Staff

Dr. Vishal Navani

Principal Director

Dr. Navani received his Masters in Medical Sciences from Oxford and Medical Degree from Imperial College London. He subsequently completed internal medicine residency in Sydney, Australia and medical oncology fellowship training in Newcastle, Australia and the Tom Baker Cancer Centre, Calgary, Alberta.

His academic focus includes the interrogation of large real world datasets spanning tumour streams in order to generate practical insights that can be used in the clinic. He is due to start a staff position as a medical oncologist focusing on thoracic and genitourinary malignancies at the Tom Baker Cancer Centre in 2022. He joined Glans-Look in 2022 to provide clinical and scientific oversight, and became Principal Director in 2023.

Dr. Winson Cheung

Operational Director

Dr. Winson Y. Cheung, MD, MPH, is a senior medical oncologist and real-world data scientist with over 15 years of cancer research experience. He is currently a Full Professor in the Departments of Oncology, Medicine, and Community Health Sciences at the University of Calgary where he is also the Provincial Director and Chair of the Health Services Research and Real-World Evidence (RWE) Generation Program at Cancer Care Alberta. Dr. Cheung’s main research interest is health outcomes research and RWE generation across all cancer types, including solid tumors and hematologic malignancies. He has cultivated strong and effective partnerships with public and private sectors. In addition to being the Principal Director of the Glans-Look Lung Cancer Research Program, he is the Principal Director of the Oncology Outcomes (O2) Program that focuses on enriching data sources and leveraging new technologies to facilitate “fit-for-purpose” cancer RWE generation. Dr. Cheung’s track record in the RWE space includes invitations to over 100 presentations, more than 200 peer-reviewed scientific manuscripts, and the receipt of more than $10 million in competitive grant funding. He acts as the chief sounding board for projects using cancer data and serves as the preferred point of first contact for oncology RWE queries in Alberta.

Michelle Dean

Research Program Manager

Michelle Dean is a University of Calgary alumnus (B.Sc. Biological Sciences, B.Sc. Anthropology) with more than 15 years of research experience working within the University of Calgary Cumming School of Medicine as well as Translational Laboratories at the Tom Baker Cancer Centre.  After working as an IHC and image analysis specialist with the Functional Tissue Imaging Unit, Michelle assumed the coordinator role for Glans-Look Research in September 2017.  She manages quality improvement studies within the program, and seeks to expand collaborations with other researchers.  Michelle is also working to identify actionable biomarkers using metrics collected by the program to evaluate their ability to predict clinical outcomes, leading to the development of a personalized treatment approach.

Amanda Gibson

Lead Research Associate

Amanda graduated from the University of Calgary with a B.Sc (Hons) Ecology, and began her career with the (former) Alberta Cancer Board as a Research Assistant. She joined the Glans-Look Research program as a Research Assistant in 2016. In addition to collecting clinical data, Amanda is involved in GLR database design and a variety of research projects including exploring factors influencing the survival of patients with metastatic NSCLC, and investigating the mortality rate of NSCLC patients undergoing chemotherapy at the TBCC.

Adrijana D’Silva

Research Program Manager (former)

Adrijana graduated from the University of Calgary in 2011 with a B.Sc. in Biological Sciences and a Master’s in Health Studies from Athabasca University in 2017. Her thesis work, under the supervision of Dr. Jeff Vallance, focused on the relationship between physical activity, sedentary behavior, and patient outcomes among lung cancer survivors. Adrijana worked with the GLD Research team for several years as a Research Associate, and continues to collaborate with the group on several projects. Since September 2017, Adrijana has been a PhD student in the Health & Wellness Lab. She aims to work with lung cancer patients and their healthcare providers to develop and implement a community-based exercise program for lung cancer survivors across Alberta. Adrijana also coordinates the Thrive Centre, a free fitness facility for cancer patients and their support persons.

(https://www.ucalgary.ca/healthandwellnesslab/programs/thrive-centre).

Dr. Shannon Otsuka

Research Associate (former)

Shannon Otsuka began to build a repository for the Glans-Look Research program in 2006 by retrospectively collecting clinical data for patients diagnosed between the years of 1999 to 2010.  During that time, she worked on a number of projects relating to lung cancer and also completed graduate degree in Medical Sciences at the University of Calgary with Dr. Bebb as her supervisor. Her work on the role of the CXCR4/SDF-1 in NSCLC was published in 2011. Shannon is currently a resident in family medicine at the University of Calgary.