VANCOUVER PROSTATE CENTRE - Key Persons
A graduate of the University of Alberta, Dr. So came to the Prostate Centre as a Clinical Fellow in 2002, following completion of his residency at Dalhousie University. He worked with Dr. Martin...
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor in Urologic Sciences at the University of British Columbia
Dr. Wyatt is an Associate Professor in Urologic Sciences at the University of British Columbia, Canada. He is a senior research scientist at the Vancouver Prostate Centre and also cross-appointed at BC Cancer. Dr. Wyatt has a DPhil in genetics from the University of Oxford. His research goals are to dissect the clinical relevance of genomic alterations in metastatic genitourinary cancers, and develop minimally-invasive biomarkers for guiding therapy selection.
Job Titles:
- Transplant Immunology Research
Job Titles:
- Senior Research Scientist, Vancouver Prostate Centre / Professor, Department of Urologic Sciences, University of British Columbia
- Tier 1 Canada Research Chair
Dr. Zoubeidi is a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Cancer Therapy Resistance. Her research program aims to uncover how standard care of prostate cancer therapy targeting the androgen receptor (AR) induces treatment resistance and controls phenotypic plasticity, which has been associated with the clinically relevant problem of drug resistance in prostate cancer. Importantly, amplification of different signaling pathways may be unique to an individual and their disease; therefore, her research program is designed to identify and understand common signaling nodes responsible for the emergence of resistance to ultimately design the best combination therapy to guide clinical decisions.
Job Titles:
- Senior Research Scientist
- Head, Precision Cancer Drug Design, Vancouver Prostate Centre / Professor, Dept. of Urologic Sciences, University of British Columbia
Dr. Artem Cherkasov is a Professor in the Department of Urologic Sciences, Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia, and Senior Scientist at the Vancouver Prostate Centre. His research interests include computer-aided drug discovery (CADD), structure-activity modeling, drug reprofiling, new cancer therapeutics discovery and development of novel CADD tools and applications.
Job Titles:
- Professor
- Professor in the Department of Urologic Sciences
Dr. Artem Cherkasov is a Professor in the Department of Urologic Sciences, Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia, and Senior Scientist at the Vancouver Prostate Centre. His... Read more
Dr. Cherkasov has co-authored more than 200 research papers, 80 patent filings and several prominent book chapters. During his tenure at UBC, Dr. Cherkasov has been a principal applicant or co-applicant on a number of successful grants totalling over 70M dollars, and has licenced 6 drug candidates to big pharma companies (AZ, Roche), major international venture funds (5AM) and spin-off companies.
Notably, the androgen receptor inhibitor developed by Drs. Cherkasov and Rennie was licensed by Roche in 2015 for 142M USD - a record amount for Canadian academic institutions.
In 2017, Dr. Cherkasov led a group of 10 prominent PIs in a successful 24M dollar application to the Canadian Foundation of Innovation to create a complete ADDUCT (Accelerated Drug Discovery Using Clinical Translation) infrastructure at UBC. The grants completes the UBC cross-discipline drug discovery platform with the latest cryo-EM technology, enhanced protein production and purification capabilities and substantial computational infrastructure, providing cutting-edge CADD and AI support for personalized drug discovery.
In response to the global COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Cherkasov's team utilized their novel AI-based platform, Deep Docking (DD), with the recently published structure of the COVID-19 Mpro target, applying DD to process 1.3 billion compounds; within a week, they had identified the top 1000 potential ligands which they shared with the scientific community. Continued work narrowed this to a shortlist of the top 100 candidate protease inhibitors that could lead to a treatment. The next step is to purchase samples of the top 100 candidates and work with collaborators to screen them in a timely fashion, in order to accelerate the top candidates through the VPC's established drug development pipeline.
Dr. Cherkasov holds a number of other research grants from NSERC, CIHR, Prostate Cancer Canada, Prostate Cancer Foundation BC, US Department of Defense, Canadian Cancer Research Institute, and NIH among others. In January 2022, he was appointed Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Precision Cancer Drug Design.
