Grant: Master's Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

Providing the utmost quality in health care for Canadian citizens is a high priority research goal. With a more complete understanding of the mechanisms underlying cancer, we will be able to offer improved cancer treatments. Hypoxia, a condition of minimal oxygen supply, can cause increased spreading of tumours and resistance to radiation and chemotherapy. A fraction of cancer cells known as cancer stem cells have the ability to replicate indefinitely which causes tumour growth. Through a deeper understanding of the mechanisms causing the population of stem cells to proliferate, we can further the range of treatments. We propose to investigate the role of hypoxia in cancer, more specifically whether hypoxia causes an increase in the fraction of cancer stem cells. Should this hypothesis prove to be true we will determine whether or not nitric oxide (NO) or drugs that imitate NO have the ability to prevent cancer from acquiring stem cell-like characteristics. This would in turn prevent the expansion of the tumour.