Melis Erkan Selected as a Trainee Under the STAGE Program.

STAGE Atlantic is pleased to announce that Melis Erkan has been selected as a STAGE Trainee with her project, “Mapping Persistent and Irreversible Effects of Arsenic on Lung Tissues Using Integrated Transcriptome and Methylome Analysis.”

Melis is a PhD student in the Department of Pathology at Dalhousie University, where she is conducting research under the supervision of Drs. Victor Martinez and Dan Gaston.

Before embarking on her doctoral journey, she earned a Bachelor’s (Honours) in Medical Sciences from Dalhousie University, and fast-tracked her PhD transfer from the MSc Computational Biology and Bioinformatics program. She is also a recipient of Dalhousie Faculty of Medicine Graduate Studentship in Genomics (2023-2025) and the Beatrice Hunter Cancer Research Institute Trainee Awards (2026-2027).

Melis has previously made contributions in integrated research that bridges molecular signatures with pathological mechanisms and clinical applications. She is currently focused on evaluating whole-genome sequencing for diagnosing repeat-expansion disorders to demonstrate how specialized bioinformatic tools resolve cases that conventional testing cannot detect.

Her STAGE project aims to define fundamental molecular mechanisms and biomarkers underlying arsenicinduced lung carcinogenesis through genomic and epigenomic profiling, to address the gaps in literature, the healthcare system, and public knowledge regarding environmental exposures.

STAGE is proud to support Melis in her research endeavors and looks forward to her contributions in enabling more inclusive risk assessment modules for lung cancer, and intervention strategies for arsenic-related lung cancer cases.