Dr. Ben Chew is originally from Duncan, BC, graduated from UBC Medicine in 1998 and completed his urology residency at the University of Toronto in 2003. His fellowship focused on kidney... Read more
Dr. Ben Chew is originally from Duncan, BC, graduated from UBC Medicine in 1998 and completed his urology residency at the University of Toronto in 2003. His fellowship focused on kidney stones and minimally invasive surgery at the University of Western Ontario. He has been on active staff at VCH since July 2006 where he is an Associate Professor in the Department of Urologic Sciences. Dr. Chew's research focuses on how kidney stones form and in particular intestinal absorption of minerals that can form kidney stones (calcium and oxalate). His research focuses on genetically modifying bacteria normally used to make yogurt to express a naturally occurring enzyme that breaks down oxalate, thus preventing its absorption into the body where it can combine with calcium to form kidney stones. This novel type of therapy could be administered in yogurt and help patients prevent painful future kidney stone episodes.
Dr. Chew's other area of research is in the area of biomaterials as they pertain to urinary devices. He is investigating new coatings and special drug-eluting materials for urinary catheters and stents in an attempt to make them more biocompatible and reduce device-related infection, encrustation, and patient discomfort.
Dr. Chew has published over 40 peer-reviewed articles and received several awards including the best Endourology Paper Award at the World Congress of Endourology in 2009, the best Scientific Paper at the World Congress of Endourology in 2005, the Best Abstract Prize for Stone Disease at the American Urological Association Annual Meeting (2005 and 2008) and most recently a Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Scholarship. He has both peer-reviewed funding and funding from industry to continue his research in stone disease and biomaterials.
Dr. Eigl is a medical oncologist specializing in genitourinary oncology, with a special research interest in bladder and prostate cancers. He presently leads several clinical trials...
Dr. Cenk Sahinalp is a Professor and the Canada Research Chair in Computational Genomics at the School of Computing Science at Simon Fraser University. He is also the director of the Computational Methods for the Analysis of the Diversity and Dynamics of Genomes (MADD-Gen) Graduate program in Vancouver, the first bioinformatics program focusing on big data challenges in genomics, bringing together more than 20 investigators in SFU, the Vancouver Prostate Centre and the BC Cancer Research Centre.
Christian Kollmannsberger, MD, FRCPC, is staff medical oncologist at the British Columbia Cancer Agency (BCCA) Vancouver Cancer Centre and Clinical Professor at the University of British Columbia...
A key area of focus of Dr. Ong's research program is to understand the molecular mechanisms that govern prostate cancer growth and treatment resistance. His primary focus has been focused on... Read more
Dr. Claudia Chavez-Munoz joined the Vancouver Prostate Centre as a Research Associate in December 2014. In 2018, she was promoted to Research Scientist and was appointed an Honorary Faculty position by the Faculty of Medicine for teaching the Undergraduate MD program.
Dr. Chavez-Munoz received her medical degree from the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City, followed by clinical training first in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery under the mentorship of Dr. Martin Iglesias and then at Massachusetts General Hospital, in Boston MA. Frustrated by the poor wound healing and scarring outcomes she saw, especially in burn patients, she decided to pursue a graduate research degree in the area of burns and wound healing.
In 2006, Dr. Chavez-Munoz started her graduate degree under the supervision of Dr. Aziz Ghahary at UBC. In her PhD work, she identified a protein cluster (SPARC/SFN) released by keratinocytes, which suppresses collagen type I synthesis in fibroblasts, as well as its mechanism of release. The relevance of the study was to potentially use this protein complex as a novel treatment for hypertrophic scars. Dr. Chavez-Munoz also worked on the development and application of a non-rejectable allogeneic skin substitute as a permanent wound coverage for improved scar formation in collaboration with Dr. Steven Boyce from the University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH.
During Dr. Chavez-Munoz's Post-Doctoral Fellowship (2011) at Northwestern University (Chicago IL), under Dr. Thomas Mustoe and Dr. Robert Galiano, she focused on developing a modular adaptable in vivo bioreactor for skin regeneration. Based on the fact that currently we cannot recreate a complex vascular network, she decided to take advantage of the body and regenerate skin in vivo. She developed an enclosed implantable bioreactor that allowed for the implantation of matrices or decellularized organs or tissues with the controlled perfusion of cells, nutrients, treatments etc. using a micro-fluidic system. This device was successfully patented and sold to the US Army. Dr. Chavez-Munoz expanded her research to muscle regeneration, since many severely burn victims present with deeper injuries, often affecting skeletal muscle. Her research also comprised the use of stem cells as a source of cells to reseed the decellularized organs/tissues, in particular the use of adult-derived stem cells (ASC). Dr. Chavez-Munoz was able to demonstrate the ability of ASC's transdifferentiation into keratinocyte-like cells, stratifying and forming an epidermis-like structure. This work was granted the New Investigator Award by the Wound Healing Society in 2013. During this time (2011-2013) Dr. Chavez-Munoz also served as a Medical Board Advisor at ATS Biotech Inc.
