This is by far the biggest “job” of the lab: developing tumor microparticle-based blood tests for many cancers. Currently, we have several blood tests developed for prostate cancer, kidney cancer, colorectal cancer and pancreatic cancer. Some of these are in the clinical validation phase. We are currently developing cervical, testicular and breast cancer. Some of these tests can be used for screening and early detection of cancer (prostate, colorectal, pancreatic), and most of them are being used for prognostication (prostate, kidney, colorectal, pancreatic cancer). We mostly rely on techniques developed in-house, mostly because we think everyone else out there is using obsolete techniques/instrumentation to do the job. We rely heavily on both nanoscale flow cytometry, dynamic light scattering and use atomic force microscopy to confirm purity of our purified cancer microparticles. We also perform both native and SDS-PAGE immunoblotting of MPs for confirmation of biomarkers. There are a lot of team players and collaborators here so here it goes!
Prostate cancer microparticles: Colleen Biggs, Dr. Joseph Chin, Dr. Jonathan Izawa, Dr. Nicholas Power, Dr. Khurram Siddiqui, Dr. Michele Billia, Dr. Michael Lock, Sabine Brett, Chantalle Willie, (Collaborators – Dr. Jun Yang, Dr. Charles Guo, Dr. Charles deBruyn, Dr. Christoph Borchers, Dr. Derek Smith)
RCC microparticles: Chantalle Willie, Dr. Michele Billia, Dr. Nicholas Power, Dr. Jonathan Izawa, Dr. Joseph Chin, Dr. Sohrab Naushad
Colorectal microparticles: Dr. Barbara Fisher, Connor MacMillan, Colleen Biggs, Dr. Jacqueline Lam, Chantalle Willie, Dr. Michael Lock
Multiple Myeloma microparticles: Colleen Biggs, Dr. Leonard Minuk, Dr. Selay Lam (Collaborators: Dr. Jun Yang, Dr. Charles Guo)
Pancreatic cancer microparticles: Dr. Barbara Fisher, Connor MacMillan, Colleen Biggs, Chantalle Willie, Dr. Steven Gallinger, Dr. Ann Chambers, Dr. Doug Quan
Bladder cancer microparticles: Colleen Biggs, Dr. Jonathan Izawa, Dr. Vlady Yutkin, Curtis Chin
Grants:
Prostate Cancer Canada Rising Star Award (2013-2016) $450,000
Prostate Cancer Canada Movember Pilot Grant (2012-2015) $150,000
Prostate Cancer Canada Movember Discovery Grant (2014-2016) $182,000
OICR HICT SBS Grant (2012-2015) $58,800
OICR HICT Grant (2013-2015) $100,000
OICR HICT HET Grant (2012-2013) $7,000
KCRNC Fellowship Grant (2014-2015) $15,000 (Dr. Billia)
CUOG Grant (2012-2014) $30,000 cummulatively
