Dr. Armen Parsyan
Assistant Professor (Cross Appointment with Surgery and Oncology)
Ph.D. University of Cambridge
MPH. Boston University
DSc. National Academy of Science of Armenia
MD. Yerevan State Medical University
Office: St. Joseph’s Health Care Centre, Room D1-204
Phone: 519-646-6244
Fax: 519-646-6327
Assistant: Tracey Doak
Email: tracey.doak@sjhc.london.on.ca
Research Interests:
Dr. Armen Parsyan is a breast fellowship trained, American and Canadian board-certified general surgeon with a number of advanced degrees (Doctor of Biology, PhD, Master of Public Health) in clinical and basic research from the ivy-league schools. He has been trained in some of the best Canadian surgical programs, such as the University of Toronto where he completed his clinical training in breast surgical oncology fellowship and McGill University where he completed general surgery residency. He is originally from Armenia where he obtained medical doctor degree with honors and practiced general surgery. However, before settling in Canada he, first moved to Boston, USA where he, funded by the US Department of State, studied at Boston and Harvard Universities and obtained Master of Public Health in Epidemiology and Biostatistics. Afterwards, he lived in England, where he studied at the University of Cambridge, UK and obtained PhD degree in molecular virology and immunology. Subsequently, Armen settled in Canada, after moving to Montreal for his postdoctoral fellowship in cancer research at McGill. Armen has been a part of the world-class cancer research laboratories. Some of his prominent cancer research supervisors are 2 most distinguished Canadian scientists and the Officers of the Order of Canada - Professor Nahum Sonenberg at McGill and Professor Tak Mak at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto, whom you might now as a discoverer of the T-cell receptor in early 80s.
Armen is a recipient of numerous awards and grants from various countries, he published in highly-ranked journals such as Nature, Science, Cancer Cell, PNAS and others. He chief-edited and published a book by Springer International on fundamental mechanisms of cancer development and progression and is an author of numerous book chapters, abstracts and presentations. He also served as a reviewer for major granting agencies, such as CIHR.
While he completed his clinical fellowship in breast surgery at the University of Toronto in July 2018, his passion to advance breast cancer research and to practice as a surgeon-scientist led him to extend the fellowship for research and to join a laboratory of Professor Tak Mak at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto. There, Armen, while continuing his clinical practice as a breast and general surgeon, uses and develops models for Precision Medicine in breast cancer, such as patient-derived organoid systems and patient-derived xenograft models. He uses those models to study mechanisms of resistance and sensitivity to novel and existing chemotherapeutic agents. Armen also secured two grants for studies of combinations of novel chemotherapeutics and radiotherapy in breast cancer, as well as development of patient tissue sample workflows for establishing breast cancer patient-derived models. Being trained in immunology at Harvard and Cambridge Universities, Armen is also interested in studying mechanisms of the immune involvement in breast cancer development and progression.
Most importantly Armen is extremely passionate about practicing as a breast surgeon and advancing breast cancer science.
