Congratulations Poster Winners at the fifth Saskatchewan Cancer Research Conference

The fifth Saskatchewan Cancer Research Conference was held June 13, 2018 in Saskatoon, with 125 registered participants from a wide range of disciplines in attendance. This conference recognizes and promotes the excellent cancer research within the province and provides valuable learning and networking opportunities for the participants.

Conference Speakers

The conference featured a Keynote Speaker:

  • Dr. Peter Greer, from the Cancer Biology and Genetics Division of Queen’s Cancer Research Institute in Kingston, Ontario.  The title of his seminar was “Arpin: A novel regulator of actin branching and a potential anti-metastasis therapeutic target”. 

 

Additional presentations were made by local investigators, including Dr. S. Widenmaier (Research Fellow, Physiology), Dr. E. Dadachova (Pharmacy & Nutrition), Dr. K. Bonham (SCA, Research), Dr. L. Chelico (Microbiology & Immunology), Dr. F. Cayabyab (Surgery), Dr. S. Papagerakis (Surgery), Dr. I. Badea (Pharmacy & Nutrition), Dr. R. Singh (PDF, Biochemistry) and Dr. F. Islam (Graduate Student, Cancer Cluster).

 

 

Poster Presentation Winners

The conference also included poster presentations, and recognized several poster winners:

 

Graduate Student, First Place ($300): 

Omar Abuhussein (Supervisor: Dr. F. Vizeacoumar, Cancer Cluster)

Sphingosine kinase 2 as a potential therapeutic target in telomerase overexpressing cancers

 

Graduate Student, Second Place ($200):

Chelsea Cunningham (Supervisor: Dr. F. Vizeacoumar, Cancer Cluster)

Exploiting the synthetic dosage lethal interactions of polo-like kinase 1 for targeted cancer therapeutics

 

Graduate Student, Third Place ($100):

Samitha Andrahennadi (Supervisor: Dr. Uppalapati, Dept of Pathology)

Developing small protein inhibitors to exploit a synthetic dosage lethal interaction in an adhesion g protein-coupled receptor

 

Post-Doctoral Fellow ($200):

Dr. Arun Kumar Annan Sudarsan (Supervisor: Dr. F. Vizeacoumar and Dr. Uppalapati, Cancer Cluster)

Developing small-protein based affinity reagents for breast cancer cell surface receptors

 

The success of the conference was in large part due to excellent job of organizers: Drs. Keith Bonham, Franco Vizeacoumar and Erique Lukong. Invaluable assistance was provided by Sheila Ash and Lori Amson, as well as Frederick Vizeacoumar (website/technical) and Mark Boyd (logistics).  This conference was supported by funds from the Saskatchewan Cancer Agency, the Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation and ThermoFisher Scientific.