Dr. Grace Shen-Tu
Positions
Member
Arnie Charbonneau Cancer Institute
Contact information
Background
Biography
Dr. Shen-Tu’s experience lies within public health research, knowledge translation, and evaluation. She is committed to moving research discovery to where it can have the greatest impact. To this end, she’s helped develop and implement programs in university research institutes and public healthcare planning and delivery agencies. Before joining ATP, she led many implementation science, knowledge translation and evaluation projects within Alberta Prevents Cancer in Alberta Health Services. She holds a PhD in Medical Sciences and a Master of Public Health. In her current role as the Acting Scientific Director of ATP, Dr. Shen-Tu works collaboratively with ATP Strategic Director in setting ATP’s strategic and operational direction, oversee the scientific strategy for ATP as a longitudinal cohort study and a research platform that supports health research provincially, nationally, and internationally, and foster strategic relationships with funders, ATP governance committees, and scientific stakeholders.
Research
Areas of Research
- Maintaining and collecting longitudinal prospective data to support cancer prevention
- Early Detection, and Treatment Research
Dr. Shen-Tu’s research interest lies in understanding the factors that increases the risk of cancer and chronic disease through the use of large population-based survey and linked data. In my current role as the Acting Scientific Director, I lead the scientific direction for ATP through determining research priorities, collaborations, and engagement with various scientific community members and health system practitioners in Alberta. I am focused on managing ATP research directions to ensure there’s translational impacts. Research priorities in the ATP research team includes exploring the benefit of using longitudinal health and lifestyle data from ATP participants, generate additional data (e.g. genetic and epigenetic information) from biosamples collected, and linking the health/lifestyle survey data to administrative data to inform early cancer detection, cancer screening, and cancer prevention practices. Currently, we are conducting a number of research projects, in collaboration with academic scientists and health system partners, that are informed by program/policy needs and gaps in research, including: impacts of the pandemic on cancer screening adherence, healthcare utilization, and prediction of cancer/disease outcomes based on lifestyle and behavior data. On the other hand, we continue to explore ways to increase the dimension of ATP’s longitudinal database in order to enable more valuable cancer research efforts.
Publications
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