Faculty profile

Melanie Spears

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Assistant ProfessorDepartment of Laboratory Medicine and PathobiologyUniversity of Toronto

Melanie Spears

Assistant Professor

Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology

Temerty Faculty of Medicine

University of Toronto

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Supervision signals

Professors usually supervise graduate students in their department's programs.
9 publications in the last five years, latest in 2026.
Senior (last) author on 1 recent paper, a sign of leading a research group.

These signals come from public records, including CIHR, NSERC and SSHRC funding decisions. Ask the professor or the graduate program whether they are taking new students.

Academic metrics

Publications

Citations

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Collaborators

Publications by year

Counts cover the works listed on the university profile; citation counts come from Dimensions.

Education

BSc Honours
PhD

Profiles and links

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Signals and details

Research

Read how they describe their research on their University of Toronto profile.

Cancer Genomics Proteomics Transcriptomics

Latest papers

Divergent transcriptional programs and constrained metabolic states reveal selective metabolic dependencies in chemoresistant luminal breast cancer.
Cancer drug resistance (Alhambra, Calif.) · 2026
Determining Optimal Fractionation of Neoadjuvant Radiation in Low-Risk, Early-Stage Breast Cancer-Randomized SIGNAL Clinical Trial.
Cancers · 2026 · first author
Targeting B7-H3 in patients with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer and brain metastases: an opportunity to "revive" immunotherapy as a treatment strategy?
Journal for immunotherapy of cancer · 2026

All 19 publications

19 publications.

Divergent transcriptional programs and constrained metabolic states reveal selective metabolic dependencies in chemoresistant luminal breast cancer.

Poyraz M, Sari B, Ambroise J, Spears M, Michaelis M, Jindrich Cinatl, Boidot R, Serafimov K, Feron O, Duhoux FP, Desgres M, Corbet C

Cancer drug resistance (Alhambra, Calif.)2026

DOI: 10.20517/cdr.2026.57 PMID: 42729982

Determining Optimal Fractionation of Neoadjuvant Radiation in Low-Risk, Early-Stage Breast Cancer-Randomized SIGNAL Clinical Trial.

Spears M, Lock M, Yaremko B, Talebian V, Kerhoulas Z, Lynn KS, Tran WT, Gelman N, Mouawad M, Gaede S, Maciver A, Hopkins M, Liao L, Lu FI, Kornecki A, Formenti SC, Demaria S, Brackstone M

Cancers2026First author

DOI: 10.3390/cancers18121867 PMID: 42352402

Targeting B7-H3 in patients with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer and brain metastases: an opportunity to "revive" immunotherapy as a treatment strategy?

Kojundzic I, Zatzman C, Belone Lopes J, Ramay R, Bayani J, Spears M, Jerzak KJ

Journal for immunotherapy of cancer2026

DOI: 10.1136/jitc-2025-013907 PMID: 42242863

Heterogeneity and immune microenvironment of early invasive estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer reveal an immune-rich subset.

Jain D, Liao L, Talebian V, Hopkins M, Quintayo MA, Crozier C, Bayani J, Cheung AM, Yaffe M, Bartlett J, Spears M

NPJ breast cancer2026Senior author

DOI: 10.1038/s41523-025-00875-z PMID: 41771905

Transfer Learning and Machine Learning for Training Five-Year Survival Prognostic Models in Early Breast Cancer: Development and Validation Study

Pilgram L, Yang K, Beltran-Bless A-A, Pond GR, Vandermeer L, Hilton J, Savard M-F, LeBlanc A, Shepherd L, Chen B

Journal of Medical Internet Research20261 citations

DOI: 10.2196/88665

Continuous versus Standard Palbociclib Treatment and Molecular Profiling of Solid Tissues and Liquid Biopsies in the CCTG MA.38 Trial in Advanced Breast Cancer.

