Award-winning scientist Dr. Housheng He is at the forefront of cancer research

Credit to Author: Lisa Evans| Date: Wed, 22 Nov 2023 18:41:59 +0000

Chinese-born Dr. Housheng He is making significant contributions to the study of cancer.

Dr. Housheng (Hansen) He spent his childhood summers working in the fields in a small village in China. “We had to get up very early in the morning at 5 or 6 a.m., go to the farm and work until 9 or 10 a.m., have breakfast then go back to the farm and work again,” he says.

But his hard work paid off as it instilled in him a strong work ethic as well as lessons in planning and working as a team.

“Although it was very hard and we were sweating all the time, when I look back, it’s a time that I learned how to work together with others to complete a complicated task. I learned that you have to work hard to get what you want,” he says.

Throughout his career, when faced with a hard task, Dr. He thinks back to that time on the farm. “Nothing actually looks hard compared to those summers,” he jokes.

This humble beginning laid the foundation for a remarkable journey that has seen Dr. He evolve into an award-winning scientist making significant contributions to the study of cancer.

These days, Dr. He can be found in his research lab at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre where he is a senior scientist, or teaching at the University of Toronto in the department of medical biophysics. As an experimental and computational biologist, Dr. He has contributed to uncovering new diagnostic and treatment strategies for prostrate and other cancers. His research today focuses on cancer epigenetics and non-coding RNA in cancer.

“If you consider genetics as computer hardware, epigenetics is the software,” he says. The goal of his research is to identify epigenetic markers and target therapies to improve cancer treatment. His work in this area resulted in receiving the Canadian Cancer Society 2022 Bernard and Francine Dorval Prize.

The journey from rural China to big city Toronto working at the forefront of groundbreaking cancer research wasn’t an easy one. The first time Dr. He found himself on his own was when he left rural China to attend Beijing Normal University. There he completed an undergraduate degree in physics and a graduate degree in biology.

Beijing was a big city that stood in stark contrast to his life on the farm. “The only way a child [in the small village] can get a better life is to get a better education and go outside the town,” he says. His parents were supportive of his pursuit of higher education. “Both my parents are farmers. They’re poorly educated; they can barely read and write. They have to work very hard on the farm and they didn’t want their kids to repeat their life,” he says.

Dr. He’s next step was to leave China and head to the U.S. He received postdoctoral training at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard University in Boston. There he was recruited into his PhD supervisor’s lab and exposed to cancer research. “I really enjoyed working on cancer and realized this is a big issue everywhere and there are lots of things we can do to improve treatment and lives,” he says.

In 2013, he received a job offer from the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre and went to Toronto to visit the hospital. While he was in awe of the world-famous scientists whose work he admired, names he’d only read in papers before coming to Toronto, Dr. He was also intrigued by the vision that Princess Margaret had put forward to cure cancer in our lifetime. “I was quite amazed by that, and I wanted to be part of it.”

Even more astonishing to Dr. He was how kind and helpful everyone he met was. “During my second visit here, I chatted with people and said I’m interested in moving here. People came up to me and gave me tips and even offered to help me rent an apartment,” he says. The help didn’t stop there. “My colleagues were so supportive, whenever I needed something, I could always get support and help. Often people would come to me and ask ‘what do you need, how can we help you’. It feels very touching and makes me feel like this is home.”

Dr. He admits that adjusting to life in Canada wasn’t without some struggle. During his first winter in Canada, a power outage caused by freezing rain left his family without electricity for three days. Realizing they’d have to find something to enjoy about Canadian winters, Dr. He discovered skiing. “Both my kids are in the ski club and my wife and I enjoy skiing. We spend our winters on the mountains…,” he says.

Dr. He’s advice to newcomers is to take advantage of what Canada has to offer. “Be passionate about what you’re doing. The environment and the culture are really very collaborative…. that you will not find elsewhere and that will be helpful for your personal success.”

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