Our group combines computational and experimental techniques to study the cellular organization of complex tissues, with a focus on determining the phenotypic diversity and clinical significance of tumor cell subsets and their surrounding microenvironments. We have a particular interest in developing innovative data science tools that illuminate the cellular hierarchies and stromal elements that underlie tumor initiation, progression, and response to therapy. As part of this focus, we develop new algorithms to resolve cellular states and multicellular communities, tumor developmental hierarchies, and single-cell spatial relationships from genomic profiles of clinical biospecimens. Key results are further explored experimentally, both in our lab and through collaboration, with the goal of translating promising findings into the clinic.

As a member of the Department of Biomedical Data Science and the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, and as an affiliate of graduate programs in Biomedical Informatics, Cancer Biology, and Immunology, we are also interested in the development of impactful biomedical data science tools in areas beyond our immediate research focus, including developmental biology, regenerative medicine, and systems immunology.

Carole Jabet is the scientific director of the Fonds de recherche du Québec - Santé. She obtained an engineering degree from the École Centrale de Lyon, specializing in bioengineering in 1992. She obtained in 1996 a doctorate in science, specializing in biophysics and molecular biology from the École Centrale de Paris. In 1999, she completed her postdoctoral training at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Over the course of her career, she has held several management and scientific advisory positions in healthcare research. From 2003 to 2009, she worked at Génome Québec as Vice-President, Scientific Affairs. She then became a partner in the consulting firm CapCOGITO. Since November 2018, she has been Deputy Director of Research at the CHUM Research Centre, having previously been Deputy Director of Operations. She is currently a member of the boards of directors of the CATALIS early clinical research initiative and the College of Reviewers of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

Maxime Dumais is the development coordinator of the Oncopole-FRQS. He holds a B.Sc. in Microbiology and Immunology from the Université de Montréal. Employed by the Quebec Breast Cancer Foundation for 7 years, he held the positions of Director, Research and Health Promotion, and Vice-President, Programs and Investments. Previously, Maxime was Program Manager at Génome Québec.

Dr. Mes-Masson trained as a molecular oncologist, and obtained her Ph.D. from the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at McGill University in 1984. From 1984-1986, she completed post-doctoral studies at the Molecular Biology Institute, University of California Los Angeles, in the laboratory of Dr. Owen Witte where she was the first to clone the full length BCR-ABL transcript implicated in Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia. After a short period as a research associate at the Biotechnology Research Institute, Dr Mes-Masson joined the Institut du cancer de Montréal and the Department of Medicine at the Université de Montréal in 1989. A full professor since 2001, Dr. Mes-Masson was the scientific director of the Institut du cancer de Montréal and Director of cancer research at the Centre de recherche du Centre hospitalier de l’université de Montréal (CRCHUM) from 2003-2018 and in 2017 accepted the position of Associate Director, Basic and Translational Research, at the CRCHUM. In 2003, Dr. Mes-Masson was named the Director of the Réseau de recherche sur le cancer du Fonds de recherche du Québec - Santé (FRQS), a provincial cancer network of over 100 scientists focused on translational and clinical cancer research (www.rrcancer.ca). Dr. Mes-Masson is a founding member of the Canadian Tumor Repository Network that focuses on enhancing capacity and quality of biobanking to support research (www.ctrnet.ca). In 2008 Dr. Mes-Masson was named the Quebec node coordinator for the Terry Fox Research Institute (TFRI).

Dr. Mes-Masson has authored over 250 publications in cancer research. In addition to her pioneering work in biobanking, the major focus of her research in the last three decades has been ovarian and prostate cancer. While maintaining an active basic research program that focuses on the molecular events that contribute to cancer initiation and progression. Dr. Mes-Masson has also established a translational research program largely focused on delivering personalized medicine in oncology. Her recent fundamental research focuses on the prediction of therapeutic responses and the development of new therapeutic agents for ovarian and prostate cancers.

Dr. Morag Park is a full Professor in the Departments of Biochemistry, Medicine and Oncology at McGill University. She is the Director of the Rosalind and Morris Goodman Cancer Institute and has served as the Scientific Director of the CIHR Institute of Cancer Research, Director of the McGill Molecular Oncology Group and Joint Head of the Cancer Axis at MUHC. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and holds the Diane and Sal Guerrera Chair in Cancer Genetics. Her lab has been operating since 1988.

Dr. Park’s research interests focus on the molecular mechanisms of oncogenic activation of receptor tyrosine kinases and mechanisms for cell transformation using the Met, hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) and oncoprotein as a model. Our group and others have shown that the activity of the HGF receptor is frequently altered in human cancer and have proposed new models for its mechanism of oncogenic activation. Our current work is aimed at identifying the critical molecular signals regulated by the HGF/SF receptor and receptor tyrosine kinases, in general, that contribute to tumor progression, and are suitable targets for therapeutic intervention. We have developed epithelial as well as fibroblastic and mouse models, to study at the molecular level, signals required for epithelial morphogenesis and those signals that promote the breakdown of organized epithelial structures, anchorage independent growth, tumorigenesis and invasion.

Dr. Bertrand Routy MD, PhD is a clinician-scientist and associate professor in the department of hemato-oncology at the CHUM (University of Montreal). Upon his recruitment to the CRCHUM in 2018 after completing his PhD with Pr. Laurence Zitvogel, Dr. Routy quickly established himself as the scientific director of the CHUM Microbiome Centre where he began his work to develop novel microbiome-based therapeutics in oncology. His work contributed to the discovery of the gut microbiome as a novel prognostic biomarker for immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) in various cancers. He characterized the deleterious impact of antibiotic-related gut dysbiosis on ICI outcomes, which led to pivotal changes in clinical oncology practice. Moreover, he demonstrated that modulation of the microbiome by fecal microbiota transplantation, probiotics, and prebiotic supplementation had the potential to circumvent ICI resistance. His team currently leads several microbiota-centered trials in oncology ranging from phase I to phase II trials, with the aim of decreasing primary ICI resistance. Dr. Routy is internationally recognized as a leader in the microbiome field with more than 17,700 citations including publications in Science, Nature Medicine and Annals of oncology, and h-index of 43. Moreover, his unending commitment to improving immunotherapy responses in cancer patients has led to several awards from prestigious societies, including the FRQS 2023 Junior 2 ranked #1, the Prix de la Relève Scientifique du Québec in 2022 and the 2021 Gairdner Foundation award.

Melanoma is the deadliest form of skin cancer. Detected in its earliest stages, melanoma is highly curable; however, the 5-year survival rate declines drastically for regional and distant metastatic disease. Recently, melanoma has emerged as the latest success story for both genomics- and immune-guided targeted therapy. Cutaneous melanoma is characterized by hotspot mutations in the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) regulators, BRAF and NRAS, found in approximately 50% and 25% of patients, respectively. The identification of these oncogenic mutations has led to the development of small molecule inhibitors targeting MAPK kinase kinases (MEK) and BRAF in melanoma. Although antitumor responses to MAPK targeted therapies have been dramatic; they are rarely durable. Furthermore, novel therapies targeting inhibitory immune checkpoint proteins have recently shown impressive clinical efficacy; nevertheless, biomarkers that predict response remain unclear.

For the past four years, I have led a number of multi-institutional collaborations (Hodis, Watson et al., 2012 Cell), which include The Cancer Genome Atlas project (TCGA, 2015 Cell), to characterize the melanoma genome and perform integrative analysis with multiple data platforms at the DNA, RNA, and protein levels. Our work has identified a number of novel significantly mutated genes in melanomas, which possess hotspot mutations in coding and non-coding regions. Based on the frequency and correlation of the most frequently significantly mutated genes, we established a framework for genomic classification into one of four subtypes: mutant BRAF, RAS, NF1, and Triple-WT (wild-type) melanomas.

To improve on the current diagnostic and treatment modalities employed in the clinic, my lab will address the following questions: What is the biological function and therapeutic relevance of novel significantly mutated genes discovered in our melanoma genome- and exome-sequencing studies? How can we target melanomas lacking BRAF and RAS hotspot mutations with new approaches? What are the mechanisms that mediate response and resistance to MAPK-targeted and immunotherapy? To tackle these problems, my lab will employ computational approaches, in vivo models and biochemical techniques studying patient samples, cell lines, and melanoma mouse models.

Dominique Trudel is a clinical associate professor at the Faculty of Medicine of the Université de Montréal in the Department of Pathology and Cell Biology and a regular researcher at the CRCHUM. She practices genitourinary pathology and molecular pathology at the CHUM. She is the recipient of the FRQ-S Junior 2 Clinician-Scientist Award and has twice received the Junior Scientist Award from the Canadian Association of Pathologists.

Mélanie Laurin is a principal investigator at the CHU de Québec - Université Laval Research Center and an assistant professor in the Department of molecular biology, medical biochemistry and pathology from the Faculty of Medicine of Laval University. After completing her master’s degree in the laboratory of Dr. Guy Sauvageau at IRIC and her doctorate under the direction of Dr. Jean-Fraçois Côté at the IRCM, Mélanie joined the laboratory of Dr. Elaine Fuchs, a world-renowned pioneer in stem cell biology, for her postdoctoral training. She is now directing a research group that aims to understand the molecular mechanisms that orchestrate skin development and contribute to the progression of skin cancer to reveal new therapeutic opportunities for their treatment. To address these scientific questions, her group uses in utero lentivirus injection, which allows rapid modification of skin progenitors and high-throughput functional studies in vivo, in combination with cell culture models. Her team is currently founded by the CIHR, NSERC, SRC and FRQS.

