B.Sc. University Mohamed V, Rabat, Morocco
M.Sc. Université du Québec a Montréal
Ph.D. Université de Montréal
Post-Doc. McGill University
Post-Doc. The Vancouver Prostate Centre
Senior Research Scientist, Vancouver Prostate Centre
Professor, Department of Urologic Sciences, University of British Columbia
Canada Research Chair in Cancer Therapy Resistance
Dr. Zoubeidi is a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Cancer Therapy Resistance. Her research program aims to uncover how standard care of prostate cancer therapy targeting the androgen receptor (AR) induces treatment resistance and controls phenotypic plasticity, which has been associated with the clinically relevant problem of drug resistance in prostate cancer. Importantly, amplification of different signaling pathways may be unique to an individual and their disease; therefore, her research program is designed to identify and understand common signaling nodes responsible for the emergence of resistance to ultimately design the best combination therapy to guide clinical decisions.
Her multifaceted research program addresses:
- Why is treatment-induced lineage reprogramming biased toward particular lineage?
- How the change in the chromatin architecture can permit an opportune environment for transcription factors (including the Androgen Receptor) to be “reprogrammed” and, in turn, facilitate tumour cell plasticity and therapy resistance?
- Does this inherent epigenetic plasticity can be therapeutically re-direct cell fate using epigenetic or transcription factor inhibitors?
She has been successful in establishing national and international collaborations on research projects and grants from the public and private sector. This has resulted in over 112 peer-reviewed manuscripts in Cancer Discovery, Cell, Nature Cell Biology, Nature communications, and other and holds 8 patent applications. She received substantial funding She received substantial funding from national (CIHR, TFRI, PCC) and international (PCF-USA, DOD) agencies totalling over 20M dollars. She is currently the leader/PI of the recently awarded Terry Fox New Frontiers Program Project on understanding lineage plasticity in treatment resistance.
She has been recognized by the Prostate Cancer Foundation-USA (PCF) and was awarded the prestigious PCF Young Investigator Award and PCF challenge award. She is a Michael Smith Scholar and Terry Fox New Investigator. Recently she was awarded the Faculty of Medicine Distinguished Achievement Award in Overall Excellence - Early Career, University of British Columbia (2014) and Research Teaching Award for Excellence in Basic Science, Department of Urologic Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia (2014). Moreover, her track record of research excellence is underscored by numerous accolades from the American Association for Cancer Research, the American Urological Association, the Northwest Urological Society and others. She had the honor of being invited to speak at numerous national and international conferences on molecular mechanisms and drug targets of PCa, including AACR and CCRC and as a visiting professor at different Universities. She serves on several grant panel review committees including Prostate Cancer Canada, the Canadian Institute of Health Research and Prostate Cancer Foundation USA. She is a member of the editorial board of Endocrine Related Cancer and ad hoc reviewer for numerous journals including EMBO, Oncogene, and the AACR journals.
