Dr. Adrienne Weeks is developing The Atlantic Canada Brain Tumour Bank in conjunction with the Maritime Brain Tissue Bank (Dr. Sultan Darvesh) and Dalhousie's Department of Pathology (Dr. Sid Croul). The bank will be a repository for human brain tumour samples to be used by researchers across Atlantic Canada to further the discovery and implementation of novel therapeutic strategies to treat human brain tumours.
Dr. Adrienne Weeks has opened a basic science laboratory that explores the role of RNA granules, such as stress granules and P-Bodies in the pathogenesis of human astrocytomasm, looking in particular at the regulatory role of these RNA granules in brain tumour invasion and migration. Dr. Weeks received a Beatrice Hunter Cancer Research Institute New Investigator Research Award and a Department of Surgery Seed Award to start her investigations. She works in close collaboration with Dr. Jennifer Corcoran, Division of Microbiology, in their combined lab.
Dr. Simon Walling (PI) in collaboration with Dr. Conrad Fernandez (PI) at the IWK, Dr. Adrienne Weeks (Associate investigator), Dr. Dan McNeely (Associate Investigator) and Andrea L.O. Hebb, MSC, PhD, RN (Associate Investigator) in collaboration with Dr.Nada Jabado at McGill University/McGill University Health Center, have received Genome Canada funding for “Biomarkers for Pediatric and Adult High Grade Astrocytoma through Genomics and Epigenomics” a Canada wide study for adult patients under the age of 50 and children, and their families surveying their thoughts surrounding receiving genetic research results.
A sub-study under this grant involves collecting tumour samples in patients with high grade astrocytoma, with the formation of human tumour cell lines in the basic science laboratory of Dr. Adrienne Weeks (PI) and Dr. Simon Walling (PI) and co-investigators Dr. David B. Clarke, Dr. Dan McNeely and Andrea L.O. Hebb, MSc, PhD, RN in collaboration with Dr. Sid Croul, Pathology & Laboratory Medicine.
