Arezu Jahani-Asl

Arezu Jahani-Asl (born c. 1970s) is an Iranian-born Kurdish physician, neurobiologist and research scientist based in Montreal, Canada. She is the Canada research chair in neurobiology of disease at the University of Ottawa, a professor of medicine at McGill University, and a principal investigator at the Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research at the Jewish General Hospital in Quebec. She is best known for her research into glioblastoma, a highly aggressive and fatal form of brain cancer.

Early life and education Jahani-Asl was born in Mahabad, East Kurdistan, Iran. Her youth was marked by political turmoil; during her childhood, several of her family members, including her cousins and uncles, were executed, and her father was imprisoned for political activism. She served as the lead author of a significant study published in Nature Neuroscience which identified the OSMR gene as a primary driver of glioblastoma tumor growth. Her laboratory at McGill University works on developing compounds to suppress this gene, aiming to find treatments for tumors that are resistant to standard chemotherapy and radiation. a professor of medicine at McGill University, and a principal investigator at the Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research at the Jewish General Hospital in Quebec.

Personal life Jahani-Asl resides in Montreal with her husband, professor Vahab D. Soleimani, and their son. She has cited her Kurdish heritage and the hardships she faced as an immigrant as the source of her persistence in academia. She has also expressed public admiration for the resistance of the people of Kobani.

Publications