High-grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSOC) is the 7th most common cancer in women, but the
5th most common cause of cancer mortality, highlighting its poor prognosis at advanced stages.
Primary treatment of advanced disease consists of surgery and platinum-based chemotherapy.
Survival rates, however, have remained low over the years in large part due to tumors acquiring
chemoresistance. Tumor heterogeneity – genetic, epigenetic and metabolic – is thought to
underlie this chemoresistance. Indeed, heterogeneity allows for the selection of unique clones
with enhanced fitness, which can be either pre-existing or newly acquired. We hypothesize that
understanding the evolutionary trajectories of heterogeneous tumor cells and recognizing
patterns of resistance can provide insights to improve standard of care therapies. Thus, over the
course of my co-op, I will be building upon prior work done in investigating the heterogeneity of
various clonally resistant states in ovarian cancer cell lines through a multi-functional lineage
tracing tool.

CaNCURE Research Presentation: https://youtu.be/NFFTztW7Ztg