Dr. Shah is an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia and a scientist with the BC Cancer Agency in Vancouver. He is studying the question of whether instability and diversity in ovarian cancer genes can help predict which patients will relapse versus which will respond to chemotherapy and live longer.
“The genetic make-up of high-grade serous carcinomas varies from tumour to tumour,”says Dr. Shah. “Within the same tumour, populations of cells can be very different from one another. Our research group recently observed that there are, in fact, global patterns of diversity that exist among this group of tumours.”
Dr. Shah’s research will study how tumours evolve and why some have this diversity, potentially pointing the way to new avenues for treating the disease and avoiding relapse.
Dr. David Huntsman, medical director at the BC Cancer Agency’s Centre for Translational and Applied Genomics (CTAG), says, “Having Sohrab in our research community will empower cancer researchers in British Columbia to be leaders in genomic and other data-intensive research activities for years to come.”
Mentoring Program: TFRI’s Pan-Canadian Platform for the Development of Biomarker-Driven SubtypeSpecific Management of Ovarian Carcinoma (COEUR)
Mentors/PIs: Dr. David Huntsman