Sheila Singh


Canada Research Chair in Human Cancer Stem Cell Biology

Tier 1 - 2017-11-01
Renewed: 2012-07-01, 2024-07-01
McMaster University
Canadian Institutes of Health Research

905-525-9140
ssingh@mcmaster.ca

Research involves

Focusing on further characterization of genetic abnormalities of brain tumor initiating cells (BTICs), with the intent of developing future therapies that will target BTICs, and provide insight into patient prognosis.

Research relevance

Targeting BTICs holds great promise in potentially alleviating brain tumours—a leading cause of cancer deaths in children and a form of cancer that remains difficult to cure despite advances in surgery.

Research summary

Dr. Sheila Singh has already discovered an abnormal stem cell—the brain tumour-initiating cell (BTIC)—that may drive the formation of brain tumours. As Canada Research Chair in Human Cancer Stem Cell Biology, she is continuing her study of the regulation of BTIC signalling pathways in the most treatment-resistant types of glioblastoma (a type of brain tumour), brain metastases (when cancer cells spread to the brain), and childhood medulloblastoma (the most common cancerous brain tumour in children).

She and her research team are unravelling the spatial and temporal heterogeneity of glioblastoma using integrative, multi-omic analyses and uncovering new metabolic vulnerabilities in childhood medulloblastoma. They are also engineering new chimeric antigen receptor T-cell technologies to target the intracellular drivers of cancer cell growth and intercept the formation of brain metastases. Ultimately, Singh and her team aim to selectively target the BTIC with tailored drug and molecular therapies.