Grant: Doctoral: Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships

Lung cancer is the number one cause of cancer death worldwide, and the five-year survival rate is less than 17% in Canada. As many as 25% of lung cancer cases arise in never smokers; however, since lung cancer is mostly viewed as a smoker's disease, the risk of never smokers developing lung cancer is often overlooked, leading to delays in diagnosis and poor survival rates. Elucidation of novel molecular mechanisms involved in lung cancer development specifically in never smokers is imperative to advance our understanding of this unique disease and to improve treatment of these patients. Many cellular pathways that are normally only active during the development of an embryo and/or the generation of different organ types in the human body have been found to have roles in cancer biology. These pathways are responsible for controlling developmental processes such as cell proliferation and blood vessel formation, which are key processes that cancer cells need to grow and survive. Activation of these pathways in cancer cells is associated with poor survival outcomes in cancer patients. Because fetal developmental pathways are selectively reactivated in cancer cells, they are ideal targets for the development of novel anti-cancer therapies -- non-cancerous cells in the body in which these pathways are not active would be spared from toxicity, making treatments targeting fetal pathways relatively specific to tumour cells. The goal of my research is to identify fetal lung genes and pathways that are reactivated in lung cancers of never smokers and not expressed in normal adult cells. I will use advanced DNA and RNA sequencing technologies to reveal new genes with critical roles in never smoker lung cancer. The genes I identify may represent novel therapeutic targets for the treatment of never smoker lung cancer, potentially leading to a better prognosis and standard of care for this group of patients in Canada and worldwide.