Professor Sheila Singh

Member of the International Advisory Board.

Professor of Surgery and Biochemistry, McMaster Children's Hospital

Dr Sheila Singh is a Professor of Surgery and Biochemistry, Chief Paediatric Neurosurgeon at McMaster Children’s Hospital, former Division Head of Neurosurgery at Hamilton Health Sciences and inaugural director of the new Cancer Research Centre at McMaster University.

She holds a Tier 1/ Senior Canada Research Chair in Human Brain Cancer Stem Cell Biology and is the founding Director of the McMaster Surgeon Scientist Program. Her PhD thesis described the novel identification of a population of cancer stem cells that exclusively drive the formation of brain tumours.

Since 2007, Dr Singh’s lab applies a developmental neurobiology framework to the study of brain tumorigenesis. They build upon previous cell culture techniques developed for the isolation of normal neural stem cells (NSC) and apply them to brain tumours. Through development of a xenograft model to efficiently study brain tumour initiating cell (BTIC) activity, Dr Singh’s lab aims to understand the molecular mechanisms that govern BTIC self- renewal.

Dr Singh is currently studying the regulation of BTIC signalling pathways in glioblastoma, brain metastases and childhood medulloblastoma. Her ultimate goal is to selectively target the BTIC with appropriately tailored drug and molecular therapies. Her laboratory is funded by CCSRI, CIHR, TFRI, CRS, the Stem Cell Network, McMaster Surgical Associates, Brain Canada and the Boris Family Fund.