Morag Park
PhD
Dr. Morag Park is a full Professor in the Departments of Biochemistry, Medicine and Oncology at McGill University. She is the Director of the Rosalind and Morris Goodman Cancer Institute and has served as the Scientific Director of the CIHR Institute of Cancer Research, Director of the McGill Molecular Oncology Group and Joint Head of the Cancer Axis at MUHC. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and holds the Diane and Sal Guerrera Chair in Cancer Genetics.
Her lab has been operating since 1988.
Dr. Park’s research interests focus on the molecular mechanisms of oncogenic activation of receptor tyrosine kinases and mechanisms for cell transformation using the Met, hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) and oncoprotein as a model. Our group and others have shown that the activity of the HGF receptor is frequently altered in human cancer and have proposed new models for its mechanism of oncogenic activation. Our current work is aimed at identifying the critical molecular signals regulated by the HGF/SF receptor and receptor tyrosine kinases, in general, that contribute to tumor progression, and are suitable targets for therapeutic intervention. We have developed epithelial as well as fibroblastic and mouse models, to study at the molecular level, signals required for epithelial morphogenesis and those signals that promote the breakdown of organized epithelial structures, anchorage independent growth, tumorigenesis and invasion.