Dr. Chavez-Munoz has received numerous national and international awards and distinctions, such as Canadian Institutes of Heath Research (CIHR) Master's award, CIHR PhD Award, CIHR Post-Doctoral Award, Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Junior Trainee Award, CONACyT (Sistema Nacional de Investigadores) Level I, VCHRI Rising Star, and UBC Graduate Fellowship Award among others.
Since Dr. Chavez-Munoz joined the Vancouver Prostate Centre she has established protocols of organ decellularization as well as organ reseeding. With Dr. Chavez-Munoz's and Dr. Alan So's combined research interests and expertise, they have built a project of growing 3-Dimension patient's tumour for drug testing, which CIHR has recently funded. Their vision is to create a solid clinical platform for personalized medicine that will improve the outcome of thousands of cancer patients.
Job Titles:
- Senior Research Scientist
- Head, Laboratory for Advanced Genome Analysis, Vancouver Prostate Centre / Professor, Department of Urologic Sciences, University of British Columbia
Dr Collins is a Senior Research Scientist at the Vancouver Prostate Centre and a Director of The Laboratory for Advanced Genome Analysis (LAGA). In addition, he is an associate adjunct professor... Read more
Dr Collins is a Senior Research Scientist at the Vancouver Prostate Centre and a Director of The Laboratory for Advanced Genome Analysis (LAGA). In addition, he is an associate adjunct professor at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center and a visiting scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He has held positions at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at UCSF. His current research is best described as translational genomics where mathematics, genomics, computer science, and clinical science converge in diagnostics and therapeutics.
Dr Connor Forbes graduated from UBC Medicine and completed his residency in Urology at UBC. His fellowship at Vanderbilt University Medical Centre was a combined research and clinical fellowship including subspecialty training in Benign Prostate Hyperplasia (BPH), Kidney Stones, and advanced minimally invasive surgical approaches to upper and lower tract urologic diseases.
Dr Forbes' primary research interests are in the pathophysiology, treatment, and patient experience of Benign Prostate Hyperplasia and Kidney Stones. He is integrated within the Vancouver Prostate Centre, leveraging world class facilities and infrastructure into the Benign Prostate Hyperplasia space, including large biobanks and translational basic science evaluating growth pathways in the prostate with an ultimate goal of prognostication, targeted therapy, and personalized medicine. Additional basic science interests include the prevention and treatment of infections in kidney stones, and he works closely with Drs Dirk Lange and Ben Chew on this front in the Stone Centre research group and internationally as a member of the EDGE research consortium.
Clinically, Dr Forbes provides expertise in BPH including medical management, TURP, HoLEP, UroLift, iTind, MISTs, and Robotic approaches. Dr Forbes treats the spectrum of Kidney Stone disease with Shockwave Lithotripsy, Ureterorenoscopy, and Percutaneous Nephrolithotomy (PCNL). He has specialized training in Minimally Invasive Surgery for Upper Tract urologic issues including robotic approaches for Kidney Cancer, Stricture Disease including complex reconstruction, and others.
Dr Connor Forbes graduated from UBC Medicine and completed his residency in Urology at UBC. His fellowship at Vanderbilt University Medical Centre was a combined research and clinical fellowship... Read more
Dr. Hach's main focus is the field of computational genomics and biomolecular sequence analysis especially in the context of cancer research. His research involves designing novel and high... Read more
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor at the School of Biomedical Engineering
Dr. Govind Kaigala started his position as an Associate Professor at the School of Biomedical Engineering at UBC in Summer of 2022 and concurrently leads activities on an Advanced...
Job Titles:
- Chief Operating Officer
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Prostate Centre in 2008 As COO
Dr. Boniface joined the Prostate Centre in 2008 as COO, after more than 20 years in drug development in both the academic and private industry sectors. Prior to joining our Centre, he was Senior Director of Clinical Research at QLT Inc. where he oversaw the clinical development of the company's drug platform in Oncology, Urology, Dermatology, and Endocrinology indications. Trials conducted by his team have lead to successful regulatory marketing approvals by the US FDA, Canadian, and European agencies.
