Grant: Doctoral Research Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

BACKGROUND: Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death worldwide, taking 1.8 million lives every year. Despite mainly being associated with smoking tobacco, 15-25% of lung cancer patients have never smoked. This makes lung cancer in never smokers, or LCINS, the world's seventh most deadly cancer on its own. However, LCINS is distinct from smoking-related lung cancer, and little is known about the underlying causes of its initiation and progression. Pollution consists of fine particles that can accumulate in the lungs over time. Recent research suggests that pollution exposure may contribute to the development of lung cancer, and thus pose as a risk factor for lung cancer in people who have never smoked. To date, the molecular and cellular landscape of never smoker lung cancer patients with defined pollution exposure has never been explored. GOAL: To evaluate the impact of pollution on lung cancer development in people who have never smoked and understand how the molecular effects of pollution influence lung tumour biology. APPROACH: A total of 120 tumour and healthy lung samples will be collected from never smoker lung cancer patients in British Columbia. These patients will fill out a questionnaire that can accurately calculate their pollution exposure using their past and current residential addresses in the last 20 years, which can be tracked to ground and satellite measurements of fine particle concentrations. I will then compare the DNA and other gene-related data between the patients who had high versus low pollution exposure. OUTCOMES: I predict that a unique list of genetic modifications and immune system factors will be present in the tumours of patients who have had high pollution exposure. This list has the potential to serve as candidate targets for prevention and treatment of LCINS.