Thursday, 11 January 2024 at 4:00pm (for location, please email qcri@queensu.ca)
Jada Jabado, MD, PhD
Professor of Pediatrics and Human Genetics, McGill University
Senior Scientist, The Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre
Staff Physician, Montréal Children’s Hospital, McGill University Health Centre
“Oncohistones in disease: from cancer to neurodegeneration and beyond”
Bio: Dr. Nada Jabado is a Professor of Pediatrics at McGill University and pediatric neuro-oncologist at the Montreal Children’s Hospital. She completed her residency in pediatrics with a specialization in hemato-oncology. She also obtained a PhD in Immunology in Paris, France, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship in biochemistry at McGill. She began her career as an independent investigator at McGill in 2003, pioneering a research program in pediatric brain tumours which is now unparalleled. Her group uncovered that pediatric high-grade astrocytomas (HGA) are molecularly and genetically distinct from adult tumours. More importantly, they identified a new molecular mechanism driving pediatric HGA, namely recurrent somatic driver mutations in the tail of histone 3 variants (H3.3 and H3.1). Her discoveries in glioma have transformed their diagnosis and underpin the 2021 World Health Organization classification for central nervous system (CNS) tumours.
Dr. Jabado's ground-breaking work has created a paradigm shift in cancer with the identification of histone mutations in human disease which has revolutionized this field, as the epigenome was a previously unsuspected hallmark of oncogenesis, thus linking development and what we now know are epigenetic-driven cancers. Dr. Jabado has nearly 250 peer-reviewed publications to her credit, with an impressive number of senior-author, high-impact publications in such prominent journals as Nature, Science and Cell. She has over 42,000 citations and many of her publications are considered landmark papers. She is an international leader in the field of neuro-oncology/cancer, honored by invitations as a keynote speaker at top ranked symposia and universities.
Dr. Jabado has been inducted as a Fellow to the Royal Society of Canada, is an appointed member of the CIHR Governing Council, and holds a Canada Research Chair in Pediatric Oncology.
Hosts: Drs. Peter Greer and Anna Panchenko
To see more seminars of the Queen’s Cancer Research Institute, please visit our website at: https://qcri.queensu.ca/about-us/seminar-series