Christina Thornton, MD PhD FRCPC

PI

Christina Thornton is an adult respirologist in the Division of Respirology, Departments of Medicine and Microbiology, Immunology and Infectious Diseases at the University of Calgary, Canada. Dr. Thornton is a clinician scientist specializing in cystic fibrosis and bronchiectasis. Her PhD thesis (under the supervision of Dr. Michael Surette) looked at the lower respiratory microbiome and microbial interactions in cystic fibrosis patients. She completed her internal medicine residency followed by respirology fellowship at the University of Calgary in 2021. Dr. Thornton then went on to the University of Michigan (under the supervision of Drs. John LiPuma and Lindsay Caverly) where she completed a postdoctoral fellowship in advanced microbiome community analysis in cystic fibrosis patients. She is now an assistant professor as of Aug 2022 at the University of Calgary. Dr. Thornton runs a research lab with key interests around the role of polymicrobial infections at times of clinical stability and pulmonary exacerbation in suppurative lung disease including bronchiectasis and cystic fibrosis.

Swathi Purighalla, Msc

Lab Manager

Swathi completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Calgary and, after completion, entered her M.Sc. program in Microbiology studying cystic fibrosis lung infections under the supervision of Dr. Douglas Storey, also at the U of C.  She then worked as a Clinical Scientist in the Infection Control and Prevention team at a hospital in India for over 5 years. After taking time off to raise her daughter, she joined The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, as a Clinical Reseach Coordinator working on a Phase II clinical trial.  Swathi joined Christina's lab in 2023 as Lab Manager, performing a range of duties and developing the Canadian Bronchiectasis Clinical Database.

Simarpreet Kaur, MSc

MSc student

Simar is a master's student in the Thornton lab interested in exploring the role of microbiomes in bronchiectasis. Her current project focuses on deciphering the lung microbiome during pulmonary exacerbations and clinical stability in non-cystic fibrosis bronchiectasis. Prior to joining the Thornton lab Simar completed Bachelor of Science in Microbiology from Delhi University and Master of Science in Microbial Biotechnology from Panjab University, India. After completion of her master's degree, she worked as research fellow for four years at Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, India.

Nicole Boechler

Undergraduate Student

Nicole is a fourth-year health sciences student who is majoring in biomedical sciences. Her current project investigates the role of small colony variants in non-cystic fibrosis bronchiectasis. Nicole will be completing her honours thesis in the Thornton lab in the upcoming 2024-2025 school year. In her free time, Nicole enjoys downhill skiing, soccer, and playing the flute.

Atena Sadat Sombolestani, PhD  

Postdoctoral associate  

Atena finished her B.Sc. of Microbiology at the University of Isfahan, Iran. She then attended M.Sc. of Microbiology at the University of Isfahan working on isolation of probiotics from dairy products. Afterwards, she went to Belgium to pass her PhD in Biochemistry and Biotechnology under supervision of Prof. Dr. Peter Vandamme. During her PhD, she worked on couple of projects including description of novel bacteria species, investigating the optimal media for microbes cultivation of lambic beer, and analyzing microbiome and metabolome of home-made kombucha. She joined Dr. Thornton in August 2024 to work on investigating the transition between distinct phases of Candida albicans and studying the wildfire smoke microbiology.