Dr. Thu is a Staff Scientist at the Keenan Research Centre for Biomedical Science at the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute of St. Michael’s Hospital, and an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto in the Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology Department. She completed her postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Tak Mak at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, where she used functional genomics to identify and characterize mechanisms of breast cancer sensitivity and resistance to novel kinase inhibitors currently being evaluated in clinical trials. Dr. Thu received her PhD in Interdisciplinary Oncology from the University of British Columbia in the laboratory of Dr. Wan Lam at the BC Cancer Research Centre. There she conducted integrative genomic analyses of multiple cancer types to discover gene and pathway alterations that contribute to tumour growth, with a particular focus on lung cancer.
Dr. Thu’s current research program focuses on delineating cell and molecular mechanisms governing therapy response in lung cancer. Her research platform integrates clinical genomics and CRISPR/Cas9 genetic screens to drive biological discovery in a variety of in vitro and in vivo lung cancer models. The goal of her research is to discover new approaches for circumventing drug resistance and novel strategies for enhancing therapeutic efficacy to improve lung cancer survival rates.
