Michelle Afkhami, M.D., is a clinical professor of pathology with subspecialties in hematopathology and molecular genomic pathology. She currently serves as CLIA Director at the Division of Molecular Pathology and Therapy Biomarkers. She oversees the Clinical Molecular Diagnostic Laboratory and Cytogenetics Laboratories. In addition, she is chair of the multidisciplinary Genomic Tumor Board and a member of the Oversight Precision Medicine Committee at City of Hope.
She received her medical degree in Iran after completing two years of residency in general surgery at the University of Southern California Huntington Memorial Hospital, she changed career paths and completed a second residency in anatomic and clinical pathology, followed by a fellowship in hematopathology at USC and a second fellowship in molecular genomic pathology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Over the last 20 years, she has collaborated with many molecular research and clinical laboratories at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, USC, UCLA, UPMC and City of Hope. She believes that discovering and understanding the molecular pathways involved in malignancies will lead to accurate diagnosis, individualized risk assessment and more effective personalized therapies.
As a physician and clinical scientist, her main interests lie in the dissection of the molecular mechanisms leading to the pathogenic events driving cancer transformation in solid tumors and hematopoietic malignancies. She supervises clinical, developmental and regulatory activities of the Clinical Molecular Diagnostic and Cytogenetics Laboratories and, for last nine years. She also served as a member of multiple disease teams, including melanoma, head and neck, thyroid, neuro-oncology, leukemia, lymphoma, multiple myeloma, neuroendocrine, precision medicine, and phase I therapeutics at City of Hope. As a principal investigator of multiple studies including acute myeloid leukemia, Ph-like lymphoblastic leukemia, thyroid and oral cavity cancers, her work has been presented at many national and international meetings.