Dr. Knapp did his doctoral training under the direction of Connie Eaves at UBC in hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) biology followed by a postdoc on gene engineering and synthetic biology with Tudor Fulga at the University of Oxford before opening his lab at the IRIC, Université de Montréal in 2020. His early work in hematopoiesis, combining single cell molecular and functional data, challenged the traditional view of HSC differentiation as discrete bifurcating tree, and provided insights into the growth-factor mediated regulation of HSC survival proliferation and self-renewal capacity. During his postdoc he developed a novel tRNA-based platform for regulating CRISPR/Cas9 guide RNA expression and contributed to the development of other systems for the transcriptional regulation of cell systems. His current lab focus is on the combination of stem cell systems and gene/transcriptome editing in order to generate therapeutically relevant cell types effectively and to model the early events in the development of leukemia and other cancers. His recent work includes modifications to the HSC editing process that permit consistent precision editing in primary cells at >90% efficiency and the development of an organoid model of neural progenitor transplantation among others.

Mathieu completed a master's degree working on the evolution of RNA viruses in the laboratory of Dr. Hugo Soudeyns at CHU Sainte-Justine, followed by a PhD in the regulation of alternative RNA splicing in the laboratories of Drs. Benjamin Blencowe and Sabine Cordes at the University of Toronto. As a postdoctoral fellow, he used large RNA-sequencing databases to develop bioinformatics tools for identifying immunotherapy targets in cancer under the mentorship of Drs Kristen Lynch and Yoseph Barash at the University of Pennsylvania. His laboratory is pursuing this path to perfect the identification of therapeutic cancer targets by transcriptomic analysis, and to validate the potential of candidates using diverse approaches.

Dr Melo Garcia is a Brazilian-Canadian hematologist at CHU de Québec - Université Laval. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the Stem Cell Transplantation Department of MD Anderson Cancer Center where she worked from 2018 to 2023 with Dr Rezvani to produce genetically modified NK cells for the treatment of AML and lymphomas. Her research projects focused on developing fourth-generation CAR-armed NK cells capable of targeting tumor cells and influencing the tumor microenvironment by the modulation of NK receptors or the secretion of immunomodulatory molecules. She is also interested in the genetic manipulation of macrophages to induce tumor killing in addition to microenvironment modulation to improve tumor control.

Dr Melo Garcia obtained her MD degree in Brazil and Université Laval. She spent her third year of Internal Medicine residency at the Pharmacogenomics Laboratory of ULaval exploring genomic markers to improve personalized therapies for prostate cancer and finished an M.Sc. in molecular medicine. Her passion for bringing new discoveries from bench to bedside led her to Toronto where she completed her Hematology residency at U of T. In Dr Keating’s Lab, she made her first steps as a bench scientist and learned about NK cells as an alternative for adoptive cell therapy. She hopes to continue this innovative research and bring these novel technologies to her own program in Canada.

Dr. Anne Gangloff (MD, Ph.D. FRCPC) is a biochemist who worked on hormone-sensitive cancers (PhD) and a Physician (MD.) specialized in Medical biochemistry with a focus on Lipid disorders. Affiliations. Dr. Gangloff is a regular researcher at the CHU de Québec-Université Laval Research Center, Oncology axis, and assistant professor in the Department of Molecular Biology, Medical Biochemistry and Pathology (BMBMP), part of the Faculty of Medicine at Laval University. Dr. Gangloff has been a member of the RR Cancer Network and the Cancer Research Center (Laval University) for several years. Research interests. Her FRQS Junior 1 research program investigates cancer’s metabolic rewiring and therapeutic metabolic reprogramming in cancers, focusing on the role of lipids and lipid-lowering drugs. She is Promotor-investigator of an ongoing phase 1 clinical trial testing a cholesterol blockade on top of FOLFIRINOX in metastatic pancreatic cancer (NCT04862260). Metabolic reprogramming will be tested in other aggressive cancers, such as high-grade serous ovarian cancers, castration-resistant prostate cancer, and triple-negative breast cancers. Clinical expertise. Dr. Gangloff treats dysmetabolic and dyslipidemic patients at the CHUL’s lipid clinic in Québec City.

Dr. Morgan Craig, Canada Research Chair in Computational Immunology, is a Researcher at the Sainte-Justine University Hospital Azrieli Research Centre and an Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the Université de Montréal. Her lab (The Quantitative and Translational Medicine Laboratory) studies how the immune system responds to threats and how differences between individuals affect these responses. For this, she develops predictive, mechanistic mathematical and computational models to study the progression and treatment of cancer and viral infectious diseases through the lens of immunity. In her work and through highly multidisciplinary research conducted in close collaboration with experimentalists and clinicians, Dr. Craig uses in silico clinical trials and virtual patient cohorts to concretely improve therapeutic regimens and patient outcomes.

