Dr. Shaheenah Dawood (ID*)

Dr Shaheenah Dawood is a consultant medical oncologist and professor in Clinical Oncology with nearly 20 years of experience across Canada, the USA, and the UAE. She trained in Medical Oncology at McGill University Hospitals in Montreal and completed the Susan Komen Breast Cancer fellowship at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. She holds a Masters of Public Health from Harvard School of Public Health and has been recognised with multiple scholar-in-training awards and ASCO merit awards during her training.

Dr Dawood specialises in treating a broad range of solid cancers including breast cancer, colorectal cancer, pancreatic cancer, stomach and oesophageal cancer, melanoma, lymphoma, gynaecological cancers (ovarian, endometrial, cervical), lung cancer, and urological cancers (bladder, kidney, prostate). She is particularly focused on targeted therapies—personalised treatments that attack specific cancer cell mutations. She has over 100 publications to her credit, including 50 peer-reviewed research articles, 30 review articles, and 12 book chapters, and serves as a reviewer for multiple medical journals.

Dr Dawood leads the Oncology research programme at Mediclinic City Hospital and is developing clinical trials to expand access to novel cancer medications in the UAE. She was previously head of Medical Oncology at Dubai Health Authority for nearly a decade. She chairs the annual Excellence in Oncology Summit in Dubai and co-chairs the Asia-Pacific Breast Cancer Summit and Asia-Pacific Gastrointestinal Cancer Summit. She is also leading international precision oncology initiatives and has received the Emirati Contributor Award for her work in precision oncology. She introduced several first-in-Gulf targeted therapies to Mediclinic, including pembrolizumab, amivantamab, and entrectinib.