Dr Shireen Kassam is a Consultant Haematologist at King’s College Hospital, London. She specialises in the care of people with lymphoma, cancer of the lymphatic system, but also cares for those with other haematological cancers. She trained at St Mary’s Medical School, part of Imperial College London, qualifying as a doctor in 2000.  She first undertook general medical training, achieving membership of the Royal College of Physician in 2003. She then entered specialist haematology training gaining fellowship of the Royal College of Pathologists in 2009. Shireen took 4 years out of her specialist training to pursue a PhD at Queen Mary University and Barts Cancer Institute. She investigated the role of supra-nutritional doses of selenium in sensitising lymphoma cells to the cytotoxic effects of chemotherapy and deciphered mechanisms by which this effect was occurring. She was awarded a PhD in 2011. She subsequently completed her haematology training and has been a Consultant since 2012.

Shireen’s interest in the role of nutrition on health began when she became vegan for ethical reasons in 2013. Since then she has educated herself in the health promoting effects of a whole foods plant-based diet. She has attended the International Conference of Nutrition in Medicine in 2016 and this year has completed the eCornell certification programme in plant-based nutrition. Shireen is passionate about educating her patients about the health benefits of a plant-based diet and strongly believes that diet can and should be used to both treat and prevent many of our most common diseases, including heart disease, diabetes and cancer.