Scientific Advisory Board

Dr. Kung is a physician-scientist and Chair of the Department of Pediatrics at Memorial Sloan Kettering. He oversees the clinical, research, and educational missions of the department and MSK Kids. He specializes in caring for patients using cancer genomics (studying the genetic changes related to cancer), precision medicine (tailoring treatment to the biology of the disease), and stem cell transplantation. In his research, Dr. Kung focuses on identifying the causes of pediatric cancers and developing new treatments to benefit children and teens with these diseases.

Dr. Kung received his medical degree from Stanford University School of Medicine.  He completed residency in pediatrics at Children’s Hospital Boston and a fellowship in pediatric hematology/oncology at Children’s Hospital Boston/Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Dr. Mirza has served as a member of our board of directors since October 2010. He has also served as a scientific consultant to us since 2010. Dr. Mirza is Chief Oncologist at the Department of Oncology, Rigshopitalet — the Copenhagen University Hospital, Denmark and Medical Director of Nordic Society of Gynaecological Oncology (NSGO).

Dr. Mirza is both a medical and radiation oncologist, with a primary focus in non-surgical treatment of gynecologic cancers. His key academic goals are to promote clinical research, international trial collaboration and education, and he has broad experience in clinical protocol development, trial conduct and clinical trial regulations.

Dr. Mirza is the author of several phase 1, 2 and 3 studies and serves as the chair of the Independent Data Safety Monitoring Committee of the OUTBACK trial, which is a large international cervical cancer trial. He is the senior author of national Danish guidelines for the management of endometrial, cervical, vulvar and non-epithelial ovarian cancers as well as of NSGO radio therapy guidelines for cervical and vulvar cancers.

His other current appointments include service as ESGO Council Member (European Society of Gynaecological Oncology), Executive Director of GCIG (Gynecologic Cancer InterGroup), Vice-Chairman of the Danish Gynecological Cancer Society, Founding Executive Member of the European Network of Gynecologic Oncology Trials Group and faculty member of the European Society of Medical Oncology and of the International Gynecologic Cancer Society. He also serves on the board of directors of Sera Prognostics, Inc., a private biopharmaceutical company.

He holds a M.D., Diploma in Surgery and Diploma in Clinical Oncology from the Pirogov Moscow State Medical Institute as well as post-graduate education and certification in radiation and medical oncology from the University of Southern Denmark.

Dr. Savona is currently Associate Professor of Internal Medicine, and Director of Early Therapeutics, Hematologic Malignancies at Vanderbilt University.

He recently served as Director, Leukemia Research, at Sarah Cannon Research Institute where he spearheaded efforts to develop a Phase I program in Hematology.

He has been the Principal Investigator on dozens of clinical studies, and has been the lead investigator on studies of variety of novel compounds in hematologic malignancies. He has been involved medical research for 20 years, and has published extensively in major academic journals including Nature Medicine, Blood, Cell Stem Cell, JAMA, and Nature Cancer Reviews.

He is board certified in medical oncology, hematology and internal medicine, and is an elected fellow of the American College of Physicians. Dr. Savona obtained his bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Davidson College and medical degree at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Dr. Shacham co-founded Karyopharm in 2008 and served as our Chief Scientific Officer and head of Research and Development from 2010 until May 2022 and as President from 2013 until May 2021. She was also President of Research and Development from 2012 to 2013. From 2010 to 2011, Dr. Shacham served as our President and Chief Executive Officer. Dr. Shacham has led our scientific progress since inception.

Prior to joining Karyopharm, Dr. Shacham served as Senior Vice President of Drug Development at Epix Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and Director, Algorithm and Software Development at Predix Pharmaceuticals Inc., which merged into Epix Pharmaceuticals in 2006, and where she led the company’s efforts in GPCR modeling, computational chemistry, lead optimization and development of clinical trials.

Dr. Shacham holds a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry, a Doctor of Philosophy in Chemistry, and a Master of Business of Administration from Tel Aviv University.