Our Team – Annie Huang Lab

	Annie Huang MD, PhD, FRCP(C) Principal Investigator Associate Chair of Research, Department of Paediatrics, SickKids and University of Toronto Dr Huang is a paediatric neuro-oncologist and scientist with the Cell Biology Research Program, and the Arthur and Sonia Labatt Brain Tumour Research Centre at SickKids. She holds a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair and is a Professor of Paediatrics with Medical Biophysics and Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology at the University of Toronto. She received her PhD and MD at the University of Toronto where she trained in cancer genomics and biology, and clinical oncology. Prior to starting her independent laboratory in 2005, she pursued post-doctoral training with Drs Jeremy Squire and Linda Penn at the Ontario Research Institute. She started the RBTC to pursue her long-standing research and clinical interest in rare infant brain tumours due to the distinct clinical challenges of these patient population. In her laboratory she combines genomics, functional epigenomics and genome-wide screening tools to understand the pathogenesis of rare CNS embryonal tumours, including ATRTs (Atypical Teratoid Rhabdoid tumours), and ETMRs (Embryonal Tumour with Multi-layered Rosettes) with the goal to improve treatment and patient survival. Many of the discoveries from the Huang lab has been applied to analyses and development of clinical trials for rare tumours through her leadership in the Children’s Oncology Group Trial Consortia. Due to her specific clinical and research interest/expertise, she also frequently advises on treatment of children across the world diagnosed with rare CNS tumours. In her leisure time, she enjoys historical fiction, gardening and pursuing travel and outdoor activities with her family.
	Mei Lu MD, PhD Lab Manager Mei Lu joined Huang lab since 2010. She received her MD in Beijing, China, and her PhD in Pharmacology and Toxicology from the University of Rome, Italy. Mei is the backbone of our lab and responsible for the lab general operation and research resources (tumour bank, cell line bank and RBTC, etc.). Mei is also responsible for lab mouse work and assists various lab research projects. She assists Annie in grant management and finance. Mei still finds time for painting and fitness. In her spare time, she is also a consultant of Chinese herbal medicine.
	Anthony Liu MD Anthony obtained his Medical Degree with Honours from the University of Hong Kong followed by his MRCPCH (UK), MMedSc (HK), FHKAM (Paed) and FHKCPaed designations. Subsequently, he completed his fellowship training in Pediatric Neuro-Oncology at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Since 2021, Anthony has served as an attending Pediatric Hematologist/Oncologist at Hong Kong Children’s Hospital focusing on patients with brain and extra CNS solid tumors.
	Liming Xu PhD Bioinformatician Liming Xu completed her PhD in Bioinformatics at Peking University in China. Since then she has worked as a bioinformatics scientist for a national research institute, a biological start-up, as well as a global company. Now she is a bioinformatician in the Huang Lab striving to understand the mechanism of paediatric tumours such as ETMR.
	Nikhil Raghuram MD, PhD Post-Doctoral Fellow Nikhil is currently doing his fellowship in Paediatriac Haematology/Oncology at Sickkids. Prior to entering medical school, he did his PhD in Experimental Oncology under the guidance of Dr. Michael Hendzel's lab at the University of Alberta, Edmonton. There, he studied the role of histones and chromatin in influencing processes critical to life, such as transcription. His interests are in the field of epigenetics, and the biochemistry of tumour cells. Specifically, he is passionate about understanding the complex biology of paediatric brain tumours, given their clinical aggressiveness and the devastating effects it has on patients. It is becoming more clear that many of these tumours are driven by epigenetic modifications, leading the way for novel therapeutic interventions.
	Oliva Palander PhD Post-doc Fellow Dr. Palander is currently doing her post-doctoral research fellowship in Paediatriac Haematology/Oncology, Cell Biology program at Sickkids. Prior to this, she worked on primary cilia to determine how cell signaling pathways regulate diseases. She also was involved in an international research collaboration that connected a new gene mutation causing polydactyly in patients with cilia.She obtained her PhD in Biochemistry under the guidance of Dr. William Trimble at the University of Toronto, where she studied the role of formin proteins in cilia maintenance and ciliogenesis. During her MSc, she worked on retinoblastoma protein (pRB) and understanding its interaction with E2F1 in retinoblastoma. She is a biomedical scientist with a strong interest in advancing knowledge and care for rare childhood embryonal brain tumours (EBTs). Although relatively uncommon, rare EBTs comprise 40% of childhood EBTs and are frequently fatal. Current therapies are largely ineffective and unfortunately also have devastating effects on the small number of survivors. Until recently these remained neglected orphan diseases with little to no clinical or biological data. In her work at Dr. Huang’s lab, she focuses on understanding molecular underpinnings of rare EBTs that develop in infants and toddlers with a specific focus on Pineoblastoma (PB), for which the Huang lab has recently uncovered a spectrum of sub-types with different molecular, clinical and survival features. Understanding the signaling pathways in PB will lay the groundwork for the discovery of novel genes and molecular circuits that are important in PB biology and in discovery of new therapeutics.
