News

Brigida DiMatteo, a Medical Biophysics summer student placed at the DaCosta lab this summer, presented her research focusing on the effects of metformin and radiation treatment on pancreatic tumour burden and spread in vivo. Abstract: Pancreatic cancer, the second most common gastrointestinal cancer, has a poor prognosis with an overall 5.1% 5-year relative survival rate. An integral treatment which is frequently used in the neoadjuvant and adjuvant care is radiation therapy (RT). RT is heavily dependent on intracellular oxygen to produce cytotoxic reactive oxygen species. However, RT damages vasculature thereby inducing tumor hypoxia, a key factor in therapy resistance and…

UofT FacMed JinH Congratulations to Helen Jin, who was recently awarded two University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine awards: 1) The David RAE Graduate Student Scholarship, awarded to one student from the Faculty of Medicine studying in the areas of leukemia and lymphoma. The award totals $6,100 for one year. 2) The Sona Naran PANCHA Graduate Award in Leukemia Research, awarded to one student from the Faculty of Medicine demonstrates excellence and outstanding achievement in the area of leukemia research. The award totals $1,800 for one year. Helen will be using this funding to study the interaction between leukemia cells…

Mr. Vasanth Subramanian joined the DaCosta lab as a Clinical Research Coordinator in June 2019. He has completed two master’s degrees in mechanical engineering and Kinesiology from University of Illinois at Chicago (Chicago, IL) and University of North Carolina at Greensboro (Greensboro, NC) respectively. He obtained his undergrad degree in Mechanical Enginerring from SASTRA University (Thanjavur, India).

On June 13-14, 2019, the DaCosta lab presented their intraoperative fluorescence image guidance device at the Canadian Breast Cancer Symposium, which was held at the Westin Harbour Castle in Toronto, Ontario. The symposium was a national multidisciplinary event aimed at developing a personalized approach in the management of breast cancer.  Attendees included general surgeons, breast surgeons, surgical oncologists, radiation oncologists, medical oncologists, pathologists, general practitioners, nurses, residents and fellows.

Congratulations to Helen Jin for receiving the prestigious CIHR Canadian Graduate Scholarship (CGS-Master’s)! This award totals $17,500 for one year and is awarded based on academic excellence, research potential, and professional skills. Helen will be putting this scholarship to good use in our lab researching leukemia cell biology in the bone marrow microenvironment.

Dr. Sara Rapic and Tim Samuel are awarded a full travel grant to attend the São Paulo School of Advanced Science on Modern Topics in Biophotonics. The event will be held University of São Paulo campus in São Carlos, Brazil, March 20-29, 2019 and is based on courses on advanced biophotonics research themes, such as applications of light for diagnosis, cancer treatment and microbial control. The scope of the conference covers both scientific advances and technological applications. Excitingly, our research on investigating the radiation response of pancreatic tumors and their microenvironment was selected for a “pitch deck” presentation at the conference.

Helen Jin joined the DaCosta lab in January 2019. She received her bachelor’s degree in Life Sciences from Yale-NUS College (Singapore). Currently, she is a Medical Biophysics M.Sc. Candidate at the University of Toronto. Her project focuses on investigating the interaction of acute myeloid leukemia with the bone marrow microenvironment in order to elucidate new therapeutic targets through in vivo imaging. This project is funded by the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of Canada in collaboration with Dr. Mark Minden at the Princess Margaret Hospital.

Dr. Shirley Chi-Tyan Wang joined the DaCosta lab as a Clinical Research Coordinator in June 2018. She completed a double major at the University of Toronto (Toronto, Canada) in Health Sciences and English Literature, and obtained her medical degree at the Ross University School of Medicine (Portsmouth, Dominica). She is the coordinator of our Phase III randomized control trial testing the therapeutic benefit of a handheld fluorescence imaging device that detects bacterial autofluorescence in diabetic foot wounds in real-time and at the point-of-care.

The DaCosta lab congratulates PhD candidate Niloufar Khosravi on receiving the Osseointegration Foundation student travel grant. Her abstract titled “A Close Look at Peri-implant Endosseous Wound Healing Inside the Living Body in Real-Time” was selected for the stipend after receiving the top scores of student-submitted research for the annual Academy of Osseointegration Meeting held March 13 – 16, 2019 in Washington, DC.

MSc candidate Christopher Gibson presented his graduate research at PEMED 2018: International Conference on Personalized and Precision Medicine in Paris, France. He won the most outstanding abstract award for his presentation entitled “Development and clinical translation of a new handheld imaging device for 5-ALA-induced fluorescence guided breast conserving surgery.” View the Abstract