News

Dr. Sara Rapic received a travel award from UHN’s Office of Research Trainees (ORT) to attend the World Molecular Imaging Conference in Montreal. She will be giving an oral presentation on her research on radiation oncology.

PhD candidate Christopher Gibson recently received a travel award from UHN’s Office of Research Trainees (ORT) to attend the Canadian Cancer Research Conference in Ottawa from November 3-5. Christopher will be presenting a poster outlining an upcoming breast cancer clinical trial at this conference.

The DaCosta lab attended the World Molecular Imaging Conference in Montreal from September 4-7 2019. Postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Sara Rapic, was asked to give an oral presentation of her work and was highlighted as one of the top abstracts at the WMIC opening ceremonies: “Investigating radiation response of pancreatic tumors and their microenvironment using in-vivo optical imaging to identify new treatment strategies“. Sara’s abstract was selected as one of the “top abstracts” of the conference. Pictures include Jason Lewis (former President of WMIS) highlighting Sara’s talk in the WMIC Opening Ceremony. Several members presented at the poster sessions including: Helen Jin…

On Friday August 30th, 2019 Niloufar Khosravi successfully defended her PhD dissertation.  Dr. Khosravi extends her gratitude to her supervisors Dr. John Davies and Dr. Ralph DaCosta as well as all others who supported her in her academic and personal life. She would also like to thank her external examinator, Dr Ali Khademhosseini, for helpful insights and stimulating conversation. On the subject of receiving her PhD, she says: “I’d say the experience was unique. I never in a million years thought I’d be a scientist one day, now my enthusiasm for science has spilled into my personal life.”

This summer, the DaCosta lab welcomed 5 wonderful highschool and undergraduate students to assist with the ongoing projects in the lab. Each of these students exceeded our expectations with their scientific inquiry, diligent lab work, and presentation skills. On August 16th, 2019 we celebrated their hard work with a luncheon, and presentation of certificates of achievement. We wish to thank Mara, Sarah, William, Zuha, and Brigida for their help this summer and we wish them luck in the coming academic year.

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.