At the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network
The mission of our lab is to redefine translational cancer research by identifying novel treatment strategies that disrupt malignant clone function. To achieve this, we are actively investigating the molecular programs that regulate specific clone functions such as propagating activity, metastatic activity and treatment resistance. This will aid in our efforts to devise targeted treatment strategies to disrupt the function of these clones that are responsible for disease progression.
We welcomed Dr. Sahil Sharma as the newest addition to the Nguyen lab with our first lab retreat!
Dr. Sharma comes to us after completing a PhD in Experimental Medicine at McGill University with expertise in cell signaling, molecular biology and RNA biology. His postdoctoral project will focus on developing functional genomics approaches with CRISPR applied to organoid and xenograft models to investigate the molecular regulation of malignant clone function in human breast cancer.
Congratulations to Sarah on this award for her project “Identifying cells inside breast tumours which drive chemotherapy resistance”. With funding from the Canadian Cancer Society, Sarah is researching why some cells within breast tumours respond differently to chemotherapies. If successful, this project could lead to new ways of targeting breast cancer cells that are resistant to chemotherapy, improving outcomes for people with breast cancer.
Heejin Hayley Shin is a PhD student in the Nguyen lab who was awarded the MBP Excellence UTF scholarship. This is funded by an endowment created by Ontario Cancer Institute/Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, the Province of Ontario and the University of Toronto. Congratulations Hayley, way to go!
Dr. Nguyen presents at the Terry Fox Research Institute 10th annual scientific meeting in Toronto, Canada in a plenary session in honour of the late Dr. Connie Eaves. Dr. Eaves was internationally recognised as a pioneer in the field of stem cell biology. Her work developing robust quantitative assays to measure stem cell activity led to studies investigating the heterogeneity of normal and malignant stem cells in both mammary and hematopoietic stem cell fields.
Dr. Nguyen receives the honour of a Named Professorship appointment as the Hold’em for Life Early Career Professor in Cancer Research from the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto.