Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Dr. Lorimer completed a Ph.D. in Biochemistry at the University of Western Ontario and did postdoctoral training at the University of British Columbia and the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, USA. Currently he is a senior scientist at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute and an associate professor in the Departments of Medicine and Biochemistry, Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Ottawa. His research interests are in the characterization of oncogenic signalling pathways in glioblastoma and the development of novel cancer therapeutics that target these pathways.
Dr. Lorimer’s early work was on the EGF receptor as a therapeutic target, with a focus on the mutant EGF receptors found in glioblastoma. Dr. Lorimer was the first person to develop recombinant antibodies that specifically recognized these mutant EGF receptors and to evaluate their therapeutic potential in the targeting of protein toxins and viruses to glioblastoma cells. Along with this, Dr. Lorimer also was involved in studies of small molecule inhibitors of the EGF receptor. His lab was the first to demonstrate at a molecular level that an EGF receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor was able to inhibit its target in patient tumours. His lab was also involved in several phase III trials of EGF receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors, performing correlative studies aimed at identifying subsets of patients that were most likely to benefit.
Dr. Lorimer’s lab has also studied the PI 3-kinase pathway in glioblastoma as there is extensive evidence that this pathway is a major driver in this cancer. Key findings in this area have been the demonstration that loss of the PTEN tumour suppressor leads to activation of the atypical PKCs, and that this pathway has a key role in glioblastoma malignancy. Currently Dr. Lorimer’s lab is exploring novel therapeutic strategies to restore PTEN function in glioblastoma.
