Maggie Cheang This is Me

Education

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1. 1. www.bc.net

   www.bc.net/news_events_publica - [Cached]

   Published on: 12/1/2007   Last Visited: 4/14/2008

   UBC Graduate student of Genetic Pathology and 2005 BCNET Broadband Innovation Challenge winner, Maggie Cheung, agrees. "In our field, it is crucial that you deliver the meaning of your project in a short time, in a summary," she says. "In this competition, we only have one hour to give the application summary to an audience that is not from inside our field, which helped me to develop that skill." Cheung took the first place prize in the competition for her web database application that enables researchers to search thousands of digital microscope images of tissue samples taken from cancer patients. The ability for researchers and medical professionals to compare a wide variety of samples helps to diagnose and identify treatment of cancer. Cheung is set to graduate with her Ph.D. this summer, before she moves to the University of Northern Carolina for employment in a post-doctorate position where she will work with the supervisor that helped her to develop her winning application.

2. 2. BC.NET

   www.bcix.net/news_events_publi - [Cached]

   Published on: 12/1/2006   Last Visited: 6/4/2008

   In an unprecedented example of the advancements made possible by super high-bandwidth connections, Maggie Cheang, a PhD candidate at the University of British Columbia (UBC), has developed a network application which is enabling groundbreaking research in cancer diagnostics and pathology.Cheang, who won first place in BCNET's 2005 Coolest Applications Contest, developed this collaborative research tool as part of her work with UBC's Genetic Pathology Evaluation Centre (GPEC).
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   The 2005 Winner of the BCNET Coolest Applications Contest, Maggie Cheang, UBC PhD student.
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   Using tissue microarray (TMA) technology, which allows hundreds of tissue cores to be assessed from a single glass slide, Cheang and her co-workers have made microscopic images of cancer available online.This publicly accessible database allows for the viewing, panning, magnification and sharing of cancer slides through the advanced research network, which is provided to the university by BCNET.
   
   Advanced networking connections are important to Cheang's project because they deliver the high bandwidth necessary for the database to function as a successful and collaborative research tool.Through BCNET's Optical Regional Advanced Network (ORAN), researchers may connect to CANARIE's nation-wide CA*net4 and other networks around the world to collaborate and share data.
   
   A tissue microarray sample identifying breast cancer.
   
   Furthermore, large volumes of data must be analyzed through the network before producing any final results."If one project has 4,000 patients and we are looking at two biomarkers," says Cheang, "then we would be looking at 8,000 TMA core images."Each image on the database contains approximately 300 KB of data that needs to be validated.
   
   Enabling Faster, More Accurate Research and Diagnosis
   
   The database's online format demonstrates a number of advances in digital microscopy.In addition to allowing the parallel analysis of thousands of archival specimens, says Cheang, it has provided faster slide analysis, enhanced data integrity and increased the availability of research and educational information.
   
   "We can scan the microscopic images in our lab in Vancouver and ask collaborators around the world to visually assess the biomarker expressions," says Cheang.
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   "Instead of having pathologists interpret images visually," says Cheang, "we are optimizing an algorithm to quantify the biomarker expressions."

3. 3. Genetic Pathology Evaluation Centre

   www.gpec.ubc.ca/index.php?cont - [Cached]

   Last Visited: 3/11/2008

   Maggie Cheang