Investigator: Mohammad Ahsan Saad, PhD
Dr. Saad completed his PhD degree in India and joined Prof. Tayyaba Hasan’s laboratory at the MGH Wellman Center for Photomedicine in 2018. He is involved in the development of targeted molecular probes for image-guided therapy and immunology of pancreatic and oral cancers. He has developed complex photosensitizer formulations for imaging and therapy and evaluated their performance on a variety of in vitro and in vivo tumor models.
Mohammad A Saad has been the driver in the successful renewal of Prof. Hasan’s P01 program and the U01 consortium grant, both multimillion multisite awards. He is a lead player in the Academia Industry Project (AIP) – NIH-R01 grant and plays a key role in Prof. Hasan’s industry collaborations with NIRA Biosciences, inc. and Merck. He is also leading the efforts for FDA approval and managing industry interactions to get a GMP product manufactured for clinical trials, as part of an AIP grant. He is the lead player on several ongoing collaborative projects in Prof. Hasan’s group including one with Dr. Mark Varvares, a surgeon at the MEEI, and with Dr. Bryan Spring at Northeastern University. Mohammad is also leading the writing of an S10 instrumentation grant for the procurement of the VisualSonics Vevo F2 LAZR-X system.
Dr. Saad has been an invited speaker at the Optica Biophotonics Congress (2023), VisualSonics, FujiFilm webinar (2022), the Host-Pathogen seminar series (2020) organized by the Molecular Surgical Laboratory at the Department of Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and the Department of Bioengineering, University of Texas, Dallas. He has been the primary mentor to several undergraduate and visiting graduate students in Prof. Hasan’s lab. Most of his mentees, coming in through prestigious programs such as the CaNCURE, YES for CURE and the Wellman Summer Institute, acknowledge and praise his mentorship and have been coauthors on his publications. He has a total of 17 published manuscripts, 9 of which were published since he joined the Wellman Center for Photomedicine, 6 as the first author. Mohammad has a strong publication record with over 1000 citations so far.
Publications
Liboy C, Khan S, Song B, Vega D, Saad MA, Liang R, Hasan T, Celli JP
Imaging protoporphyrin IX photoproduct accumulation as a dosimetry reporter for monitoring photodynamic therapy of oral cancer. J Biomed Opt. 2025;30(Suppl 3):S34114 - PMID: 41377090 - PMCID: PMC12688037 - DOI: 10.1117/1.JBO.30.S3.S34114Bartusik-Aebisher D, Saad MA, Przygórzewska A, Aebisher D
Recent Advances in Nanoparticle and Nanocomposite-Based Photodynamic Therapy for Cervical Cancer: A Review. Cancers (Basel). 2025;17(15):ePub - PMID: 40805266 - PMCID: PMC12346876 - DOI: 10.3390/cancers17152572Shimizu K, Kahramanian A, Jabbar MADA, Turna Demir F, Gokyer D, Uthamacumaran A, Rajan A, Saad MA, Gorham J, Wakimoto H, Martuza RL, Rabkin SD, Hasan T, Wakimoto H
Photodynamic augmentation of oncolytic virus therapy for central nervous system malignancies. Cancer Lett. 2023;572:216363 - PMID: 37619813 - PMCID: PMC10529118 - DOI: 10.1016/j.canlet.2023.216363Saad MA, Pawle R, Selfridge S, Contreras L, Xavierselvan M, Nguyen CD, Mallidi S, Hasan T
Optimizing Axial and Peripheral Substitutions in Si-Centered Naphthalocyanine Dyes for Enhancing Aqueous Solubility and Photoacoustic Signal Intensity. Int J Mol Sci. 2023;24(3):ePub - PMID: 36768560 - PMCID: PMC9916426 - DOI: 10.3390/ijms24032241Saad MA, Hasan T
Spotlight on Photoactivatable Liposomes beyond Drug Delivery: An Enabler of Multitargeting of Molecular Pathways. Bioconjug Chem. 2022;33(11):2041-2064 - PMID: 36197738 - PMCID: PMC10351218 - DOI: 10.1021/acs.bioconjchem.2c00376Saad MA, Zhung W, Stanley ME, Formica S, Grimaldo-Garcia S, Obaid G, Hasan T
Photoimmunotherapy Retains Its Anti-Tumor Efficacy with Increasing Stromal Content in Heterotypic Pancreatic Cancer Spheroids. Mol Pharm. 2022;19(7):2549-2563 - PMID: 35583476 - PMCID: PMC10443673 - DOI: 10.1021/acs.molpharmaceut.2c00260Early S, Saad MA, Mallidi S, Mansour A, Seist R, Hasan T, Stankovic KM
A fluorescent photoimmunoconjugate for imaging of cholesteatoma. Sci Rep. 2022;12(1):19905 - PMID: 36402793 - PMCID: PMC9675863 - DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-22072-9Saad MA, Xavierselvan M, Sharif HA, Selfridge S, Pawle R, Varvares M, Mallidi S, Hasan T
Dual Function Antibody Conjugates for Multimodal Imaging and Photoimmunotherapy of Cancer Cells. Photochem Photobiol. 2021;98(1):220-231 - PMID: 34379796 - PMCID: PMC10038131 - DOI: 10.1111/php.13501Nath S, Saad MA, Pigula M, Swain JWR, Hasan T
Photoimmunotherapy of Ovarian Cancer: A Unique Niche in the Management of Advanced Disease. Cancers (Basel). 2019;11(12):ePub - PMID: 31783651 - PMCID: PMC6966499 - DOI: 10.3390/cancers11121887
