Aly Karsan, MD, FRCPC

Dr. Karsan is a clinician-scientist at BC Cancer and Professor of Pathology at the University of British Columbia (UBC). He completed undergraduate training and medical school at Queen’s University, and internship and residency at UBC in Vancouver. This was followed by a research fellowship at the University of Washington in Seattle, prior to commencing a faculty position at UBC. His current research aims to understand the post-transcriptional mechanisms of resistance and relapse in the myeloid cancers using single cell sequencing and functional assays. His lab, comprised of wet lab scientists and bioinformaticians uses genomic, proteomic and in vivo methods to understand normal and leukemic stem cell function. His clinical interest centres on developing genomic methodologies, and improving automation and quality assurance in clinical genomics. In 2010 he established the Centre for Clinical Genomics (CCG) at BC Cancer, which was the first accredited lab in Canada to use next-generation sequencing techniques to deliver clinical testing. The CCG also supported four other Provinces in their clinical genomic testing needs.

Dr. Karsan has been invited to give over 180 presentations, and has authored more than 200 publications including articles in high-profile journals such as Nature Medicine, Nature Cell Biology, Nature Communications, the New England Journal of Medicine, Developmental Cell, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Journal of Experimental Medicine and Journal of Clinical Investigation. He has mentored 60 trainees at the graduate or postdoctoral level, many of whom have gone on to lead their own labs in academia and industry, or are clinician-scientists who hold positions at academic hospitals in Canada and internationally. He is funded by grants from CIHR, Genome BC, Genome Canada, CCSRI, LLSC, as well as the BC Cancer Foundation. Dr. Karsan currently leads a team of 8 principal investigators in a Terry Fox Research Institute Program Project on Acute Leukemia. Recently, Dr. Karsan has been funded by the TFRI Marathon of Hope Cancer Centre network to co-lead a pan-Canadian sequencing project on understanding leukemia relapse after chemotherapy or stem cell transplant. They will conduct various single cell sequencing assays on patient samples to examine the clonal architecture, chromatin accessibility and expression signature of resistant leukemic subclones, as well as the immune profile of the non-malignant cells of the bone marrow microenvironment.

Dr. Karsan has worked with BC Cancer, PHSA and government to bring new genomic assays into the clinical realm. He is a member of several international consortia such as the Laboratory Assays Working Group for the Myeloid Malignancies Precision Medicine Initiative, the International Working Group for Prognosis in Myelodysplastic Syndromes, and represents the Canadian Cancer Trials Group as the Co-chair/Study Champion of the NCI Myelomatch clinical trials. His work has been recognized by numerous awards including the Genome BC Award for Scientific Excellence, a UBC Killam Research award, Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Awards, as well as an Excellence in BC Healthcare award. He was supported for many years by CIHR Clinician-Scientist and Michael Smith Foundation Scholar Awards.