Natasha Orr
Doctor of Philosophy in Reproductive and Developmental Sciences (PhD)
Research Topic
Educational videos on the pathophysiology of sexual pain in women with endometriosis
Michael Anglesio
Assistant Professor
Research Classification
Cancer of the Reproductive System
Host-Tumour Interaction
Endometriosis
Cancer Diagnosis and Detection
Immunotherapy
Research Interests
microenvironment
endometriosis associated cancers
Immunology
genomics
gene-expression and transcriptomics
Cancer prevention
ovarian cancer etiology
early detection biomarkers
animal models of endometriosis and cancer
Relevant Degree Programs
Research Methodology
molecular biology
Animal models
Next generation sequencing
transcriptomics
immunohistochemistry
laser capture microdissection
in vitro models of cancer
Recruitment
Complete these steps before you reach out to a faculty member!
Check requirements
- Familiarize yourself with program requirements. You want to learn as much as possible from the information available to you before you reach out to a faculty member. Be sure to visit the graduate degree program listing and program-specific websites.
- Check whether the program requires you to seek commitment from a supervisor prior to submitting an application. For some programs this is an essential step while others match successful applicants with faculty members within the first year of study. This is either indicated in the program profile under "Requirements" or on the program website.
Focus your search
- Identify specific faculty members who are conducting research in your specific area of interest.
- Establish that your research interests align with the faculty member’s research interests.
- Read up on the faculty members in the program and the research being conducted in the department.
- Familiarize yourself with their work, read their recent publications and past theses/dissertations that they supervised. Be certain that their research is indeed what you are hoping to study.
Make a good impression
- Compose an error-free and grammatically correct email addressed to your specifically targeted faculty member, and remember to use their correct titles.
- Do not send non-specific, mass emails to everyone in the department hoping for a match.
- Address the faculty members by name. Your contact should be genuine rather than generic.
- Include a brief outline of your academic background, why you are interested in working with the faculty member, and what experience you could bring to the department. The supervision enquiry form guides you with targeted questions. Ensure to craft compelling answers to these questions.
- Highlight your achievements and why you are a top student. Faculty members receive dozens of requests from prospective students and you may have less than 30 seconds to pique someone’s interest.
- Demonstrate that you are familiar with their research:
- Convey the specific ways you are a good fit for the program.
- Convey the specific ways the program/lab/faculty member is a good fit for the research you are interested in/already conducting.
- Be enthusiastic, but don’t overdo it.
Attend an information session
G+PS regularly provides virtual sessions that focus on admission requirements and procedures and tips how to improve your application.
Doctoral students
Postdoctoral Fellows
2019
2020
All currently funded project positions are filled at the present time and my group is not actively recruiting additional trainees.
Prospective students with independent/external funding may send their applications along with their research interrests only if this aligns to current projects in the lab, please do not send application for projects unrelated to listed laboratory projects. International visiting student will be considered only from research groups where I have an active collaboration.
Supervision Enquiry
If you have reviewed some of this faculty member's publications, understand their research interests and have reviewed the admission requirements, you may submit a contact request to this supervisor.
Great Supervisor Week Mentions
Each year graduate students are encouraged to give kudos to their supervisors through social media and our website as part of #GreatSupervisorWeek. Below are students who mentioned this supervisor since the initiative was started in 2017.
Thank you to one of my co-supervisors @M_Anglesio for his guidance on my research project and patience in introducing me to the genetics of endometriosis #GreatSupervisor #UBC @UBC
Graduate Student Supervision
Master's Student Supervision (2010 - 2018)
Somatic cancer-driver mutations in endometriosis : implications beyond malignancy (2018)
Introduction: Endometriosis is a chronic, inflammatory gynecological disease characterized by the ectopic growth of endometrial-like tissue. Previous studies have established endometriosis as the precursor to clear cell and endometrioid ovarian carcinomas. The presence of somatic driver mutations in endometriosis is believed to represent early events in transformation, however our group has recently described the presence of such mutations in nearly one-quarter of cases of deep infiltrating endometriosis (DE) – a form of endometriosis that rarely progresses to malignancy. These mutations may play a fundamental role in the pathogenesis of endometriosis outside of the context of cancer, however it is unclear whether they occur in other forms of endometriosis or the eutopic endometrium – the likely tissue of origin for endometriosis. The purpose of my study is to: 1) analyze and compare the mutational profiles of DE and incisional (iatrogenic; IE) endometriosis and 2) characterize somatic cancer-drivers that exist in the eutopic endometrium and determine whether the presence of such mutations reflect the aging of this tissue.Methods: I macrodissected endometriosis tissue from women with IE or DE. Extracted DNA was analyzed by targeted sequencing and mutations were orthogonally validated by droplet digital PCR. PTEN and ARID1A immunohistochemistry was also performed for each specimen. Using the same protocol, I also analyzed hysterectomy and endometrial biopsy specimens obtained from cancer-free women.Results: Overall, we detected the presence of somatic alterations in 27.5% and 36.1% of IE and DE cases respectively. These events affected canonical components of RAS/MAPK or PI3K-Akt signaling pathways. Furthermore, over 50% of cancer-free women also harboured similar somatic alterations in their eutopic endometrial tissue. The presence of somatic cancer-drivers in the eutopic endometrium are likely regional and are correlated with age (p = 0.048).Conclusions: My findings are consistent with a uterine origin of endometriosis. Somatic cancer-driver alterations are commonly found in both endometriosis and the eutopic endometrium of cancer-free women and may reflect the accumulation of DNA damage over time. These somatic alterations alone are insufficient for malignant transformation and should be interpreted with caution in the early diagnosis of gynecologic malignancies given their common occurrence in cancer-free women.
