The POETIC Preclinical and Drug Discovery Laboratory is housed in the existing laboratory of Dr. Aru Narendran at the Health Research Innovation Centre (HRIC) in the University of Calgary medical school complex.
One of the main roles of this facility is to identify new drugs and drug regimens that could be effective for treating pediatric cancers. The Narendran Laboratory, which consists of dedicated students, technicians, and postdoctoral fellows, focuses on understanding why some children fail to be cured and ultimately aims to discover effective new therapies. The pediatric cancer specific cell lines and animal models established in this laboratory help to evaluate new medications for activity and toxicity and enable POETIC members to formulate effective clinical trials in a timely manner.
Dr. Narendran received his undergraduate and graduate degrees in Biochemistry and Immunology, a PhD in Neuroimmunology and completed postdoctoral fellowship training in cancer biology at the Ontario Cancer Institute (OCI). His medical trainings were from McMaster University (MD), Tufts University, Massachusetts (Pediatrics Residency) and the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto (Pediatric Hematology and Oncology fellowship). He is the recipient of numerous awards including the Odile Schweisguth Prize for pediatric oncology research from the International Society of Pediatric Oncology (SIOP) and the young investigator award from the Children’s Oncology Group (COG).
Dr. Narendran is currently a full professor of Pediatrics and Oncology and holds an appointment in the division of Pediatric Hematology, Oncology and Transplant at the Alberta Children’s Hospital and a joint appointment with the department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the faculty of Medicine, University of Calgary. His current responsibilities also include directing the POETIC laboratory for Preclinical and Drug discovery studies and phase I clinical trials, training students and postdoctoral fellows in pediatric cancer research and teaching graduate level courses in Ethics, Cancer Biology, and novel therapeutics. As an academic translational scientist, he has contributed to integrative practices of the University at various levels.
Locally, Dr. Narendran is a member of the Calgary Health Region Research Ethics Board (CHREB) and at the national and international levels, he serves on the Sanofi-Genzyme Pediatric Acute Leukemia Advisory Board, Western Canada Childhood Cancer Research Network (WC3RN) steering committee, National Cancer Institute of Canada (NCIC) clinical trials group and has also participated in grant review panels of the NCI/NIH, Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation, CIHR and the Institut National du Cancer/ French National Cancer Institute.