Frank Jirik
Professor
Rheumatologist
Contact information
Web presence
Research
Areas of focus
- Inflammation and autoimmunity
- Arthritis
- Functional genetics using transgenic systems
- Transgenic models of human genetic diseases
- Tumor immunology
- In-vivo imaging
- DNA repair
Biography
Dr. Frank Jirik received his MD and subspecialty training at the University of British Columbia. His research training in molecular biology and immunology was conducted at the Scripps Clinic Research Institute in La Jolla, California.
Formerly a professor of medicine at the University of British Columbia, Dr. Jirik has been a professor in the Departments of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Medicine at the University of Calgary since 2000. He has considerable experience with the generation and analysis of transgenic animals as a means to study gene function in vivo, including the creation of models of human disease. Engaged in research in various fields, his work has spanned a variety of research areas, including inflammation and autoimmunity (models of inflammatory arthritis, lupus-like disease, macrophage biology and experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis), human genetic diseases, selenoprotein biology, prion biology and DNA repair and mutagenesis. He has made extensive use of bioluminescence imaging as well as micro-computed tomography.
Recently, his lab generated two novel mouse models: one characterized by an auto-inflammatory vasculopathy with myositis resembling an auto-inflammatory disease of infants, and a second that exhibits defective stem cell function due to loss of a DNA repair molecule. He also has a general adult rheumatology practice, and is a member of both the McCaig Institute for Bone and Joint Health and the Alberta Children’s Hospital Research Institute.