Arash Nabbi

I am a pharmacist and cancer biologist with post-doctoral experience in computational genomics. I strive to become a translational scientist to improve cancer care through personalized immunotherapy. I am interested in applying advanced technologies to identify molecular mechanisms of therapy resistance and predictive biomarkers for immunotherapy.

Research interests:

• Predictive immune biomarkers to guide prospective clinical trials
• Identification of novel targets of cancer immunotherapy using a combination of computational and experimental approaches
• Tumour-Immune evolution over course of disease/treatment

I am currently a research fellow in Dr. Trevor Pugh’s laboratory at the Princess Margaret Cancer Center located in Toronto, ON. Here, I have had the opportunity to work on several translational research projects focused on the immunogenomics of pediatric cancers. I am an active member of PRecision Oncology For Young people (PROFYLE) and the recently announced Canadian Pediatric Cancer Consortium (CPCC), two national networks that aim to provide precision medicine for all Canadian children suffering from hard-to-treat cancers.

Post-doctoral projects:

• Immune biomarkers in pediatric patients treated with atezolizumab (anti-PD-L1), collaboration with Genentech, Roche
  • Now online at Nature Cancer: Multimodal immunogenomic biomarker analysis of tumors from pediatric patients enrolled to a phase 1-2 study of single-agent atezolizumab
  • Associated Github repo that includes custom codes and data request instructions: https://github.com/pughlab/iMATRIX-Atezo_Biomarker
• Immunogenomic analysis of primary pediatric nervous system tumours, collaboration with DKFZ, Germany and CHOP, Philadelphia
  • Now online at Genome Medicine: Transcriptional immunogenomic analysis reveals distinct immunological clusters in paediatric nervous system tumours
  • Associated Github repo that includes custom codes and data: https://github.com/pughlab/immunogenomics_pedNST
  • You can generate all figure panels in high quality using CodeOcean capsule: https://doi.org/10.24433/CO.0339991.v3
• Peripheral TCR repertoire analysis in solid and hematological malignancies in children, collaboration with CHOP, Philadelphia
• Single-cell RNA sequencing of low-grade gliomas over course of disease progression
  • Data available to download at Single-cell Pediatric Cancer Atlas Portal: https://scpca.alexslemonade.org/projects/SCPCP000010

I hold a PhD in cancer biology from the Cumming school of medicine at the University of Calgary. During my studies, I focused on investigating epigenetic and post-translational regulation of Androgen Receptor pathway and its impact on the progression of prostate cancer.