Rate My Professor Iman Azimi

Dr. Iman Azimi is a Senior Lecturer and Research Group Head in the Department of Pharmacology at Monash University's Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute. He received his PhD in 2011 from the University of New South Wales in Sydney. From 2011 to 2017, he worked as a postdoctoral fellow at The University of Queensland, researching cancer hypoxia, metastatic-associated processes, epithelial-mesenchymal transition, tumour microenvironment, calcium signalling, and high-throughput screening assays. In 2018, he joined the University of Tasmania as a Lecturer in Pharmaceutical Science, establishing his independent research group within the College of Health and Medicine, with funding from Cancer Council Tasmania, Brain Foundation, Kids’ Cancer Project, and Research Enhancement Program. Iman joined Monash University in 2023 as Senior Lecturer and Head of the Cancer Drug Discovery and Cellular Ageing Lab.

Azimi's research interests center on identifying new therapeutic targets to control invasive behaviours of brain cancers, particularly medulloblastoma; understanding cellular ageing biology and developing novel control approaches; exploring calcium signalling pathways in physiological and pathological processes, including cancer and senescence; and creating high-throughput drug screening assays. Key publications include "LIN28 expression and function in medulloblastoma" (Journal of Cellular Physiology, 2023), "T-Type Calcium Channel Inhibitors Induce Apoptosis in Medulloblastoma Cells Associated with Altered Metabolic Activity" (Molecular Neurobiology, 2022), "Development of a High-throughput Agar Colony Formation Assay to Identify Drug Candidates against Medulloblastoma" (Pharmaceuticals, 2020), "Induction of epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) in breast cancer cells is calcium signal dependent" (Oncogene, 2014), and "Calcium influx pathways in breast cancer: opportunities for pharmacological intervention" (British Journal of Pharmacology, 2014). He has received the ASCEPT Denis Wade Johnson & Johnson New Investigator Award (2016), Oxygen Club of California Award for best oral presentation by a young investigator (2015), Tony B. Academic Award (2012), and CASS Foundation Travel Award (2017). Azimi holds leadership positions such as Chair of the Institutional Biosafety Committee at Novotech CRO, guest editor for Cancers, Genes, and Frontiers in Pharmacology, and grant reviewer for NHMRC, UK Medical Research Council, Cancer Research Trust New Zealand, and others. Current projects include developing medulloblastoma organoids and testing CNS-penetrant drug libraries.