Faculty of Medicine

My broad scientific interests include fetal/developmental origins of disease and social determinants of heath, with a particular focus on intergenerational transmission of disease risks. The overaching goal is to enhance knowledge about how parental socioeconomic and health disadvantages before childbirth influence health and developmental outcomes in children during childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, and across the life course. My postdoctoral project aims to investigate the role of maternal chronic diseases in the fetal origins of long-term offspring health outcomes.

1. Integrin alpha6 mediates the invasion and metastasis of breast cancer cells.
2. Using chick embryo models to study breast cancer cell invasion and metastasis.
 

Huntington disease (HD) is a dominantly inherited neurodegenerative disorder caused by an expansion of a polyglutamine encoding CAG repeat in the huntingtin (HTT) gene. Disease severity in HD has been found to be best predicted by the number of pure CAG repeats, rather than the total number of glutamines encoded. However, there is still significant additional variation observed, which is heritable. Among the factors that modify the age of onset of HD, there are synonymous variants that either add or remove interruptions to the HTT CAG and CCG repeats.

Using multiomics, flow cytometry, and functional studies, I discovered a T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) subtype dependent on MYCN. Building upon preliminary results that suggest an important role of H3K4 methylation in controlling MYCN gene expression in these leukemias, my present research seeks to identify the key epigenetic modifiers responsible for establishing or maintaining H3K4 methylation in the context of T-ALL development. Ultimately, this investigation may unveil novel pharmacological targets for better combating specific subtypes of T-ALL.

The Intelligent Care Platform (formerly, TrustSphere) is a integrative and collaborative platform for the management of type 1 diabetes. Co-created with end users, the platform is currently undergoing further development to be tested in a pragmatic, effectiveness-implementation trial at BC Children's Hospital. The platform will allow users to easily and securely share confidential information through online health-care services, in compliance with rigorous health-care industry and public standards of privacy protection.

DNA tapes for recording mammalian brain development

My project focuses on evaluating the knockdown of multiple genes and assessing their impact on treatment efficacy in sepsis and CAP patients. Specifically, I aim to develop novel drugs utilizing siRNA-LNPs through nanoparticle formulation modifications and exploring various siRNA sequences.
 
 

My research will involve exploring the early underlying mechanisms in development of Neuroendocrine Prostate Cancer from advanced prostate adenocarcinoma.

I study the regulation of protein translation in pancreatic beta-cells. Pancreatic beta-cells are the only cells in the body that secrete insulin, a peptide hormone that lowers blood glucose. Therefore, beta-cells must synthesise and process large quantities of protein. In diabetes, beta-cells are subject to endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress, when insulin demand overwhelms the cell's capacity to process proteins.