top of page

The Segal Cancer Proteomics Center (SCPC) is a well-equipped state-of-the-art facility in proteomics and metabolomics whose operation is supported by Genome Canada and the Canada Foundation for Innovation. The SCPC is located within the Lady Davis Institute of the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal. It is led by Dr. Christoph Borchers, who is a full professor at the Gerald Bronfman Department of Oncology at McGill University and a leading figure in the field of protein mass spectrometry.

About Us

Meet the Team

Christoph Borchers, PhD

Director

Dr. Borchers is a Professor in the Gerald Bronfman Department of Oncology at the Lady Davis Institute at the Jewish general Hospital at McGill University, and holds the Segal McGill Chair in Molecular Oncology. He became a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences in 2013 and the Life Sciences BC Award/Genome BC Award for Scientific Excellence in 2016. His research encompasses structural and quantitative proteomics as well as quantitative metabolomics, with a clear focus on clinical applications and translation. Dr. Borchers’ lab has developed targeted mass spectrometry assays for the ‘absolute’ quantitation of thousands of proteins from cells, tissues, and biofluids, including members of the PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway and the PD-L1 signaling axis. He furthermore developed MS assays to determine mutation rates of known cancer drivers in tumor tissues on the protein level, and to determine the concentration of immune-therapeutics in patient blood, for therapeutic drug monitoring. The targeted MS assays developed in the Borchers lab are being used both for fundamental research and to complement existing genomic assays in precision oncology. Dr. Borchers has over 325 publications in mass-spectrometry based proteomics, with an H-index of 77 and more than 25,000 citations.

ResearchGate profile 

Evgeniy Petrotchenko, MD, PhD

Associate Director

(Structural Proteomics, Clinical MS, Metabolomics). He received his MD from the Second Moscow Medical Institute, Moscow, Russia and his Ph.D. in bioorganic chemistry from the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, Minsk, Belarus. He conducted postdoctoral studies at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institutes of Health in Research Triangle Park, NC and at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC. He was a Research Assistant Professor at the University of Victoria-Genome BC Proteomics Centre, University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. His research is focused on the development and application of the structural proteomics approaches for studying protein structure in pathologies such as neurodegenerative protein misfolding diseases. Since recently he is involved in the development and application of the analytical MS methods in clinics and the development of metabolomics analyses. 

Vincent Richard (1).jpeg

Vincent Richard, PhD

Research Associate

Dr. Richard is a Research Associate at the SCPC and project manager of a Genome Canada-funded GAPP project. He has joined the SCPC in 2015. He is developing methods for quantitative proteomics (discovery and validation) as well metabolomics (targeted metabolite quantitation). He is involved in multiple collaborative projects within the Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research and McGill University. Vincent finished his PhD in 2014 in the laboratory of Dr. Vladimir Titorenko where he used LC/MS based proteomics, lipidomics, and metabolomics to elucidate the molecular mechanisms regulating aging and lifespan of model organisms.

Yassene Mohammed, PhD

Yassene is an assistant professor at the Center for Proteomics and Metabolomics at Leiden University Medical Center, the Netherlands. He is also head of bioinformatics at the Proteomics Centre of the University of Victoria, Canada, where he is also an adjunct assistant professor at the Division of Medical Science. He received his PhD from the University of Göttingen, Germany. A large portion of Yassene’s recent activities focuses on quantitative targeted proteomics and its clinical applications. He has co-authored multiple works on the methods and applications of precise quantitation of blood plasma proteins using mass spectrometry and heavy labeled surrogate peptide internal standards. He is also active in perusing new approaches for mass spectrometry data analysis, -omics integration, as well as automation of information extraction from such data.

