{"id":238,"date":"2021-01-06T16:20:00","date_gmt":"2021-01-06T23:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/wyattlab\/?page_id=238"},"modified":"2026-07-16T11:36:37","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T18:36:37","slug":"the-wyatt-lab-team","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/wyattlab\/the-wyatt-lab-team\/","title":{"rendered":"The Team"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Research Associates<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Dr. Jack Bacon, Ph.D.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jack is currently a part-time research associate of the Wyatt lab after completing his PhD in Genome Science and Technology in 2023. His doctoral research involved investigating genomic response biomarkers in patients with non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer, expanding our ctDNA program to patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma, and setting up novel assays and bioinformatic pipelines to detect and profile clonal hematopoiesis in cfDNA. As a research associate, Jack is responsible for managing our clinical correlative work with external partners, as well as continuing research, development, and optimization work for both our wet and dry lab pipelines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Post-Doctoral Fellows<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Dr. David M\u00fcller, M.D. Ph.D.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

David graduated from medical school in Bonn, Germany in 2010. As part of his M.D. thesis, he first encountered biomarker-driven research using liquid biopsies. After splitting time between residency in urology and his Ph.D. studies on pathomechanisms of disease progression in urological malignancies, David obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Basel, Switzerland in 2021, and his board certification in urology through the Swiss Society of Urology in 2022; the same year he joined the Wyatt Lab. His research focuses on the clonal evolution of urothelial cancer under the selective pressure of anti-cancer therapy and is driven to improve clinical decision-making by implementing new biomarkers and advancing our understanding of the biological processes behind therapy resistance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dr. Sofie Tolmeijer, Ph.D.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sofie obtained her BSc in Biology and MSc in Biomedical Sciences at Leiden University (The Netherlands). During her Ph.D. at the Radboud University Medical Center (The Netherlands), she studied the potential of serial circulating tumour DNA measurements to monitor treatment response in prostate cancer, bladder cancer and melanoma. Keen on improving her bioinformatic skills and broadening her knowledge of circulating tumour DNA technologies, she joined the Wyatt Lab in July 2023. Sofie’s research involves the investigation of homologous recombination repair (HRR) defects in prostate cancer and the use of serial liquid biopsy during novel therapeutic strategies for prostate cancer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Graduate Students<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Andrew Murtha<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andy completed his B.Sc. at UBC in a combined major between microbiology and computer science. He is a Ph.D. candidate after originally joining the lab as a co-op student in 2019. Andy works on the bioinformatics aspects of several projects, including the characterization of evolution in de novo<\/em> metastatic prostate cancer and metastatic urothelial carcinoma. Andy is partially funded by the BC Cancer Rising Stars Award, worth $70,000 over 2 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Asli Munzur<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asli finished her B.Sc. in biology at the University of British Columbia and started her graduate studies in genome sciences at the Wyatt Lab. She is interested in various aspects of prostate cancer, including using various bioinformatics methods to characterize the genomic changes during tumour progression. Asli is partially funded by the BC Cancer Rising Stars Award, worth $70,000 over 2 years.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Karan Parekh, M.E.T<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Karan achieved his B.Sc. in Biochemistry and M.E.T. in Molecular Toxicology from Simon Fraser University. Karan initially joined the lab as a laboratory technician in 2019 and has since transitioned to his role as a Ph.D. student. His research focuses on investigating circulating tumor DNA in patients with metastatic prostate cancer, employing a wide array of wet-lab and bioinformatic techniques. Karan’s research is currently funded by the Canadian Cancer Society Research Training Award.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Maria Stephenson<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maria Stephenson finished her BSc. in computer science, with a minor in microbiology and immunology, at the University of British Columbia. In 2023, she joined the Wyatt lab as a master\u2019s student in genome science and technology, before transferring to the PhD program in 2024. Her work focuses on the the identification of novel biomarkers for metastatic urothelial cancer through analysis of epigenomic, transcriptomic and genomic data. Maria’s research is funded by a Canada Graduate Scholarships – Doctoral (CGS D) award and the Killam Doctoral Scholarship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Yi Jou (Ruby) Liao<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ruby earned her B.Sc. in Computational and Systems Biology at UCLA. She became a M.Sc. student at the Wyatt Lab in 2023, following a rotation as part of the UBC Genome Science and Technology Research Rotation Award. Ruby is broadly interested in leveraging computational methods to characterize and exploit potential vulnerabilities in prostate cancer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Catherine Wang<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Catherine completed her B.Sc. (Hons.) in Biology at the University of British Columbia. After initially joining the lab as a co-op student, she has since returned for her graduate studies as a M.Sc. student. Her research focuses on the utility of early on-treatment ctDNA% kinetics as a response biomarker in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. Catherine is currently supported by a CIHR Canada Graduate Research Scholarships \u2013 Master\u2019s (CGRS-M) award.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Tiffany Xie<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tiffany completed her B.Sc. (Hons.) in Biotechnology through the joint program between the University of British Columbia and the British Columbia Institute of Technology. Tiffany first joined the Wyatt Lab in 2025 as a co-op student and is currently a M.Sc. student where she works on projects investigating DNA damage repair defects in metastatic prostate cancer.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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Kamal Azzam<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kamal graduated from UBC in 2026 with a BSc in Combined Computer Science and Biology. He joined the Wyatt Lab as an undergraduate researcher in 2024 and is now a master\u2019s student in the Genome Science and Technology program. His research focuses on genomic heterogeneity within tumour tissue samples and how a deeper understanding of this variation may help inform treatment decisions for patients with advanced prostate cancer.