News

The vision of precision medicine is customized health care—preventative measures, disease treatments, practices and products tailored to individuals. Genomics is leading the charge by investigating and cataloguing the chemistry of life using an ever-increasing range of nucleic acid sequencing techniques and powerful computational technologies. But what if the genomic information that is being databased and used to inform modern medical science is not equitable?

The GSC is pleased to announce the arrival of our newest faculty member, Dr. Laura Evgin. As of November 2, she is Scientist at the GSC and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medical Genetics at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Evgin’s research is focused on Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) modified T cells and oncolytic viruses.

The GSC is pleased to announce that Dr. Alexander Wyatt, Assistant Professor in the Department of Urological Sciences at UBC and Senior Research Scientist at the Vancouver Prostate Centre, has recently joined the GSC as a Scientist. His research is focused on methods of analyzing circulating tumour DNA in advanced prostate and bladder cancer.

Significant advancements in sequencing technologies have enabled rapid genomic and molecular characterization of cancers, improving diagnostics and treatment planning. The annotation of tumour tissue samples prior to these analyses, however, still requires the time and expertise of a pathologist and represents a bottleneck in cancer genomics.

In 2013, Nature Methods launched Points of Significance, a popular column devoted to enhancing statistical literacy among life scientists. Seven years, 50 articles and ~471,000 accesses later, authors Martin Krzywinski and Dr. Naomi Altman continue to illuminate key statistical methods with profound importance in biological research.

The development of novel therapeutics for the treatment of chemotherapy-resistant prostate cancer relies on disease models that accurately mimic the progression of human disease. When transferred into mice, a particular cell line does just that, allowing researchers to test the efficacy of potential drugs. But studies have shown that the cell line suffers from a lack of reproducibility and that an improved model of treatment-resistant prostate cancer is needed.

Cancer is a disease of the genome, and research has shown that the genomic alterations in a tumour influence treatment response and failure. For advanced-stage breast and colorectal cancer, tumour sequencing has now uncovered key alterations that can guide clinicians in determining the best course of treatment for their patients.

In a new study published in the journal Blood, led by GSC Senior Scientist Dr. Ryan Morin, researchers used exome, genome and transcriptome sequencing to characterize MCL tumours and identified a novel feature of MCL biology.