“The ongoing mission of the Mary & John Knight TOCRU is to ultimately apply new research discoveries to impact the lives of ovarian cancer patients with improved therapies to prolong disease-free survival and overall quality-of-life.”
- Dr. Trevor Shepherd
Ovarian Cancer
Ovarian cancer is a devastating malignancy since in many cases women are first diagnosed after the disease has already spread, or metastasized. Even after aggressive surgery and combination cytotoxic chemotherapy, very often this relentless disease returns quickly with evolved chemotherapy-resistance. Therefore, the overarching theme of the Shepherd lab, within the Mary & John Knight Translational Ovarian Cancer Research Unit (TOCRU) is to elucidate the molecular and cellular mechanisms involved in ovarian cancer metastasis and test new therapeutic strategies to target and alleviate late-stage disease and chemo-resistance.
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The TOCRU represents fundamental and translational research activities co-led by scientists Drs. Shepherd (Ob/Gyn, Oncology & Anatomy & Cell Biology) and Gabriel DiMattia (Oncology & Biochemistry), and in partnership with members of the Gynaecologic Oncology Multidisciplinary Disease Site Team at the Verspeeten Family Cancer Centre. Together, the TOCRU has made significant discoveries through the direct study of ovarian cancer patient ascites cells, tumour samples representing disease diversity, and their pioneering work with an in vitro three-dimensional spheroid culture model of metastasis.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We express our sincere gratitude to the Gynaecologic Oncology Disease Site Team for their continued support of our biobanking project. We are extremely thankful for the years of solid funding support from the London and area community. And, most importantly, we are especially indebted to the ovarian cancer patients who have generously donated their tumour and ascites samples to advance our research efforts. We are dedicated to honouring your legacy.