View record
Publications
- The molecular origin and taxonomy of mucinous ovarian carcinoma (2019)
Nature Communications, - Extrauterine high-grade serous carcinomas with bilateral adnexal involvement as the only two disease sites are clonal based on tp53 sequencing results: implications for biology, classification, and staging (2018)
Modern Pathology, 31 (4), 652--659 - You won't believe this old test … that does cheap single-cell mutation detection (2018)
The Journal of Pathology: Clinical Research, 4 (3), 149--153 - Genomic consequences of aberrant DNA repair mechanisms stratify ovarian cancer histotypes (2017)
Nature Genetics, 49 (6), 856--865 - Enhanced GAB2 Expression Is Associated with Improved Survival in High-Grade Serous Ovarian Cancer and Sensitivity to PI3K Inhibition. (2015)
- Multifocal endometriotic lesions associated with cancer are clonal and carry a high mutation burden. (2015)
- Recurrent DICER1 Hotspot Mutations in Endometrial Tumours And Their Impact on MicroRNA Biogenesis. (2015)
- Targeted deep sequencing of mucinous ovarian tumors reveals multiple overlapping RAS-pathway activating mutations in borderline and cancerous neoplasms. (2015)
- A current perspective on the pathological assessment of FOXL2 in adult-type granulosa cell tumours of the ovary. (2014)
- A functional proteogenomic analysis of endometrioid and clear cell carcinomas using reverse phase protein array and mutation analysis: protein expression is histotype-specific and loss of ARID1A/BAF250a is associated with AKT phosphorylation. (2014)
- Evidence for a time-dependent association between FOLR1 expression and survival from ovarian carcinoma: implications for clinical testing. An Ovarian Tumour Tissue Analysis consortium study. (2014)
- Genomic classification of serous ovarian cancer with adjacent borderline differentiates RAS pathway and TP53-mutant tumors and identifies NRAS as an oncogenic driver. (2014)
- Harnessing the potential of lipid-based nanomedicines for type-specific ovarian cancer treatments. (2014)
- Accelerating type-specific ovarian carcinoma research: Calculator for Ovarian Subtype Prediction (COSP) is a reliable high-throughput tool for case review. (2013)
- Cancer-associated somatic DICER1 hotspot mutations cause defective miRNA processing and reverse-strand expression bias to predominantly mature 3p strands through loss of 5p strand cleavage. (2013)
- Correction: Type-Specific Cell Line Models for Type-Specific Ovarian Cancer Research. (2013)
- Distinct evolutionary trajectories of primary high-grade serous ovarian cancers revealed through spatial mutational profiling. (2013)
- FOXL2 molecular testing in ovarian neoplasms: diagnostic approach and procedural guidelines. (2013)
- Hormone-receptor expression and ovarian cancer survival: an Ovarian Tumor Tissue Analysis consortium study. (2013)
- Markers of T cell infiltration and function associate with favorable outcome in vascularized high-grade serous ovarian carcinoma. (2013)
- Molecular characterization of mucinous ovarian tumours supports a stratified treatment approach with HER2 targeting in 19% of carcinomas. (2013)
- Type-specific cell line models for type-specific ovarian cancer research. (2013)
- Benign serous ovarian tumour: a redefining moment? (2012)
- Cytokine gene expression signature in ovarian clear cell carcinoma. (2012)
- LRP1B deletion in high-grade serous ovarian cancers is associated with acquired chemotherapy resistance to liposomal doxorubicin. (2012)
- Recurrent somatic DICER1 mutations in nonepithelial ovarian cancers. (2012)
- The autophagy protein LC3A correlates with hypoxia and is a prognostic marker of patient survival in clear cell ovarian cancer. (2012)
- Clear cell carcinoma of the ovary: a report from the first Ovarian Clear Cell Symposium, June 24th, 2010. (2011)
- Copy number aberrations in benign serous ovarian tumors: a case for reclassification? (2011)
- Deregulation of MYCN, LIN28B and LET7 in a molecular subtype of aggressive high-grade serous ovarian cancers. (2011)
- IL6-STAT3-HIF signaling and therapeutic response to the angiogenesis inhibitor sunitinib in ovarian clear cell cancer. (2011)
- Subtype-specific mutation of PPP2R1A in endometrial and ovarian carcinomas. (2011)
- ARID1A mutations in endometriosis-associated ovarian carcinomas. (2010)
- Copy number analysis identifies novel interactions between genomic loci in ovarian cancer. (2010)
- Profiling the cancer genome. (2010)
- Are there any more ovarian tumor suppressor genes? A new perspective using ultra high-resolution copy number and loss of heterozygosity analysis. (2009)
- Mutation of ERBB2 provides a novel alternative mechanism for the ubiquitous activation of RAS-MAPK in ovarian serous low malignant potential tumors. (2008)
- The E3 ligase HACE1 is a critical chromosome 6q21 tumor suppressor involved in multiple cancers. (2007)
- Akt-mediated YB-1 phosphorylation activates translation of silent mRNA species. (2006)
- Differential expression of a novel ankyrin containing E3 ubiquitin-protein ligase, Hace1, in sporadic Wilms' tumor versus normal kidney. (2004)
Current Students & Alumni
This is a small sample of students and/or alumni that have been supervised by this researcher. It is not meant as a comprehensive list.
Membership Status
Member of G+PS
View explanation of statuses
Location
Vancouver General Hospital
Program Affiliations
Department(s)
If this is your researcher profile you can log in to the Faculty & Staff portal to update your details and provide recruitment preferences.