Nirali N. Shah

Nirali N. Shah is an American physician-scientist and pediatric hematologist-oncologist, serving as head of the hematologic malignancies section of the pediatric oncology branch at the National Cancer Institute. She researches the translation of immunotherapeutic approaches to treat high-risk hematologic malignancies in children, adolescents and young adults.

Early life and education Shah was raised in Chicago where her father is an internal medicine physician. She was interested in medicine at a young age. When Shah was 10, she fundraised for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and heard about pediatric oncology. As an undergraduate, she shadowed a pediatric hematologist-oncologist and developed an interest in understanding the complexity of how haematopoiesis is disrupted by leukemia. Shah completed a B.S. in secondary education in chemistry at University of Illinois at Chicago in 2000.

Shah received her M.D. in 2004 from the University of Illinois College of Medicine. Shah subsequently completed a dual residency program in internal medicine and pediatrics at the Harvard Combined Residency program and trained jointly at the Boston Children's Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital, during which time she also served as Chief Resident. She then joined the Pediatric Hematology and Oncology Fellowship joint training program between the National Cancer Institute (NCI), Pediatric Oncology Branch (POB) and Johns Hopkins University and was an Associate Research Physician in the Pediatric Oncology Branch. In 2012, Shah earned a Masters of Health Science in Clinical Research through the joint NIH-Duke University School of Medicine. She completed the American Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation Clinical Research Training Course (2012).

More recently she is leading an effort called Project EVOLVE (Evaluation of Lineage Switch: An International Initiative). This group is investigating postimmunotherapy lineage switching in relapse in leukemia patients. This project is collecting data from patients who have experienced LS and physicians who have diagnosed or treated it.

Personal life Shah speaks English and Gujarati.

Selected works