Dr. Aws Al-Shamsan is the newly appointed secretary-general of the Saudi Commission for Health Specialties.
Before his appointment he was a professor of pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences at King Saud University College of Pharmacy, and had been dean of the college since 2017.
Previously Al-Shamsan worked as a consultant for biological products at the Saudi Food and Drug Authority for five years.
His extensive administrative and managerial experience includes directorship of the Research Center at the College of Pharmacy at KSU between 2012 and 2013. He was co-director of the Joint Center of Excellence in Nanomedicine at King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology between 2013 and 2015, and director of King Abdullah Institute for Nanotechnology between 2014 and 2017.
Al-Shamsan gained his Ph.D. in pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences from the University of Alberta, Canada, in 2009 and a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy from King Saud University in 2001. He is currently studying for a master’s in business administration from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in nanobiotechnology at the National Institute for Nanotechnology, Canada in 2010, PMP from the Project Management Institute in 2019, and received a certificate in biotechnology project management from the University of California San Diego in 2020.
Al-Shamsan worked on the development of a nanobiotechnology cancer vaccine under the name Stimuvax.
He worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the National Research Council of Canada Nanotechnology Research Centre before being given visiting professor status.
He also chaired the Future of Health taskforce in the S20 engagement group and has been editor-in-chief of the Saudi Pharmaceutical Journal since 2020.
