Background
Dr. Fonseca completed her PhD in Microbiology and Immunology at the University of British Columbia. Her PhD thesis focused on understanding how T helper cells balance protection and immune-mediated pathology during viral respiratory infection. Motivated by a keen interest in cancer and bioinformatics, she then trained in prostate cancer clinical genomics as a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Alexander Wyatt’s laboratory. During her fellowship, Dr. Fonseca worked closely with Dr. Kim N. Chi’s clinical and biobanking teams at BC Cancer to show that the abundance of circulating tumour DNA in blood can serve as a powerful genomic biomarker of patient risk. To support clinical decision making between tissue and liquid biopsy tests, she helped develop a web-based machine learning tool that predicts the likelihood that a blood samples will be suitable for genomic biomarker testing.
Research Interests
At the University of Victoria, Dr. Fonseca’s lab studies the immune microenvironment of genetically distinct prostate tumors to understand why prostate cancer resists immunotherapy. By combining genomic profiling and spatial imaging, her team investigates how aggressive tumors evade immune detection, using unique patient samples from provincial biobanks. Her research aims to identify genetic and immune biomarkers that predict patient outcomes and responses to immunotherapy in advanced prostate cancer.
1. Investigate the tumour-intrinsic determinants of immune infiltration in DNA damage repair deficient prostate cancer
2. Resolve the genetic and immune landscape of prostate cancer bone metastases
3. Define genetic mechanisms of immune escape in prostate cancer
Dr. Fonseca’s laboratory also houses patient samples for the BC Cancer von-Hippel Lindau Biobank (VHLBB), led by Dr. Maryam Soleimani (BC Cancer Vancouver). VHLBB supports clinical and translational research into von Hippel Lindau disease, a rare hereditary cancer syndrome affecting multiple organs.
PhD, University of British Columbia
MSc, Goa University, India