Dr. Wurzba, DDS, MSc, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery at McGill University and the Project Director at the Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research - Segal Cancer Center. She earned her DDS degree from the University of São Paulo State, Brazil, and completed her MSc and PhD in Pathology and Molecular Biology at the University of Campinas (UNICAMP, Brazil).

Dr. Wurzba pursued postdoctoral training in Genetics in Oncology under the mentorship of Dr. Luiz Paulo Kowalski at the Ludwig Cancer Institute, where she gained extensive experience in the field. In 2010, she joined the ENT Department at the Jewish General Hospital (McGill University), focusing her research on improving outcomes for patients with head and neck cancer through optimized detection methods and the development of personalized targeted therapies. She pursued her expertise with complementary postdoctoral training in Experimental Medicine.

Dr. Wurzba leads translational research and is responsible for genotyping tests in head and neck cancers as well as tumors associated with viral infections. Her primary objectives are to enhance prevention, advance early tumor detection, and discover alternative therapeutic approaches for patients with advanced disease.

Dr. Sophie Marcoux is a young researcher and physician specializing in public health and preventive medicine. She completed a B.Sc. in Biochemistry (2005) and an M.Sc. in Experimental Medicine (2007) at McGill University. She obtained her PhD in biomedical sciences (2011) and completed her medical (2015) and postdoctoral (2020) training at Université de Montréal. She has just completed additional postdoctoral training at the Institut national de santé publique du Québec (INSPQ) analyzing health and its social and territorial inequalities. Dr. Marcoux has been interested in cancer from a variety of angles right from the start of her university training. During her bachelor's and master's degrees, she worked mainly in a molecular biology laboratory on breast cancer and adult leukemia. During her PhD, she developed advanced skills in biostatistical modeling and genetic analysis. It was at this point that she turned her attention to the long-term side effects of oncology treatments. Further training at the INSPQ enabled her to deepen her skills in adult and pediatric cancer epidemiology by exploiting medico-administrative databases. As part of her training as a medical specialist in public health, she developed a strong interest in the organization of care and the impact of social inequalities in oncology. Recently, her epidemiological work was published in the prestigious journal of the American Diabetes Association. Dr. Marcoux is co-director of RRCancer's Learning and Equitable Health System Axis.

Lise Gauvin is a Professor of Social and Preventive Medicine at the School of Public Health of the Université de Montréal (ESPUM) and researcher and Associate Scientific Director at the Research Center of the Université de Montréal Hospital Center (CRCHUM). Her research focuses on the development, implementation, and evaluation of complex interventions aims at promoting healthy lifestyle and self-management among populations experiencing a variety of health problems while addressing associated social inequalities. Dr. Gauvin is co-director of RRCancer's Learning and Equitable Health System Axis.

Prof. Hermann Nabi is a researcher in and the Deputy Director of the Oncology division at the Quebec City University Hospital Research Center and an Associate Professor of Epidemiology at the Department of social and preventive medicine at the Faculty of medicine of Université Laval. He is also a senior research scholar of the Quebec Health Research Funds (FRQS). Prior to joining the Center and Université Laval, Prof. Nabi was the Head of the Department for research in social and human sciences, epidemiology, and public health at the French National Cancer Institute (INCa).

The overarching goal of his research program is to generate evidence to support a successful, equitable, and responsible integration of innovations from precision medicine into the prevention, diagnosis, treatment and follow-up of common diseases, particularly cancers. The originality of his research program lies in its interdisciplinary approach, which combines a variety of skills and methodological tools to answer questions that are at the interface of several scientific fields. This approach proposes a new way of approaching translational research, through the use of concepts, models and methods from human and social sciences, epidemiology, public health, health services research and implementation science.

Dr. Dragomir is an health economist and biostatistician with master degree in statistics and doctoral degree in pharmacoepidemiology and pharmacoeconomics, from University of Montreal, Canada. She has 19 years of experience in academic research. She was involved in research projects focused on evaluation of health outcomes and health economics related to different treatment strategies, adherence to treatments, health services utilization and disease modeling in several fields, such as: hypertension, dyslipidemia, cardiovascular diseases, osteoporosis, mental health diseases, and cancers. Her current research is focused on clinical and economic evaluation of different treatments strategies offered to patients with urological cancers. She has an extended experience in conducting studies based on administrative healthcare databases, such as RAMQ and Med-Echo, and conducting economic evaluation. Her research represents a valuable tool for decision-makers and clinician leaders when evaluating the clinical and economic impacts of innovative treatments.