Welcome to our Lab
The primary focus of our lab is aimed at understanding what molecular mechanisms are responsible for NET/CTC interactions. We also wish to elucidate if tumor-bearing individuals are prone to NET formation and if this phenomenon has prognostic significance. If this is the case, NET based interference may be a valuable clinical therapy to limit metastatic spread from the time of diagnosis up to and including the treatment phase (surgery, radiation and chemotherapy) where patients are prone to acute inflammatory events. Preliminary data suggest that this process is likely conserved across numerous solid tumor sites with propensity for hematogenous spread. Hence, this type of therapy could have far reaching implications for cancer patients. Our goal is for these investigations to yield entirely novel clinical trials in the coming years.
The Visionary Behind Our Project
Research Interests
Neutrophil based mechanisms of cancer metastasis, inflammation and cancer, thoracic malignancy clinical trials, airway surgery, thoracic trauma
Research Expertise
My research encompasses basic, translational and clinical studies.
I focus my research efforts on the following areas with the domain of basic research:
- Circadian control of neutrophil extracellular trap formation temporally regulates metastatic lung cancer progression (Simon’s project / CIHR grant)
- CXCR2 Inhibition as a Candidate for Immunomodulation in the treatment of K-RAS-Driven Lung Adenocarcinoma (Meghan’s & Lyndon’s project / CRS grant)
- Disentangling radiation resistant lung cancer by targeting neutrophil extracellular traps (Malcolm’s project / CRS grant)
- Investigating the relationship between Monocytes and Neutrophils in NSCLC (Simrit’s project)
- Studying the single-cell spatial landscape of the lung tumor immune microenvironment by image mass cytometry (Mark’s project)
- Identifying novel biomarkers of response to immunotherapy in NSCLC (Muhammad’s project)
My primary areas of clinical / translational research concentration involve the following topics:
- Neoadjuvant precision therapy for non-small cell lung cancer: A platform for discovery (funded by TFRI/MOH): WGS and RNAseq on pre-treatment biopsies and post-treatment surgical specimens in early-stage NSCLC patients undergoing neoadjuvant treatment to decipher novel mechanisms of response and resistance. Patient-derived xenografts and organoids cultures on patients that do not respond well to neoadjuvant treatment to identify novel therapies
- scRNAseq of pre & post-treatment tissue in early-stage NSCLC patients undergoing chemo IO treatment to decipher novel populations of immune cells and novel tumor intrinsic targets involved in resistance to chemo IO
- Study of Stereotactic ablative radiotherapy as a bridge to surgical resection for early-stage NSCLC and oligometastatic lesions during the COVID-19 pandemic (SABR-BRIDGE)
- Evaluating Neutrophil Extracellular Traps as a therapeutic target in COVID-19 patients (DISCONNECT-1) (funded by Roche)
- IIT clinical trial: Phase 2 randomized controlled trial of neoadjuvant pembrolizumab or pembrolizumab with histology specific chemotherapy for operable stage IB and IIA non-small cell carcinoma (funded by Merck)