Bioinformatics Group Leader

Adriano Pimenta, PhD

Senior Administrative Coordinator

Adriano is a Senior Administrative Coordinator at the SCPC. He was an Associate Professor at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil, for 18 years before moving to Canada in 2022 and joining the SCPC on November/22. Graduated in Biological Sciences (Bachelor in Zoology) and Ph.D. in Biological Sciences (Physiology and Pharmacology) from UFMG, Adriano was also a postdoctoral fellow at the Universitée de la Mediterranée (Marseille, France; 1999/2001) and visiting professor at the University of Alberta (2013-2014). He has a strong background in leading structurally- or functionally-driven drug discovery research projects combining biochemistry, molecular pharmacology, cell biology, and proteomic approaches. Adriano is responsible for overseeing and managing the operations, budgets and activities of the proteomics research and its team at the SCPC.

IMG_4635.jpeg

Ute Borchers

Administrative Technician

Ute joined the Segal Cancer Proteomics Centre in 2019. She obtained her Bachelor’s Degree in Chemistry from Natural Science-Technical Academy, Isny, Germany.

Vincent Lacasse

Graduate Student

Vincent is a PhD student who joined the SCPC in 2019. He is Co-supervised by Dr. Alen Spatz, and He is working on immuno-MS assays to study PD-L1 signaling to better predict the response of individual tumors to immune-checkpoint inhibitors.

Neda Booshehri

Graduate Student

Neda is a graduate student who has joined the SCPC in 2022. She is co-supervised by Dr. Allen Spatz, and she is working on immuno-Ms assays to study PD-L1 signalling.

ForoughSadat Absar

Graduate Student

Forough is a graduate student who has joined the SCPC in 2022. She graduated with a MD degree from Beheshti University of Medical Science (SBMU) and she is working on structural proteomics.

Constantinos Blidjios

Graduate Student

Costa is graduate student who has joined the SCPC in 2022 and he is working on Bioinformatics approaches on cancer research.

Graduate Student

Negar Mostoolizade

Negarsadat Mostolizadeh is a MSc. student at McGill University and has become a member of the SCPC in 2022. She is co-supervised by Dr. Mark Basik. Her current research project involves the use of the MRM assay to quantify Her2 expression in Her2-low tumors. The purpose of this work is to distinguish between HER2-low and HER2-negative cases and to provide improved information for therapeutic decision-making for cancer patients.

Negin Mostoolizade

Graduate Student

Neginsadat Mostolizadeh is a MSc. student at McGill University and a member of the SCPC. She joined the team in 2022 and is co-supervised by Dr. Gerald Batist. Her Master's thesis project focuses on testing and optimizing the performance of a proteomic profile that is associated with the response of Capivasertib in cancer cell lines and patient tumor samples. Her ultimate goal is to make proteomic profile data useful in clinical settings.

Graduate Students 

Alumni

Research Associates/ Managers/ Directors

Dominik Domanski

André Leblanc, Facility Manager, 2016-2018

René P. Zahedi, Associate Director, 2018-2022

Technical Staff

Deema Qasrawi, Scientist, 2021-2024

Dennis Lee, Laboratory Technician, 2022-2024

Graduate Students/ Post-Doctoral Fellows

Georgia Mitsa, PhD (2017-2023), Experimental Medicine, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada

Connie Sobsey, PhD (2017-2023), Experimental Medicine, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada

Vanessa P. Gaspar, Post-Doc (2018-2021), Experimental Medicine, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada

Sahar Ibrahim, PhD (2016-2022), Experimental Medicine, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada

 

Visiting students (more than 5 months)

Margherita Dell’Aica , PhD (2018), Leibniz-Institute of Analytical Sciences, ISAS e.V., Dortmund, Germany

Tamara Scheidt, PhD (2019), Department of Biosciences, University of Salzburg, Austria

Elyssa Baker

Graduate Student

Elyssa is a MSc. student at McGill University and joined the SCPC team in 2024 after completing a BSc in Microbiology at the University of Victoria. She is co-supervised by Dr. Mark Basik, and is working on a mass spectrometry based method for detecting Tau in blood samples.

Portrait photo .jpg
bottom of page