Celebrating Postdoc Appreciation Week 2024

September 16-20, 2024 is Postdoc Appreciation Week! We would like to celebrate the hard work of our Charbonneau Postdocs, and highlight some of the research they are working on.

Dr. Monica Caicedo Roa is a postdoctoral fellow with Dr. Aaron Goodarzi and an epidemiologist with the Evict Radon National Study. Her research project is focused on understanding radiation-related lung cancer risk among people living with disabilities and their families in Canada.

Radon is a radioactive element and the second leading cause of lung cancer, and Dr. Caicedo Roa’s work aims to engage the community of people living with disabilities to measure household radon levels, assess their health risks, and identify barriers to accessing information on health, measurement, and radon remediation.

A postdoctoral fellow in the Narendran Lab, Dr. Yusheng Zhao’s research is focused on developing safe and effective medications that can lead to new clinical trials for difficult-to-cure cancers in children. Combining his expertise in computational chemistry and rational drug design with cancer cell biology, Dr. Zhao is working towards the development of a new drug that will bind and block the activity of a key cancer-driving molecule in the cells of patients with infant leukemia.

Dr. Zhao’s dedication to researching childhood cancers has also earned him recognition as the Kids Cancer Care Research Fellowship recipient.

Dr. Ayan Chanda, a postdoctoral fellow under the supervision of Dr. Pinaki Bose, is dedicated to understanding how genetic, molecular, and spatial changes in oral cancer drive its spread and invasion. By unraveling these complex patterns, Dr. Chanda aims to identify new targets for early detection and treatment to improve patient survival outcomes.

In addition, Dr. Chanda serves as the Charbonneau Postdoctoral representative and Vice President of Operations of the University of Calgary’s Postdoctoral Union (PDAC).

A postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Sorana Morrissy’s lab, Dr. Hyojin Song’s research focuses on understanding sarcoma tumour immuno-biology and predicting responders to immunotherapy in sarcoma. Using a collection of patient data from multiple sources (including information on the immunotherapeutic responders and non-responders), her research aims to classify sarcoma patients who would likely respond to immunotherapy.

Dr. Song was recently recognized as one of the top 10 early-career data scientists to receive the prestigious 2024 Health Informatics & Data Science Award from the Marathon of Hope Cancer Centres Network.

Dr. Benjamin Muselius is a recent addition to the Charbonneau Cancer Institute, joining the Schriemer Lab as a postdoctoral fellow this past July. His research focuses on studying differences among cells within the same tumour, as well as differences between cancerous and healthy cells. Utilizing microscopy guided biochemical labeling and laser dissection techniques, Dr. Muselius isolates samples of both cells and sub-cellular areas of interest, and he uses mass-spectrometry-based proteomics to profile the protein composition of the collected samples. The goal of his research is to enhance current cancer treatments and identify new targets for anticancer drugs.