	Ian Bell PhD Post-Doctoral Fellow Dr. Bell is currently doing his Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Cell Biology program at SickKids. Prior to this, he completed his PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology under the guidance of Dr. Terry Van Raay at the University of Guelph. There, he studied how Wnt signaling was negatively regulated during development by utilizing zebrafish as an animal model. His interests are in the field of developmental signaling, cell signaling homeostasis, and how to model pediatric brain tumors. In his work in Dr. Huang’s lab, he focuses on creating ETMR models to advance our understanding of ETMR formation and ultimately lead the way for novel therapeutic discovery.
	Bryan Kincheon Li MD, FRCPC PhD Graduate Student Dr. Li is a Royal College certified-paediatric haematologist/oncologist who completed his MD at the University of Toronto, and his residency and fellowship training at SickKids. He is currently a PhD candidate studying pineoblastoma, a rare brain tumour arising from the pineal gland and affecting mainly young children. They are very difficult to treat - only half of patients survive with aggressive therapy that frequently causes damaging long-term side-effects. Due to its rarity, little is known of pineoblastoma and therefore few improvements have been made to available treatments. Analysis of one of largest collections of this tumour collected through the international Rare Brain Tumour Consortium has determined that pineoblastoma separates into five different subgroups that have different molecular and clinical features (Li BK et al. 2019). These findings are currently guiding the search for more effective therapies against this cancer.
	Ben Ho M.Sc. PhD Graduate Student Ben is interested in understanding the epigenetics and spatial genomics regulation in embryonal brain tumour development. He has previously worked on elucidating cancer heterogeneity using computational modeling, statistical analyses and machine learning methods. He is currently working on integrating DNA accessibility and enhancer landscape data in identifying oncogenic drivers in ATRT subgroups. Outside of the lab, he enjoys music composition and performance as well as traveling.
	Yuqing Yang M.Sc. PhD Graduate Student Yuqing completed a Master of Science in experimental medicine from McGill University. Her work focuses on investigating the role of C19MC in embryonal tumours with multi-layered rosettes (ETMRs) heterogeneity. In her spare time, she enjoys playing jigsaw puzzles.
	Laurie Liu M.Sc. PhD Graduate Student Laurie completed a Bachelor of Mathematics in statistics and computational mathematics from the University of Waterloo and a Master of Science in statistics from Queen’s University. Laurie’s work focuses on discovering biomarkers for high-risk embryonal brain tumours (EBTs) and developing statistical models to predict EBT patient outcome. In his own time, Laurie enjoys eating and travelling.
	Fupan Yao PhD Graduate Student Fupan completed a bachelor of computer science with a focus on computational biology and bioinformatics. Fupan focuses on deeper characterizations of Atypical Teratoid Rhabdoid Tumours (ATRTs) through the application of high resolution single cell RNA sequencing and multi-omics analysis. In his free time he plays too much video games and eats way too many snacks.
	Yacine Choutri PhD Graduate Student Yacine completed his bachelor of arts at Berea College in the US, where he majored in biology and mathematics. He later worked as a research technician at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He is currently studying signaling pathways in atypical teratoid rhabdoid tumors (ATRTs).
	Lydia Leung Msc Graduate Student Lydia completed a bachelor of science in life sciences from McMaster University. As a co-op student Huang lab, Lydia assisted in the coordination of the RBTC, including liaison with collaborators, maintaining the clinical database, and organization of the biobank. Currently, her graduate project focuses on evaluating the survival, toxicity and relapse patterns for patients treated by the SickKids' radiation-sparing regimen for ATRTs, as well as investigating the value of serial cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) profiling in predicting therapy resistance and early relapse in these patients.
	Andy Dang Vu Assistant Research Technologist Andy completed an Honours Bachelor of Science with a specialization in pathobiology from the University of Toronto. Andy works as one of our assistant research technologists. In his spare time, he enjoys playing handball and exploring the many restaurants of downtown Toronto.
	Usman Wani Summer Intern Student Usman is an undergraduate student (BASc) at the University of Toronto majoring in Bioengineering from the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering. He is currently working on analyzing interesting genetic events occurring across embryonic tumors with multilayered rosettes (ETMR) cell lines at the Huang Lab. In his spare time, he loves re-watching Seinfeld, hiking, and playing tennis.
	Alex Chan B.Sc SSuRe Placement Alex recently graduated from the University of Waterloo with a Bachelor of Applied Science in biomedical engineering, minoring in molecular and cell biology. He has accepted a SSuRe position with Dr. Huang’s Lab before beginning graduate school in the Fall. His work in the lab is currently focused on performing cross-species analysis to identify human-zebrafish orthologs, contributing to the understanding of molecular pathways in rare brain tumours.
	Jack Reilly M.Sc Clinical Research Project Coordinator Jack graduated from the University of Western Ontario with a Masters degree in Pathology and Lab Medicine. During his masters Jack focused on the diagnosis of rare neurodevelopmental disorders using DNA methylation biomarkers. Jack now acts as our Clinical Research Project Coordinator, involved in sample collection and curation, collaborator and social outreach, and research ethics administration.