Job Titles:
- Medical Oncologist
- Professor With the Department of Medicine
Dr. Chi is Professor with the Department of Medicine at the University of British Columbia. He is also the Co-Chair of the Genitourinary Disease Site for the Canadian Cancer Trials Group (CCTG) and the Canadian Uro-Oncology Group, which is responsible for developing the genitourinary cancer trials undertaken by investigators at a national cooperative group level. In addition, he is an Executive Committee Member and Past-Chair of the Investigational New Drug Site for the CCTG, which is responsible for developing early phase I/II trials across the CCTG disease sites.
Dr. Chi is a medical oncologist with BC Cancer who, at a relatively early stage in his career, has received national and international recognition for his contributions to prostate cancer research... Read more
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Associate Director, Development and Supportive Care, Vancouver Prostate Centre / Professor, Department of Urologic Sciences, UBC
- Doctor of Medicine, University of Toronto
Dr. Goldenberg (CM, OBC, MD, FRCSC, FACS, FCAHS) is a urologic surgeon and clinical scientist with an international reputation for excellence in prostate cancer research and treatment. His current research interests involve the evaluation of artificial intelligence algorithms in reading digitized prostate pathology and MRI to risk stratify active surveillance patients, the identification of targeted radioactive Theranostics ligands (aptamers) for diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer, prostate cancer supportive care and patient education.
Dr. Goldenberg (CM, OBC, MD, FRCSC, FACS, FCAHS) is a urologic surgeon and clinical scientist with an international reputation for excellence in prostate cancer research and... Read more
Dr. Nappi has been a key person in the discovery of a new anti-Hsp27 small molecule. She has demonstrated that the drug has a high activity in controlling prostate cancer proliferation in vitro and in vivo, modulating different molecular pathways involving AR and its abnormal variants (i.e. AR-V7). She used her expertise as medical oncologist to directly translate these findings into the clinical setting, designing a Phase I clinical trial to assess the tolerability of this new drug alone or in combination to standard therapy in patients with metastatic prostate cancer.
Dr. Nappi is a clinician scientist medical oncologist. Her major research focus involves:
Dr. Mads Daugaard is a molecular biologist specialized in pre-clinical and translational cancer research. He earned his PhD degree in 2007 from the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of... Read more
Dr. Mads Daugaard is a molecular biologist specialized in pre-clinical and translational cancer research. He earned his PhD degree in 2007 from the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Copenhagen, for his studies on heat shock proteins in relation to cancer cell survival mechanisms. After completing his PhD, Dr. Daugaard received a junior fellowship award to continue his work at the Danish Cancer Society Research Centre on stress signaling pathways related to DNA damage response mechanisms. In 2010, Dr. Daugaard received a research award from the Danish Cancer Society to do postdoctoral training in molecular pathology at the BC Cancer Research Centre and the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of British Columbia (UBC).
In 2014, Dr. Daugaard was recruited to the Vancouver Prostate Centre as a Senior Research Scientist and a faculty member of the Department of Urological Sciences at UBC. His ongoing research focuses on molecular and biochemical events underlying sugar-modifications of proteins in solid tumors, chromatin context-dependent DNA repair mechanisms, chemotherapy resistance mechanisms, and immune-evasion mechanisms in cancer.
Dr. Daugaard has published original research in top-tier scientific journals and received competitive national and international research funding support from institutions such as the US Department of Defense (DoD), the National Cancer Institutes (NIH), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Stand Up 2 Cancer (SU2C) initiative, the St. Baldrick's Foundation (SBF), and Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institutes (VCHRI). Dr. Daugaard was honoured with the Prostate Cancer Canada Rising Star Award in 2014 and the Robert J. Arceci Innovation Award in 2019.
Dr. Daugaard is a biotech entrepreneur and a co-founder of the biotech companies VAR2 Pharmaceuticals (2012), VarCT Diagnostics (2017), Rakovina Therapeutics (2020), and SnapCyte Solutions (2022).
