Faisal Khan
Associate Professor, Department of Pathology and Lab Medicine
Dr. Khan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at University of Calgary and ACHF Chair of Pediatric Hematology. Dr. Khan has a cross appointment with Alberta Public Laboratory as an Associate Clinical Director of Tissue Typing and Molecular Haematology Laboratories. Dr. Khan is also the Director of Hematology Translational Laboratory at the University of Calgary. Dr. Khan is a certified Diplomate of American Board of Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics (ABHI). Dr. Khan obtained his PhD in Human Molecular Genetics from SGPGIMS, Lucknow in India and pursued a postdoctoral research and clinical fellowships in Transplant Immunology and Immunogenetics at University of Calgary and Calgary Laboratory Services.
Jan Storek
Professor, Department of Medicine
Dr. Storek is a Professor in the Departments of Medicine (Hematology), Oncology and Microbiology/Immunology/Infectious Diseases at the University of Calgary. He is also a member of the Arnie Charbonneau Cancer Institute and the Snyder Institute for Chronic Diseases. Dr. Storek’s major interest is in the immunology of hematopoietic cell transplantation.
In the news: UCalgary scientists collaborate on breakthrough treatment for severe scleroderma, read story here
Read about Dr. Storek in the Alberta Cancer Foundation Leap newsletter
Email: jstorek@ucalgary.ca
Rehan Faridi
Research Analyst and Clinical Scientist
Rehan joined the Khan-Storek laboratory in November 2011 as a postdoctoral fellow and currently serves as a research analyst/clinical scientist in the lab. Rehan is engaged in research where he is leading and/or a part of diverse research projects addressing genomic, functional and immunophenotypic landscapes of hematologic malignancies. He has investigated a comprehensive genetic and expression profiling of the receptors and effector proteins of natural killer (NK) cells and elucidated their influence on various complications of allogeneic Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation (HCT). Currently he is working on the assessment of next generation sequencing based somatic mutation landscape of hematologic malignances in Alberta. The primary focus of this research is to establish a correlation of diagnostic genetic mutations with post-therapeutic outcomes including an early detection of measurable residual disease.
Poonam Dharmani
Clinical Assistant Professor
Poonam is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary. In her clinical role, Poonam works as Clinical Scientist with Alberta Public Laboratories and Hematology Translational Lab. Poonam holds a PhD in Biotechnology and has more than 15 years of experience in Immunology, Hematology and Transcriptomics she has published more than 30 research articles in reputed scientific journals. Her research is focused on immunophenotypic biomarker of leukemias and lymphomas and their role in prediction of relapse. Poonam’s research also includes characteristics of hematopoietic stem cell graft manipulation to reduce complications of allogeneic HCT.
Ariz Akhter
Research Scientist
Ariz joined the Khan-Storek lab in September 2012 as a Post Doctoral Fellow working on multi-gene expression profiling in Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma patients, studying the influence of FcɤRIIIa gene variant in rituximab mediated Natural Killer (NK) cell response against different B-cell lymphomas. Currently his work in the lab as a Research Scientist focuses on measurable residual disease (MRD) monitoring AML patients who have undergone hematopoietic cell transplant.
Gaurav Tripathi
Research Scientist
Gaurav works as a Research Scientist in the Khan/Storek lab. His research focuses on assessing the impact of a gene variant system that codes for cyotokines and their expression on post-transplant complications both in hematopoietic cell transplant and kidney transplant patients. He performs targeted sequencing of genes using next-generation sequencing (NGS) to provide a comprehensive assessment of 54 tumor suppressor genes and oncogenic hotspots in myeloid malignancies.
Minal Borkar
Resesarch Associate
Minal Borkar Tripathi has recently joined the Khan-Storek lab (HTL) as a Research Associate, working on establishing clinical assays in the translational laboratory. Her current focus is to validate two different tests, TruSight Oncology 500 (TSO 500) next generation sequencing based assay and Luminex based Cytokine Profiling assay. The main objectives of her current projects are (i) leveraging TSO 500 for comprehensive genomic profiling to identify wide variety of somatic variants implicated in different tumor types and assessment of immunotherapy biomarkers like tumor mutational burden and microsatellite instability, and (ii) to study cytokines as inflammatory markers, which are associated with inflammatory diseases, immune response and toxicity. Minal was awarded Canadian Donation & Transplant Research Program-Alberta Transplant Institute (CDTRP-ATI) fellowship twice during her Post-doctoral tenure and has worked as a CDTRP Fellow at Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary.
Amit Kalra
PhD Student
Amit is a PhD student in Dr. Khan’s laboratory. His thesis title is : “Differentiating the Graft versus Leukemia and Graft versus Host allo-immune responses after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation”. Amit won the ACHRI graduate fellowship award and his work was selected for the American Society of Hematology (ASH) achievement award in the ASH-2018 meeting. Watch Amit’s interview with GVHD Hub talking about his work here.
Cindy Miskolczi
Research and Technical Administrative Assistant/Quality Manager
Cindy is the Research and Technical Administrative Assistant in the Khan-Storek lab. Cindy is responsible for administrative requirements of Dr. Storek, Dr. Khan and Quality Managment of the clinicial operations. Her work flow includes accessioning specimens arriving in the lab for clinical and research purposes, storing and managing research specimens in the hematopoietic cell transplant biobank for current and future research work.
Stephani Dookie
Research Assistant
Stephanie a research assistant working on validating cytokine profiles and studying the pharmokinetics of ATG in bone marrow transplant patients.
Khan Storek Laboratory 