On August 10, 2010, the University of British Columbia Life Sciences Institute (LSI) hosted the fourth LSI Café Scientifique at the Cafe Perugia. Over 65 interested community members, students and faculty gathered for an informal and participatory dialogue with an LSI expert on the topic of “Fingerprinting” Cancer for Personalized Medicine.

The Café featured Dr. Calvin Roskelley, leader of the LSI Cell and Developmental Biology Research Group, Director of Solid Tumor Progression Unit and Co-Acting Head & Associate Professor in the Department of Cellular and Physiological Sciences. The interactive session highlighted new approaches to cancer analysis and treatment using “genetic fingerprinting”, and how this is paving the way for “personalized” approaches to prevention, early diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Dr. Roskelley provided an overview of his research, discussed his group’s findings and answered questions about breast cancer and metastasis, how tumor formation is caused by cell growth and the breakdown of cellular architecture (‘destroying grape clusters’) and how different researchers at the LSI are making discoveries to understand and treat this serious health problem. Dr. Roskelley emphasized how continuing support from the Canadian Cancer Society throughout his time as a trainee and career as a research professor allowed him to study with renowned scientists in the cancer field and establish his lab at UBC. One of Dr. Roskelley’s microscopic images of a tissue-engineered mammary epithelial spheroid outside the body in a cultural dish (a.k.a. a ‘grape cluster’) was supplied by Dr. Roskelley and his lab trainees, and the image was given away as a door prize to one member of the audience.

The LSI Café Scientifique is co-sponsored by the Life Sciences Institute, CIHR, MSFHR, Faculty of Medicine Research Office, the Canadian Cancer Society and Café Perugia (UBC Food Services).