Welcome Dr. Saman Maleki
The Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Saman Maleki as a new member of our Basic Science (UWOFA) faculty, at the rank of Associate Professor, effective August 1, 2025.
Dr. Saman Maleki is a translational immuno-oncology scientist at the London Health Sciences Research Institute (LHSCRI), Western University, and the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research in Canada.
Since starting his independent research career at LHSCRI and Western University in 2019, Dr. Maleki has focused on developing novel strategies to sensitize hard-to-treat cancers to immunotherapy with immune checkpoint inhibitors. He has pioneered clinical trials that, for the first time in Canada and internationally, combine fecal microbiota transplantation from healthy donors with immune checkpoint inhibitors in cancer patients—an advancement over previous approaches using patient donors in refractory settings. Dr. Maleki has led the development of multiple phase I/II trials in advanced melanoma, metastatic renal cell carcinoma, metastatic lung cancer and melanoma, and advanced pancreatic cancer, serving as co-PI and overseeing protocol development, funding acquisition, and all translational aspects of these trials.
In addition to interventional trials, Dr. Maleki leads observational studies exploring gut microbiome changes in melanoma and pancreatic cancer patients during treatment. He established the first stool biobank at London Health Sciences Centre and Western University, with the goal of collecting stool, blood, and clinical data from 1,000 cancer patients and healthy donors.
Dr. Maleki has secured over $13 million in competitive funding since 2019. He chairs the Early-Scientist Committee at the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC), is a former SITC Sparkathon awardee, and was named Researcher of the Year at the Schulich School of Medicine at Western University in 2024. He has published numerous high-impact papers in leading journals, including Nature Medicine, Molecular Therapy, Journal for Immunotherapy of Cancer, Journal of Immunology, Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, Cell Reports Medicine, and JNCI.
We warmly welcome Dr. Maleki to the vibrant PaLM community of faculty, staff, residents, postdoctoral scholars, and students!
