Ian Lorimer

Glioblastoma is an aggressive and incurable form of brain cancer. My lab has two main projects aimed at improving patient outcomes for this disease:

1. As a consequence of a characteristic set of mutations in tumour suppressor genes and oncogenes, almost all glioblastomas have aberrant activation of a cell signalling pathway known as the PI 3-kinase pathway. We are characterizing this pathway in detail in glioblastoma with the goal of identifying novel therapeutic targets. This research makes use of a set of glioblastoma cell cultures that we have isolated from patients at the Ottawa Hospital. These are then modified using genetic engineering techniques (CRISPR knockout and lentiviral transduction) to identify genes with key roles in glioblastoma pathogenesis.

2. We are developing novel biotherapeutic strategies for glioblastoma treatment. We have engineered a version of the tumour suppressor PTEN that efficiently transfers from cell-to-cell. This is currently undergoing pre-clinical evaluation as a therapeutic, using neural stem cells as delivery vehicles. Additional therapeutic proteins that have the same property of efficient cell-to-cell transfer are also being developed.
 

Current lab members (left to right):

Ian Lorimer
Sylvie Lavictoire (technician)
Ritesh Kumar (Ph.D. student)
Alex Gont (Ph.D. student)
Manijeh Daneshmand (Senior Research Associate)
Brandon Gautreau (Honours student)
Katelyn Badham (M.Sc. student)

Our current funders:

Canadian Institutes of Health Research
J. Adrien and Eileen Leger Chair
Joan Sealy Trust
South Ottawa Race Day/ Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation