Saba Abbasi Dezfouli: Navigating Motherhood, Innovation, and the Fight Against Prostate Cancer

Saba Abbasi Dezfouli, PhD learner

For Saba Abbasi Dezfouli, the journey of scientific discovery is deeply personal and relentlessly driven by purpose. As a first-year PhD student and a proud new mother to a six-month-old daughter, Saba exemplifies the delicate balance between pioneering medical research and life's most meaningful personal milestones. Balancing the demands of rigorous academic research with early parenthood has opened an exciting chapter in her life—one grounded in gratitude and an unwavering ambition to make a lasting, practical difference in cancer care.

Her research tackles prostate cancer from two complementary angles: refining early diagnosis to spare patients unnecessary harm, and identifying novel molecular targets for the disease's most resistant forms.

Bridging Diagnostic Precision and Advanced Therapeutics

A primary pillar of Saba’s work focuses on evaluating the real-world health and economic impact of ClarityDx, an innovative blood-based diagnostic test developed by Nanostics Inc. By combining clinical data with advanced machine learning algorithms, ClarityDx addresses a major hurdle in current care: a significant portion of men who undergo invasive prostate biopsies turn out not to have cancer. Saba's health economics and clinical trial research aims to generate the concrete evidence required to guide clinical practice guidelines and secure government funding, helping make non-invasive diagnostic tools accessible to men across Canada.

Simultaneously, Saba conducts benchwork examining neuroendocrine prostate cancer—an aggressive subtype known for its resistance to standard therapies. Her laboratory studies target the ZNF281 gene to uncover its underlying role in disease progression, laying crucial groundwork for future therapeutic strategies where treatment options are currently sparse.

Together, these dual research avenues strive to streamline diagnostic pathways, expand treatment choices, and ultimately transform outcomes for men facing a prostate cancer diagnosis.

Saba – Learner Journey

1. The Current Challenge – What is the biggest hurdle in your training or research right now?
2. Balancing motherhood, research, coursework, and mental health.
3. The Anchor – What is your "why" on the hardest days?
4. Having lost loved ones to cancer, I know how much this research matters.
5. The Mirror – What have you learned most from watching your peers?
6. Hard work and persistence pay off.

Saba's dual devotion to family and research serves as a powerful reminder that the human element behind science—empathy, personal resilience, and community—is what ultimately drives transformative healthcare solutions forward.