Joy AA, Cheng N, Gelmon KA, Mates M, Desbiens C, Clemons M, Taylor S, Lemieux J, DeLuca A, Gasparini L, Lungu I, Soave D, Fortuna A, Pugh T, Liu SS, Bartlett JMS, Awadalla P, Spears M, Chen BE, Bayani J, Parulekar WR

Cancer research communications2025

DOI: 10.1158/2767-9764.crc-25-0346 PMID: 41123599

Intra-tumoral spatial heterogeneity in breast cancer quantified using high-dimensional protein multiplexing and single cell phenotyping.

Cheung AM, Wang D, Quintayo MA, Yerofeyeva Y, Spears M, Bartlett JMS, Stein L, Bayani J, Yaffe MJ

Breast cancer research : BCR2025

DOI: 10.1186/s13058-025-02038-1 PMID: 40399910

Does RSClin provide additional information over classic clinico-pathologic scores (PREDICT 2.1, INFLUENCE 2.0, CTS5)?

Beltran-Bless A-A, Pond GR, Bayani J, Barker SL, Spears M, Mallon E, Taylor KJ, Hasenburg A, Markopoulos C, Dirix L

Breast20255 citations

DOI: 10.1016/j.breast.2025.104528

Validation of the prognostic performance of Breast Cancer Index (BCI) in hormone receptor-positive (HR+) postmenopausal breast cancer patients in the TEAM trial

Bartlett JMS, Xu K, Wong J, Pond G, Zhang Y, Spears M, Salunga R, Mallon E, Taylor KJ, Hasenburg A

Clinical Cancer Research20249 citationsOpen Access

DOI: 10.1158/1078-0432.ccr-23-2436 PMID: W4391755468

Identification of Distinct Prognostic Groups: Implications for Patient Selection to Targeted Therapies Among Anti-Endocrine Therapy-Resistant Early Breast Cancers.

Bayani J, Kornaga EN, Crozier C, Jang GH, Bathurst L, Kalatskaya I, Trinh QM, Yao CQ, Livingstone J, Boutros PC, Spears M, McPherson JD, Stein LD, Rea D, Bartlett JMS

JCO precision oncology2019

DOI: 10.1200/po.18.00373 PMID: 35100692

Profile data last refreshed on September 25, 2026 from the university directory, publication records and CIHR, NSERC and SSHRC funding.

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Melanie Spears

Research

Latest papers

Divergent transcriptional programs and constrained metabolic states reveal selective metabolic dependencies in chemoresistant luminal breast cancer.

Determining Optimal Fractionation of Neoadjuvant Radiation in Low-Risk, Early-Stage Breast Cancer-Randomized SIGNAL Clinical Trial.

Targeting B7-H3 in patients with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer and brain metastases: an opportunity to "revive" immunotherapy as a treatment strategy?

Heterogeneity and immune microenvironment of early invasive estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer reveal an immune-rich subset.

Transfer Learning and Machine Learning for Training Five-Year Survival Prognostic Models in Early Breast Cancer: Development and Validation Study

Continuous versus Standard Palbociclib Treatment and Molecular Profiling of Solid Tissues and Liquid Biopsies in the CCTG MA.38 Trial in Advanced Breast Cancer.

Intra-tumoral spatial heterogeneity in breast cancer quantified using high-dimensional protein multiplexing and single cell phenotyping.

Does RSClin provide additional information over classic clinico-pathologic scores (PREDICT 2.1, INFLUENCE 2.0, CTS5)?

Validation of the prognostic performance of Breast Cancer Index (BCI) in hormone receptor-positive (HR+) postmenopausal breast cancer patients in the TEAM trial

Identification of Distinct Prognostic Groups: Implications for Patient Selection to Targeted Therapies Among Anti-Endocrine Therapy-Resistant Early Breast Cancers.

Frequent collaborators

Mark Clemons

Gregory Pond

Lincoln Stein

John Hilton

Mark Norman Levine

Martin Yaffe

Neil Gelman

Allison Maciver

Philip Awadalla

Stewart Gaede

Trevor Pugh

Khaled El Emam

Marie-France Savard

Muriel Brackstone