Prof. Shahid Kahn, Long Time Sanaria Collaborator and Friend, Passes

It is with great sadness that Sanaria shares the news of the passing of our long-standing collaborator and friend, Professor Shahid Khan. 

Shahid was an Associate Professor in the Leiden Malaria Research Group, Leiden University Medical Center, Netherlands. Shahid graduated with a degree in Parasitology from the University of Glasgow, after which he worked as a Research Assistant in the Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Oxford (in the group of Chris Newbold). For his PhD he moved to the University of Cambridge (Cambridge, UK), where his studies were focused on genetic and physical chromosomal mapping of  the Apicomplexan parasite, Toxoplasma gondii. For post-doctoral research he moved to the National Institute for Medical Research (London, UK) where he focused his work on malaria, specifically on the expansion and expression of multi-gene families involved in parasite invasion of red blood cells. He subsequently moved to Leiden, University Medical Center (LUMC), The Netherlands, joining the group of Chris Janse and Andy Waters.  With them, and in collaboration with the group Matthias Mann (then Odense, Denmark), Shahid performed in depth and large scale proteome analyses on different stages of the malaria parasite and coupled this with targeted deletion of parasite genes to uncover novel aspects of the parasite’s biology.

Shahid took up a group leader position within the Department of Parasitology in the LUMC in 2008, and had been working with Sanaria to develop genetically altered malaria sporozoite vaccines ever since. Our heartfelt condolences and prayers go out to Shahid’s wife, Dr. Christy Comeaux, and their two children Nadia and Alex. Shahid will be honored at the International PfSPZ Consortium meeting in Rockville, Maryland on November 19, 2019.