Cancer
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What is Cancer?
Cancer occurs when body cells proliferate uncontrollably, forming malignant tumours capable of invading nearby tissues and spreading to other areas of the body to form new tumours. This abnormal growth roots in genetic mutations that disrupt the normal functions of cells, including proliferation and apoptosis when receiving appropriate signals. These genetic changes can result from errors during cell division, parental inheritance, and damage to DNA from environmental factors. Each patient's tumour cells consist of a unique combination of genetic mutations, hence displaying varying characteristics.
According to Canadian Cancer Statistics 2021, cancer is the leading cause of death in Canada, where 40% of Canadians are estimated to be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime, and 25% will likely die from cancer. With the high disease prevalence and improved survival rate, cancer characteristics and appropriate treatment strategies remain an important area of research.
Multimodal Cancer Profiler Precision Medicine
Our team aspires to contribute to research that attempts to identify biological patterns within cancer patients of various types. These patterns can play a significant role in directing future studies including targeted medicine/therapies to achieve better patient treatment outcomes.
Furthermore, we also aim to develop a software pipeline that works with pathological image (from TCGA – The Cancer Genome Atlas) representations and access from different types of cancer, which support future analysis of the images to discover underlying patterns
Our Research
Our Partners
Our team is working in collaboration with the AIM Lab at the School of Biomedical Engineering UBC under the supervision of Dr. Ali Bashashati
Leadership
