UWO Assistant Professor Named Canada’s Premier Young Researcher

Lynne-Marie Postovit of Western’s Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology has been named Canada’s Premier Young Researcher by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) at an awards ceremony in Ottawa.

“The Government of Canada congratulates Dr. Postovit on this outstanding accomplishment,” says Canadian Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq. “She has established herself as one of the brightest minds in health research today and has become a wonderful role model for young Canadians who want to pursue careers in science.”

Dr. Postovit’s groundbreaking research is expanding our knowledge of how cells communicate with their immediate environments, and how communication gone awry can lead to disease. She studies how microenvironmental signals, particularly oxygen levels, influence the behaviour and fate of cancer and stem cells.

During her doctoral training with Dr. Charles Graham at Queen’s University, Dr. Postovit discovered that supplying nitric oxide (NO) to cancer cells could block hypoxia-induced phenomena such as metastasis. These findings led to an ongoing clinical trial that is testing NO-releasing medications as a possible prostate cancer treatment. While completing her postdoctoral training with Dr. Mary Hendrix at Northwestern University, Dr. Postovit found that aggressive tumour cells secrete a stem cell protein called Nodal. Research demonstrated that exposing tumour cells to human embryonic stem cell microenvironments blocks the formation of melanoma and breast cancer tumours.

Dr. Postovit plans to continue her research by studying how the low-oxygen environments in tumours promote stem cell-like properties and metastasis in cancer cells.

Canada’s Premier Young Researcher Award is a career development prize given to Canada’s brightest young researchers at the beginning of their careers. This five-year award represents an incentive for young researchers to pursue their work in Canada. Through this award, CIHR helps ensure that talented, emerging researchers have the support they need to achieve their goals.