Dr. Amina Zoubeidi’s ongoing research efforts focus on signal transduction mediated regulation of prostate cancer progression, with emphasis on the importance of heat shock proteins and kinases, and applying that research to develop and investigate novel therapeutic strategies to fight advanced prostate cancer.

During her post-doctoral training with Dr. Martin Gleave at the Vancouver Prostate Centre, Dr. Zoubeidi added to her knowledge of how to translate scientific discovery from the bench to the bed-side. She went on to identify mechanisms by which Hsp27 regulates androgen receptor in both an androgen-dependent and androgen-independent fashion and identified PSA as a surrogate pharmacodynamic endpoint of Hsp27 knockdown using antisense (OGX-427), now in phase 1 clinical trials.

In collaboration with Dr. Gleave, Dr. Zoubeidi is involved in Hsp27 crystallography, and the discovery and development of small molecule inhibitors of Hsp27.

Currently, Dr. Zoubeidi is investigating the role of Hsp27 in prostate cancer metastasis and dissecting underlying mechanisms by which Hsp27 causes epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT).

Another aspect of Dr. Zoubeidi’s research focus is the evaluation of the importance of tyrosine kinases in androgen-independent activation of the androgen receptor.

Dr. Zoubeidi has received several international awards including the Best Abstract Prize for Basic Science at the American Urological Association Annual Meeting, Best Oral Presentation at the Northwest Urological Society meeting, and travel awards from AACR-Women in Cancer Research, and the International Conference on Second Messengers and Phosphoproteins. In 2010, she was awarded a prestigious Prostate Cancer Foundation Young Investigator Award.