Current Positions

Professor (Tenured), Pharmacology and Therapeutics
Investigator, Children's Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba

Education

B.Sc.H. Queen's University, Kingston, Canada
M.Sc. Queen's University, Kingston, Canada
Ph.D. IMP-University of Vienna, Austria
Postdoctoral Fellow-Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Toronto

Research Focus

Over the last several years my lab has been studying the role of ZEB and SNAI family of transcription factors in blood cell development and leukemia transformation. In particular, we have been studying the role of ZEB2 in paediatric blood cancers such as early thymic progenitor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ETP-ALL) and more recently the role of ZEB2 in B Cell Progenitor Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (BCPALL). Our goal is to develop novel therapeutic approaches to fight these aggressive and refractory forms of childhood leukemia. We use a combination of mouse models, patient derived xenotransplant models as well as various multi-omics approaches including proteomics, single cell RNAseq and ATACseq. We have recently found that ZEB2 high ETP-ALL samples are susceptible to epigenetic drugs targeting LSD1 and that the IL7-R signalling pathway plays major roles in LSD1i resistance. We have recently demonstrated that targeting both the IL7-R signalling pathway and LSD1 can act synergistically to kill ETP-ALL and opens up novel pre-clinical approaches to targeting ETP-ALL.

Research Interests

We are presently investigating the role of ZEB2 in B cell development and how increased or hot spot mutant forms of ZEB2 can drive the development of BCP-ALL. A recent CIHR grant was submitted to fund this research program.