Morozova, Olena
Student Video
Research
Genomics of neuroblastoma
Neuroblastoma is a pediatric cancer that most commonly affects children under the age of 5. There are 50-70 new cases of neuroblastoma diagnosed in Canada each year, and about half of the children present with widespread disease at diagnosis. The rate of long-term survival for patients with widespread neuroblastoma is currently about 40%, and this rate has not significantly improved over the past decades. We are using a variety of state-of-the-art approaches, such as microarrays and next-generation sequencing to characterize high-risk neuroblastoma tumors in the hope of finding new drug targets for this disease subtype.
Through the analysis of whole genomes and transcriptomes of human neuroblastoma tumors, we hope to contribute to our current understanding of the pathogenesis of the disease and ultimately provide basis for the development of novel therapies.
I have long been interested in a research career. I became interested in neuroblastoma research during my tenure at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto where I worked with Dr. Herman Yeger.
I came to UBC to join the research group of Dr. Marco Marra, who is a leading expert in the field of DNA sequencing, and particularly in applications of DNA sequencing to the study of human cancers. I believe that sequencing-based approaches can shed light onto many enigmatic diseases, such as neuroblastoma, and ultimately help guide the development of novel therapies.
I would advise new graduate students to choose a research area that they are very interested in, as they will be spending most of their waking hours thinking about it. I also advise everyone to aim high, and never get discouraged by negative results. Every research project is a roller coaster ride.
