New tools, model systems, and multiplexed imaging for the study of multi-cellular tumour environments
In person and online
As part of our Monday seminar series we are delighted to welcome our speaker:
Dr. Hartland Jackson
Investigator, Systems Biology Program, Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Mount Sinai Health System
Early Career Investigator, Ontario Institute of Cancer Research
Assistant Professor, Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto
Canada Research Chair in Systems Pathology
Hosted by
How to join
The event will be hybrid.
To join in person: Medical Sciences Building MSB 2170, University of Toronto
To join online: A Zoom link will be sent to the LMP community in the Friday events bulletin.
If you are not part of LMP and wish to join this talk online, please contact:
Louella D'Cunha
Speaker bio: Hartland Jackson
My research group is focused on understanding tissues and tumours as the integrated outcome of their single cell components. To do so, we develop and utilize experimental and computational methods for the measurement of spatially resolved single cells in structured tissues. We have benchmarked and standardized experimental and computational workflows and developed new approaches to address critical bottlenecks and pain points in multiplexed imaging and spatial single cell analysis. The resulting high-throughput, systematic approach allows us to simultaneously quantify tissue features at multiple scales, from rare single cells to multicellular tissue architectures.
By studying these features in diverse model systems and large clinical cohorts we aim to identify and target the multi-cellular tumour microenvironments that drive disease progression and therapeutic resistance.
My work has developed a novel single cell pathology approach to precision medicine and using this, identified multi-parameter and topographical biomarkers of disease outcome in breast cancer. We are now extending and applying this approach to study clinical samples from high-risk cancers and other inflammatory disease states. We have combined multiplexed imaging technologies with functional genetics and synthetic biology in mouse models of disease in order to strive to unravel the complex cellular environments driving cancer progression and maintaining tissue homeostasis and are now developing screening methods to discover the signaling factors controlling these cellular ecosystems.