Dr Alan So

A graduate of the University of Alberta, Dr. So came to the Prostate Centre as a Clinical Fellow in 2002, following completion of his residency at Dalhousie University. He worked with Dr. Martin Gleave on the mechanisms of development of hormone resistance, bone metastasis of prostate cancer, and in the development of novel intravesical therapeutics for bladder cancer. During his post-doctoral fellowship he published more than 10 peer-reviewed papers. He is a recipient of many awards, including the Vancouver General Hospital Foundation’s “In It For Life” Clinician Scientist Award, an ASCO “Young Scientist Award”, and a prestigious Michael Smith Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellowship Award.

Dr. So’s current research focuses on the study of development of novel therapeutics for bladder cancer and determination of the functional role of GLI1/2 in the progression of prostate cancer to its lethal stage of androgen independence. He has characterized the functional role of different survival genes (including clusterin and Hsp27) in different tumor models (prostate, breast, lung, and bladder) in cancer progression. His current research focuses on discovery and development of novel agents to treat bladder cancer as well as development of the mechanisms of treatment resistance in renal cell carcinoma.

He is active in clinical trials across Canada and is a member of National Cancer Institute of Canada GU Clinical Trials Group and Canadian Uro-Oncology Group. Currently, he leads the Clinical Trials Unit at the Vancouver Prostate Cancer and is the Chair of the Urology Surgical Tumour Group at the BC Cancer Agency.