Nada Jabado
MD, PhD
Dr. Nada Jabado is a Professor of Pediatrics and Human Genetics at McGill University and a staff physician in the Division of Hematology and Oncology at the Montreal Children’s Hospital.
She began her career as an independent investigator in 2003 at the RI-MUHC, pioneering a research program in pediatric brain tumors, which is now unparalleled. Dr. Jabado's group was among the first to identify a histone mutation in human disease which has revolutionized this field. The epigenome was a previously unsuspected hallmark of oncogenesis and this discovery linked development and what we now know are epigenetic-driven cancers.
Dr. Jabado has over 200 peer-reviewed publications to her credit in such prominent journals as Nature Genetics, Nature, Science and Cancer Cell. She is invited as keynote speaker to International symposia and top ranked universities and has been awarded funding from CIHR, Genome Canada, NIH, as well as a Large-Scale Genomics grant from Genome Canada. In 2021, Dr. Jabado was awarded the Canadian Cancer Society's Robert L. Noble Prize, given for outstanding achievements in basic biomedical cancer research.
Dr. Jabado has embarked on elucidating genetic signatures of pediatric astrocytomas and examining how they compare to adults. These are deadly brain tumours that originate in brain and include glioblastomas (GBM, the highest grade of astrocytomas), which are one of the deadliest cancers in humans. Her group uncovered that pediatric high-grade astrocytomas (HGA) are molecularly and genetically distinct from adult tumors. They also identified a new molecular mechanism driving pediatric HGA, namely recurrent somatic driver mutations in the tail of histone 3 variants (H3.3 and H3.1). These mutations lead to amino acid substitutions at key residues and are tightly correlated with a distinct global DNA methylation pattern, neuroanatomical locations and age specificities. Their findings position them as leaders in the field of HGA, at the forefront of significant breakthroughs for this deadly brain tumor. Crucial impediments to progress are the lack of reliable in vitro and in vivo models for these “oncohistones” and understanding their effects in driving tumors and therapeutic resistance. They aim to identify events affected downstream of each mutation, and validate targets in their new models to better advise the use of experimental or pipeline drug(s) or drug combinations that could be rapidly translated into clinical trials. Ultimately, based on their findings, patients could be stratified based on their genetic/molecular signature, and assigned to a beneficial therapeutic strategy, bringing needed effective interventions in this devastating cancer. Additionally, they established a TCGA-like initiative by creating the International CHildhood Astrocytoma INtegrated Genomic and Epigenomic (ICHANGE) Consortium. This is a unique set of resources which enables the scientific world to investigate astrocytomas in children. It includes databases and access to technology as well as international collaborations from 15 participating countries, including ~1500 annotated glioma tissue samples representative of all grades and ages.