Background
Dr. Jelani Zarif is an Assistant Professor of Oncology (Prostate Cancer Program) at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine's Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Zarif is also a member of the Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. The Zarif laboratory studies molecular mechanisms by immune cells within the tumor microenvironment that ultimately promote tumor growth, therapeutic resistance, and metastasis. The Zarif laboratory also focuses on discovering and investigating new biomarkers that may be expressed on myeloid cells that could predict clinical response to standard of care treatments for prostate cancer.
Dr. Zarif received his Ph.D. in Cell and Molecular Biology from Michigan State University. He then completed two post-doctoral fellowships at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
He has been the recipient of several awards, including the Prostate Cancer Foundation's Young Investigator award, The Patrick C. Walsh Prostate Cancer Research Fund, and the NCI K22 Career Transition award.