Job Titles:
- Co - Director of SFU 's Data
- Co - Director of SFU 's Data Mining Research Lab
Dr. Martin Ester is Co-Director of SFU's Data Mining Research Lab in the School of Computing Science. He has more than 20 years of research experience in the areas of data mining and machine... Read more
Dr. Martin Ester is Co-Director of SFU's Data Mining Research Lab in the School of Computing Science. He has more than 20 years of research experience in the areas of data mining and machine learning and is regarded as an international leader in his field. The highly-regarded Digital Library Aminer ranked Dr. Ester as the Top Most Influential Scholar in 2016 in the area of data mining.
As one of the foci of his research, Dr. Ester has explored the potential of data mining to support Precision Medicine. His lab has in particular worked on cancer marker discovery, patient stratification, and drug-target interaction prediction, all in collaboration with Drs. Collins and Cherkasov. In terms of computational methods, he has mainly used probabilistic graphical models, and more recently Deep Neural Networks.
Dr. Ester is not only interested in basic research, but also in the translation of research results into industrial or clinical applications. A successful way of knowledge translation is the development of open source tools. For instance, PSORTb, developed together with Dr. Fiona Brinkman's lab at SFU several years ago, is still widely used as state-of-the-art tool for protein subcellular localization prediction in bacteria.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Chief Executive Officer, PC - TRiADD
- Distinguished Professor and Chairman of the Department of Urologic Sciences
Dr Gleave is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2018 Dr. Chew Wei Memorial Prize in Cancer Research, the Huggins Medal from the SUO in 2018, the Richard Williams Award from the AUA in 2017, the Barringer Medal from the American Association of GU Surgeons; the Eugene Fuller Award from the American Urological Association in 2013; the Aubrey Tingle Prize from the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research; and the NCIC William Rawls Award for contributions to cancer control in Canada; He was appointed a Distinguished University Scholar at UBC in 2003 and awarded a BC Leadership Chair in 2005, the 2006 BC Biotech Award for Innovation and Achievement, and the 2007 BC Innovation Council Frontiers in Research Award.
Dr. Gleave is a Distinguished Professor and Chairman of the Department of Urologic Sciences at UBC, and a British Columbia Leadership Chair. He is Co-Founder and Director of the Vancouver... Read more
Dr. Gleave is a Distinguished Professor and Chairman of the Department of Urologic Sciences at UBC, and a British Columbia Leadership Chair. He is Co-Founder and Director of the Vancouver Prostate Centre, now a UBC and National Centre of Excellence. He is amongst the top cited and funded scientists in Canada, publishing > 600 papers with >60,000 citations, an H-Index of 122, and attracting >$120M in research funding. Dr. Gleave is a surgeon-scientist whose research characterizes molecular mechanisms mediating treatment resistance in cancer, and designing co-targeting strategies to improve cancer control. He patented several anti-cancer drugs and founded OncoGenex Pharmaceuticals to develop OGX-011 and OGX-427, inhibitors of cytoprotective chaperones clusterin and Hsp27 which progressed to Phase III and Phase II trials world-wide. OncoGenex was awarded Canadian Biotech Company of the Year in 2010. Dr. Gleave also recently co-founded Sitka and Sustained Therapeutics.
Dr. Michael Cox is a molecular and cellular biologist who earned his PhD in Biochemistry from the University of North Carolina for studies on how oncogenes impact neuronal growth and... Read more
Dr. Michael Cox is a molecular and cellular biologist who earned his PhD in Biochemistry from the University of North Carolina for studies on how oncogenes impact neuronal growth and differentiation. He began his work on cell signaling networks in prostate cancer at the University of Virginia. His research program is dedicated to understanding how prostate cancer, the most frequently diagnosed male malignancy, initiates and progresses and to finding ways of halting advanced disease progression.
Dr. Cox's research is funded by the Terry Fox Foundation, Canadian Cancer Society, the VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation and the Prostate Cancer Foundation of British Columbia. His work focuses on early genetic changes in prostate cells, how resulting tumor cells respond to growth factors in the presence or absence of testosterone and how these cellular changes allow prostate tumor cells to utilize these growth factors to aid development of testosterone independence. With colleagues at the Vancouver Prostate Centre and University of British Columbia, he is developing combinatorial antisense and small molecule drug strategies that decrease the responsiveness of tumor cells to growth factors and has shown that prostate cancer cells treated in this way are more sensitive to testosterone deprivation or treatment with other chemotherapies. These are first steps in developing effective treatments for patients with advanced prostate cancer.