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Tampere University Members<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Matti Annala<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matti is a senior bioinformatician at the University of Tampere. He has a wealth of experience across several different cancer types including prostate and bladder cancer. Matti was involved in some of the early characterizations of ctDNA in men with mCRPC, working closely with Dr. Wyatt. He continues to spearhead the bioinformatic aspects of several cell-free DNA sequencing projects. In particular, he is currently studying the evolution of metastatic prostate cancer genomes over time, under the selective pressures of therapy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Joonatan Sipola<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joonatan obtained his BSc in Biotechnology and MSc in Bioinformatics at Tampere University, and is pursuing his PhD in tight collaboration with Dr. Wyatt. He has focused on methodological development in his projects covering multiple topics, including subclonal reconstruction and cfChIP-seq analysis. He\u2019s currently working on utilizing cfDNA fragmentomics to infer cancer epigenetics and transcriptomics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tuomo Virtanen<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tuomo is a PhD candidate working in collaboration with Dr. Wyatt’s group, with a background in Biotechnology (BSc) and Bioinformatics (MSc) from Tampere University. His research explores the genomic and epigenomic mechanisms driving castration-resistant prostate cancer, with a particular focus on how alterations in the androgen receptor (AR) genotype contribute to resistance to AR pathway inhibitors.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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Staff bioinformatician<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Sarah Ng<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sarah graduated with her BSc. in Combined Honours Microbiology & Immunology and Computer Science at the University of British Columbia in 2022. She carried out a 16-month co-op term with the Wyatt Lab during her undergraduate degree inferring gene expression from nucleosome positioning in prostate cancer ctDNA, and is now continuing her research as a bioinformatician. She is currently working on correlating genomic alterations with clinical outcomes for various treatments of advanced prostate cancer, leveraging serial ctDNA samples from clinical trials around the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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John Pham<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Pham graduated with a Combined Microbiology & Immunology and Computer Science at the University of British Columbia. With prior experience with single-cell transcriptomics while working at the University of Manitoba, he aims to utilize and broaden his knowledge into cancer genomics. He is currently analyzing metastatic urothelial cancer and urinary tumor DNA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Undergraduate Students<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Research Technicians<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Cecily Bernales<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cecily is a laboratory research assistant who is mainly responsible for library construction and targeted sequencing of liquid and tissue biopsy samples from metastatic prostate cancer patients accrued to our province-wide collection program.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Grainne Donnellan<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gr\u00e1inne completed her MSc in Infection, Immunity and Human Disease at the University of Leeds in 2017. Gr\u00e1inne joined the Wyatt lab in Feb 2021 as a laboratory research technician and is primarily responsible for library construction and next-generation DNA sequencing from liquid and tissue biopsy samples from prostate, bladder and kidney cancer patients.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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Chris Tam<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chris is a senior student at Simon Fraser University studying molecular biology and biochemistry. He is responsible for blood processing and DNA extractions of liquid and tissue biopsy samples from prostate, bladder, testicular and kidney cancer patients accrued to our province-wide collection program.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Key Collaborators<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Laboratory Alumni<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Wilson Tu: Former co-op student and M.Sc. graduate (2021-2025)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Gillian Vandekerkhove: Former laboratory technician, PhD graduate, and postdoctoral fellow (2016-2025)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Cameron Herberts: Former co-coop student, PhD graduate, and post-doctoral fellow (2017-2025)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Nicolette Fonseca Former post-doctoral fellow (2019-2025)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Edmond Kwan: Former post-doctoral fellow (2021-2024)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carlos Vasquez: Former co-op research assistant (2023-2024)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shannen Arviola: Former lab technician (2022-2023)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kimia Rostin: Former co-op research assistant (2023)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Evan Warner: Ph.D. graduate (2015-2022)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Elie Ritch: Ph.D. graduate (2017-2022)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emilia Chen: Former co-op research assistant (2020-2022)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Takayuki Sumiyoshi: Former post-doctoral fellow (2019-2022)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elena Sch\u00f6nlau: Former lab manager (2019 – 2021)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kevin Beja: Former lab technician (2015 \u2013 2020)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amanda Wong: Former co-op student (May-December 2016)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Edmund Chedgy: Former urology clinical fellow (July 2015 \u2013 June 2017)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Werner Struss: Former urology clinical fellow (July 2016 \u2013 June 2018)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Stephen Yip: Former medical oncology fellow (July 2017 \u2013 January 2019)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Simon Fu: Former medical oncology fellow (July 2018 \u2013 March 2020)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Research Associates Post-Doctoral Fellows Graduate Students Asli Munzur Asli finished her B.Sc. in biology at the University of British Columbia…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83174,"featured_media":699,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-238","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/wyattlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/wyattlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/wyattlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/wyattlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83174"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/wyattlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238"}],"version-history":[{"count":85,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/wyattlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":707,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/wyattlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/238\/revisions\/707"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/wyattlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/wyattlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}