Sara Ghorashian

Sara Ghorashian is Consultant Paediatric Haematologist at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children and Honorary Associate Professor at UCL-GOS-Institute of Child Health, London, UK. After receiving her medical degree from the University of Oxford, Dr Ghorashian undertook a PhD in TCR gene engineering of therapeutic T cells at the University College London. For her post-doctoral studies at the UCL Institute of Child Health, she led the bench to bedside development of CATCAR/ AUTO1 i.e. fast off-rate CD19 CAR-T cells for therapy of paediatric ALL. This novel CAR T cell product (AUTO1) showed equivalent efficacy to Kymriah, with favourable toxicity profile and improved persistence. AUTO1 is now licensed to Autolus Ltd and is the subject of a pivotal study in adults. Dr Ghorashian’s research group focuses on T-cell immunobiology related to CAR T cell fitness and the optimisation / development of novel CAR immunotherapies for AML and ALL.  She chairs the Advanced Cellular Therapy Sub-Committee of the BSBMTCT and the UK National CAR T Advisory Panel for paediatric ALL.