Dr. Miles Mannas graduated from the University of British Columbia before completing his Urologic Oncology fellowship training at NYU Langone Health, a centre leading improvements in the diagnosis and treatment of localized prostate cancer. He is a surgeon scientist at Vancouver General Hospital with specialized expertise in robotics and image guided diagnostics and therapeutics for prostate cancer. His clinical research program is focused on improving the diagnosis and treatment of localized prostate cancer. Additionally, his translational research focuses on developing novel techniques for real-time pathologic tissue analysis utilizing artificial intelligence.
Dr. Miles Mannas graduated from the University of British Columbia before completing his Urologic Oncology fellowship training at NYU Langone Health, a centre leading improvements in the diagnosis... Read more
Dr. Nada Lallous has a strong knowledge in protein handling and characterization and wide expertise in preclinical validation of novel inhibitors against various cancer targets, acquired during...
Dr. Nader Al Nakouzi is a Research Scientist at the Vancouver Prostate Centre. He obtained a DPhil (PhD) in Cancer Biology from the University of Paris-XI in 2011 and a specialized MBA in Pharmaceutical & Healthcare Management from ISC-Paris. From 2012 to 2016, he pursued his postdoctoral training With Drs. Martin Gleave and Mads Daugaard.
Dr. Al Nakouzi has a background in molecular and cell biology, and 10 years of experience in development of cancer therapeutics and molecular mechanisms of drug resistance. He was mainly involved in elucidating the mechanisms of resistance of Docetaxel and Custirsen in prostate cancer. He also worked on the development of HSP27 inhibitors and VAR2-drug conjugates.
Dr. Al Nakouzi's primary research goal is to identify and characterize novel drug targets to treat late-stage prostate cancer. He works very closely with Dr. Mads Daugaard to study the glycosaminoglycan modifications in cancer and to dissect the clinical relevance of these modifications during the disease progression.
Dr. Al Nakouzi has published original research in top-tier scientific journals and received numerous national and international awards and competitive international funding, such as ARC-Doctoral award-France; AACR-training award, Terry Fox Foundation Scholar-in-training award, MITACS Elevate, CUA-Astellas, Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR-2017), and SPORE-NIH-2018.
Job Titles:
- Senior Research Scientist
Dr. Nathan Lack is a Senior Research Scientist at the Vancouver Prostate Centre. He obtained a DPhil (PhD) in Pharmacology from the University of Oxford in 2009 and then did a Postdoctoral... Read more
Dr. Nathan Lack is a Senior Research Scientist at the Vancouver Prostate Centre. He obtained a DPhil (PhD) in Pharmacology from the University of Oxford in 2009 and then did a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Vancouver Prostate Centre with Dr. Emma Guns and Professor Paul Rennie. Nathan became an Assistant Professor at Koç University in the School of Medicine (Istanbul) in 2011 and was awarded Associate Professorship in 2015. In addition to his academic research, Nathan previously worked for AnorMED Inc., where he was involved in the development of the FDA-approved therapeutic Plerixafor.
The Lack Laboratory is focused on identify and characterizing novel drug targets to treat aggressive late-stage prostate cancer by utilizing advanced functional genomics techniques in combination with classical pharmacology. In addition to extensive publications, the research from his group has identified several compounds that have been licenced and progressed to clinical development. Since it's initiation, the Lack laboratory has obtained several million dollars of funding from national, international and industrial sources. For this work, Nathan has received numerous awards including the Vancouver Coast Health Research Institute's Rising Star and the prestigious TÜBA-GEBIP which is given to the best young scientists in Turkey.
Job Titles:
- Senior Research Scientist
- Surgeon
- Associate Director, Clinical Research, Vancouver Prostate Centre / Professor, Department of Urologic Sciences, University of British Columbia
- Reviewer
Dr. Black has served as grant reviewer for multiple international funding agencies including Cancer Research UK, the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program (CDMRP), and most of the main Canadian funding organizations. He is an ad hoc journal reviewer for >30 journals and has received awards for peer review from European Urology (2013 and 2018), Journal of Urology (2010, 2011, 2015) and Canadian Urological Association Journal (2016). He has served as assistant editor for Urologic Oncology and Associate Editor for both World Journal of Urology and European Urology Focus. In 2019 he became the founding editor-in-chief of the Society Internationale d'Urologie Journal.
