Rebecca Gladdy

Clinical Investigator, Selective Therapies Program

Research Description

Soft tissue sarcomas (STS) are a diverse group of tumors derived from connective tissue (muscle, fat and bone). Current treatment of STS is limited primarily to surgical procedures (e.g., removing the sarcoma), with selective use of radiation therapy and the use of conventional chemotherapy in some subtypes of the disease. Unfortunately, these treatment options are limited in their effectiveness and more than 50 per cent of STS patients succumb to this disease. Researchers have recognized that there is an urgent need to develop subtype-specific molecularly targeted therapeutics that can provide new treatment options unique to each histologic type of sarcoma.

The main goals of the Selective Therapies program are:

1. to identify targeted therapeutic agents through the use of high-throughput screens in collaboration with the Ontario Node of the Terry Fox Research Institute and the SMART facility at the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute;
2. to develop faithful and genetically flexible mouse models of sarcoma as a tool to functionally validate genomic data and for pre-clinical drug testing;
3. to readily translate laboratory findings via clinical trials to sarcoma patients in Ontario.

Contact Information

Telephone
+1 (416) 586 4800 ext. 3812
Email
gladdy@lunenfeld.ca
Mailing Address
Mailing Address
Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute
1070B-600 University Avenue
Toronto, Ontario
Canada, M5G 1X5
Mailing Address (Clinical Office)
Mount Sinai Hospital
1225-600 University Avenue
Toronto, Ontario
Canada, M5G 1X5

Current

2008 - Associate Scientist, Centre for Systems Biology, Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute (lunenfeld).
2008 - Clinical Investigator, Selective Therapies Program, Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR).
2008 - Assistant Professor of Surgery, Mount Sinai Hospital, University of Toronto.
2005 - Completion of General Surgical Residency, University of Toronto.
2003 - PhD, Biomedical Science, University of Toronto.
1996 - MD, Queen's University.

Background

2006 - 2008Surgical Oncology Fellowship, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY.
2005 - 2006Postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Jim Dennis and Dr. Carol Swallow, University of Toronto, Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute (lunenfeld).

Selected Bibliography

  • Gladdy RA, Qin L, Moraco N, Edgar MA, Antonescu CR, Alektiar K , Brennan MF and Singer S. Do radiation associated soft tissue sarcomas have the same prognosis as sporadic soft tissue sarcomas? Journal of Clinical Oncology. In press.
    • Matei IR, Gladdy RA, Nutter LMJ, Guidos CJ and JS Danska. ATM deficiency disrupts TCRalocus integrity and the maturation of CD4+CD8+thymocytes. Blood. 2007;109(5):1887-1996.
      • Gladdy RA, Nutter LMJ, Kunath T, Danska JS and CJ Guidos. p53-Independent Apoptosis Disrupts Early Organogenesis in Embryos Lacking Both ATM and Prkdc. Mol Cancer Res. 2006;4(5):311-8.
        • Khalifa MA, Rowsell CH, Gladdy RA, Ko JY, Hanna S, Smith AJ, and C Law. Immunohistochemical Assessment of Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor in Primary Colorectal Adenocarcinoma as a Predictor of Recurrence. 2006;125:1-5. American Journal of Clinical Pathology.
          • Gladdy RA, Taylor MD, Williams CJ, Rutka JT, Karaskova J, Squire J, Guidos CJ and Danska JS. The RAG-1/2 endonuclease causes genomic instability and controls CNS complication of lymphoblastic leukemia in p53/Prkdc-deficient mice. Cancer Cell. 2003;3:37-50.