M.D.
Pathologist
Doctor of Medicine
University of Southern California/Los Angeles County+USC VAGLAHS Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA
Michelle Afkhami, MD, is a clinical professor of pathology with expertise in hematopathology, clinical informatics and molecular genomics. Dr. Afkhami leads the Division of Molecular Pathology and Therapy Biomarkers at City of Hope® Cancer Center Duarte, where she also serves as CLIA director—a role that ensures regulatory compliance and quality oversight of the Clinical Molecular Genomics and Cytogenomics Laboratories. Since 2015, she has also chaired the multidisciplinary Genomic Tumor Board.
Dr. Afkhami earned her medical degree in Iran before completing two years of general surgery residency at the University of Southern California (USC) and Huntington Memorial Hospital in Los Angeles. She then turned her focus to pathology, completing training in anatomic and clinical pathology at USC, followed by fellowships in hematopathology at USC and molecular genomics pathology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC).
For more than two decades, she has worked with lab teams focused on hematology, solid tumors and molecular research across institutions including USC, UCLA, UPMC and City of Hope. Her passion lies in exploring the molecular drivers of cancer, with the goal of improving diagnosis, refining risk assessment, detecting minimal residual disease and developing more personalized therapies for patients.
At City of Hope, Dr. Afkhami focuses on delivering clinically meaningful molecular genomics testing. She spearheaded the design of several multigene next-generation sequencing panels, including the HopeSeq Comprehensive Assays, which have benefited more than 200,000 patients since 2015. Her research investigates the molecular mechanisms behind cancer in both solid tumors and blood-related diseases. She has contributed extensively as a principal investigator and collaborator on disease-specific teams spanning lung and thoracic cancers, melanoma, neuro-oncology, hematologic malignancies. An expert in her field, Dr. Afkhami frequently presents on her work at major conferences and has been published in multiple peer-reviewed journals.