Our Origins
Khan Lab starts in 2013
The Precision Medicine Lab spawned from the research laboratory of Dr Faisal Khan which has roots at the University of Peshawar where he spent his first year after returning to Pakistan in 2013. This was followed by a ground-breaking phase when he was entrusted to design and build a biology institute in one of the oldest engineering universities – this was the Institute of Integrative Bioscience at CECOS University of IT and Emerging Sciences. The Lab and the Institute grew at a rapid pace under the university administration at that time, especially Dean Prof Azzam ul Asar. This was soon noticed and the Institute was awarded the groundbreaking SynBioKP project funded by the Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to promote synthetic biology in Pakistan in 2016.
The Birth of PML
In 2018, after a highly competitive process involving more than a hundred other groups, Dr Khan’s Lab was amongst 11 who were funded under the National Centre for Big Data and Cloud Computing by the Planning Commision in Islamabad. The Precision Medicine Lab was born, with the mandate to build a consortium and undertake the country’s first federally-funded precision medicine pilot focusing on oral cancer.
Our roots in Oxford
Dr Khan earned his MSc in Integrative Biosciences (‘09) and DPhil in Cells and Systems Biology (‘13) at St. Anne’s College, University of Oxford. His doctoral research studied mitotic microtubule-associated proteins using protein-interaction networks under the supervision of Prof Charlotte Deane MBE at the Department of Statistics, University of Oxford, and then undertook in vitro and in vivo experiments in the fruit fly system, using RNAi, GFP co-localisation and MT spin-downs, under the supervision of Prof James Wakefield, Living Systems Institute, University of Exeter.
The Lab pursues work in a broad range of areas in pursuit of impact, owing to Dr Khan’s diverse interests. The Lab has several groups of varying sizes working in areas ranging from cancer biology, genomics and digital health to bioart, bioeconomy and bioentrepreneurship.
The journey from Oxford to Peshawar
Bridging his love for discovery and invention, Dr. Faisal Khan recounts how childhood experiments, academic milestones at Oxford, and his passion for giving back to his homeland that shaped his career. This talk was given at Aga Khan University’s inaugural TEDx event.