Howard Shen

Dr. Howard Shen brings over two decades of experience as a laboratory research-based immunologist in cancer. Early in his career his NIH-funded work in prostate cancer at the University of Southern California’s Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center led to identification of peptide regions in hormone receptor proteins as potential targets for development of new therapeutics. Dr. Shen served as a US Department of Defense-funded Research Fellow at Harvard Medical School where he co-developed a computational approach for identification of novel compounds efficacious in halting the growth of refractory prostate tumors in late-stage cancer. He is listed as co-inventor on the patent for these compounds, which are currently in development for clinical use. As a result of his background in cancer immunology, genetics, and molecular cell biology, he has authored numerous peer-reviewed papers in high-impact journals such as Cancer Cell and Nature Communications. Currently Dr. Shen is Senior Researcher and Lecturer at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa in the Department of Microbiology, where his work focuses on understanding how Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative pathogen behind the worldwide threat of tuberculosis, is able to evade human macrophages, T cells, and Natural Killer cells. His intimate understanding of the body’s complex cellular signaling networks governing our immune responses to infection and cancer serves to guide the scientific development of Kairos Biomedical’s products. Howard Shen earned his bachelor’s degree in Biology from UC Berkeley and his Ph.D. from University of Southern California before completing post-doctoral training at Harvard.