Dr. Black is a surgeon scientist with clinical subspecialty interest in the treatment of urologic cancers, including especially bladder and prostate cancer. He maintains a grant-funded... Read more
Dr. Black is a surgeon scientist with clinical subspecialty interest in the treatment of urologic cancers, including especially bladder and prostate cancer. He maintains a grant-funded translational research program in urothelial carcinoma with a focus on genomic analysis of response to chemotherapy, mechanisms of resistance to chemotherapy, and novel targeted therapies for bladder cancer. One of his main laboratory projects relates to Notch signaling in bladder cancer. His group was the first to identify Notch2 as an oncogene in bladder cancer, and they are now working to elucidate differential regulation of these oncogenic properties of Notch2 compared to the tumor suppressive properties of Notch1, with the objective of modulate both pathways independently for therapeutic purposes.
Dr. Kozlowski's main research interest is in the application of Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Spectroscopy (MRI/MRS) technology in prostate cancer research and diagnosis. There are essentially... Read more
Dr. Poul Sorensen is a molecular pathologist and cancer biologist specializing in the genetics and biology of pediatric cancers. Dr. Sorensen holds the Johal Endowed Chair in Childhood Cancer... Read more
Dr. Poul Sorensen is a molecular pathologist and cancer biologist specializing in the genetics and biology of pediatric cancers. Dr. Sorensen holds the Johal Endowed Chair in Childhood Cancer Research at the University of British Columbia (UBC), and is Professor of Pathology at UBC. Dr. Sorensen is a founding member of the AACR Pediatric Cancer Working Group. He is a principal investigator on the recently awarded Stand Up 2 Cancer Pediatric Cancer Dream Team grant focused on immunotherapeutic approaches to targeting high-risk childhood cancers. His group runs several major components of this prestigious award, including the Pathology Core.
Dr. Sorensen's laboratory, located at the BC Cancer Research Centre, focuses on using both genetic approaches (such as next-generation sequencing) and biochemical methods (e.g. proteomics) to identify deregulated signaling cascades in childhood cancer cells. His group has discovered many novel translocation associated alterations in childhood cancer (e.g. Knezevich et al, Nat Genet, 1998, Tognon et al, Cancer Cell, 2002). Moreover, the group has extensive renown in utilizing genetic findings as a means to characterize relevant cancer biology (e.g. Evdokimova et al, Cancer Cell, 2009, Mendoza-Naranjo et al, EMBO Mol Med, 2013, Leprivier et al, Cell, 2013, Daugaard et al, Nat Comm, 2013, Somasekharan et al, J Cell Biol, 2015, and El-Naggar et al, Cancer Cell, 2015).
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
Dr. Ryan Flannigan completed his fellowship training in Male Reproduction, Microsurgery and Sexual Medicine at the world-renowned Weill Cornell Medicine and Memorial Sloan Kettering Center in New... Read more
As Lab Manager, Dr. Moore is responsible for managing day-to-day operations of the Vancouver Prostate Centre research labs. She monitors and analyzes lab performance to ensure maximum efficiency, and ensures adherence to required regulations and effective lab supply management practices are in place. She is the key point of contact for all equipment related responsibilities and issues.
Dr. Syam Somasekharan joined the Vancouver Prostate Centre as a Research Scientist in 2016, and was appointed Senior Research Scientist in 2021.
Graduating with a Ph.D. in...
Dr. Wilfred A. Jefferies earned his Doctor of Philosophy degree from the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology at the University of Oxford for studies on glycoproteins expressed on activated... Read more
Dr. Dong received medical school training from China before coming to Canada. He completed an MSc in Molecular and Cellular Biology at Laval University and a PhD in Physiology at the University of...
Dr. Yuzhuo Wang (王玉琢院士) has a dual appointment as a Senior Research Scientist at the Vancouver Prostate Centre and Distinguished Scientist at the BC Cancer. He is also the Founder of the Living...
Job Titles:
- Prostate Research Facility
- Research Centre
Brian Shankaruk has over 25 years experience in the financial field. For 20 years prior to joining the Centre, Brian worked in the insurance and financial services industry, focusing on Canadian and US statutory government reporting. Brian studied accounting at UBC and received his Certified General Accountant designation in 1990. Much of Brian's recent work has involved systems design and implementation, especially as it relates to operations management and government regulations.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
Job Titles:
- Chairman in Urologic Sciences at VGH
He has been recognized for his contributions to health care by being inducted into the Order of British Columbia and the Order of Canada.