Dr. Yasmine Kanaan is an Associate Professor at the Howard University College of Medicine (HUCM) and Howard University Cancer Center in Washington DC. She received her B.S. from King Abdul-Aziz University, M.S. from King Saud University, and Ph.D. from Howard University.

Dr. Kanaan is an educator, she teaches Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Biology to Medical, Dental, Nurses and Graduate students. She has trained and mentored 12 doctoral students and served on various other doctoral candidate committees. Dr. Kanaan is serving as an academic advisor for the first year Medical School students in the following areas: 1) Personal and career guidance; 2) Specialty preference choices; 3) Encouraging the formulation of a strategy that guides them through to graduation; and 4) Information regarding research. Furthermore, she offers the medical students and residents an organized research training in breast and prostate cancers and the opportunity to perform their own research with writing manuscripts to prepare them to become leading physician-scientists. Dr. Kanaan has an extensive collaborative research efforts in directions that delineate molecular differences in breast cancers amongst the two ethnic groups (African Americans and Caucasians). The aims of which will help identify ethnicity specific markers for breast cancer progression and in developing a more tailored treatment approach leading to better management of breast cancer in African American women.

Dr. Kanaan has over 105 publications and abstracts in breast and prostate cancer research. She is a co-author of two chapters "Exploratory Data Analysis on Breast Cancer Prognosis", and "Degeneration/Regeneration as a Mechanism Contributing to the Effect of Manual Acupuncture-Induced Injury on Rat Skeletal Muscle" in "Encyclopedia of Information Science and Technology" and "Acupuncture" books.

She has received numerous awards including Outstanding Faculty Research Award, HUCM; Graduate Faculty Exemplar, Graduate School, HU; Roland & Walden Nickens Scientific Research award; and AACR Minority-Serving Institution Faculty Scholar in Cancer Research Award. Due to her academic accomplishments, Dr. Kanaan has been an invited speaker in several national and international venues.