Oral Health Foundation, Stephen Loat said the event had been a “real highlight of their 2020 campaign”, raising £1361 for Mouth Cancer Action.
NOV 2021- IBRAHIM PASSES HIS PhD UPGRADE VIVA
Ibrahim Alsanie had his end of year 1 PhD upgrade examination as part of which he underwent a thorough examination and discussion with Professors Keith Hunter and Daniel Lambert. Ibrahim has a special interest in digital pathology and application of machine learning and image analysis to histopathology. During the first year of his PhD, Ibrahim has generated some novel and interesting data which will form the foundation for his years 2 and 3 of his PhD.
SEP 2020- PAUL JOINS THE TEAM
Paul Hankinson who obtained his BDS degree from Sheffield in 2017 has been appointed as an NIHR Academic Clinical Fellow in Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology. Following his graduation, Paul undertook his DFT training followed by 2 years as a DCT in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery. He previously undertook a BMedSci at Sheffield and has a strong interest in research particularly in head and neck potentially malignant lesions. Paul will be working towards post graduate certificates in both medical education and clinical research methods. In addition, he will be exploring novel biomarkers for the diagnosis and risk stratification of potentially malignant/dysplastic head and neck lesions.
