Dr Cellot is the institutional leader of the AML program. She initiated a biobanking effort in 2010 as co-investigator of the pediatric branch of the Quebec Leukemia Cell Bank (www.bclq.org), that provides clinically annotated and high quality pediatric AML samples to researchers.
Primary patient samples are critical to generate patient-derived xenografts (PDX) and to conduct functional and pre-clinical studies in AML.
Dr Cellot is the medical director of the molecular oncology diagnostic laboratory at CHU Sainte-Justine, and an advocate of implementing genomic approaches to assist patient diagnosis.
These methods dramatically refine risk stratification, as many of the clinically relevant genetic alterations in childhood cancers are cryptic by conventional cytogenetics.
A pilot study she initiated to assess the clinical validity of RNA sequencing in pediatric oncology resolved 65% of cytogenetically normal cases and uncovered novel subtypes of pediatric sarcoma and leukemia (including novel NUP98-BPTF fusion in AMKL), modulating treatment and enabling tracking of disease response (Gen Chrom Can 2018, 2019; JCO PO 2018; JAMA OA 2019).
Drs Cellot and Sinnett lead a multi-institutional research project (SIGNATURE) to provide genomic characterization of childhood cancers to oncology patients in Quebec, supported by philanthropical investment of Charles-Bruneau Foundation (D. Sinnett & S. Cellot co-lead PI; 2018-2022).
Dr Cellot also shares a partnership with Streamline Genomics (Josette-Renée Landry, Ph.D., MBA) to develop automated analysis of next generation sequencing data in a clinical context.
Sonia Cellot Laboratory 