Quilty | Biomedical and Molecular Sciences | School of Medicine

Douglas Quilty PhD

Position(s)

Assistant Professor

Contact Info

613-331-6227

Botterell Hall 442

During his academic research career, Dr. Quilty has had the opportunity to study several different research topics with great mentors, including, but not limited, viral inhibition of apoptosis (Dr. Michele Barry), regulation of membrane trafficking (Dr. Paul Melançon), H. pylori in gastric cancer in Northern Canadian communities (Dr. Karen Goodman), pulmonary hypertension (Dr. Mark Ormiston), and cancer cell plasticity and metastasis (Dr. Lynne-Marie Postovit). This broad experience provided expertise in a wide range of experimental techniques spanning several microscopy methodologies, genetics and genomics, clinical microbiology, molecular biology, protein biochemistry, RNA interference, in vivo tumorigenesis and metastasis methods, and a variety of cancer cell biology methods.

An Assistant Professor (Adjunct) in DBMS since 2022, Dr. Quilty is committed to excellence in undergraduate education. He is the course coordinator and instructor of BCHM218: Molecular Biology (Online) and BCHM370: Genetics and Genomics (Blended and Online). Additionally, he is a dedicated supervisor of undergraduate research projects, providing mentorship to students as they gain their first laboratory research experience.

Education

PhD in Cell Biology, University of Alberta, 2016
BSc in Biological Sciences with Specialization in Developmental and Cell Biology, University of Alberta, 2009

Research Interests

The Quilty Lab focuses on cancer cell biology with particular interest in protein trafficking/localization, cell death/apoptosis, differentiation, and metastasis.

Active projects:

MITF-mediated differentiation of melanoma (Funding: Fund for Scholarly Research)

We have discovered a novel mechanism of down-regulating MITF activity which decreases metastatic potential of melanoma cells while increasing susceptibility to clinically relevant therapies, such as the MEK inhibitor trametinib. RNA sequencing results have provided both canonical and novel pathways/targets for further study.

Selected Publications

Martínez-Martínez FJ, Chiner-Oms Á, Furió V; HpGP Research Network; Yamaoka Y, Dekker JP, Mégraud F, Bénéjat L, Ducournau A, Giese A, Jehanne Q, Jauvain M, Camargo MC, Comas I, Lehours P. Genomic determinants of antibiotic resistance for Helicobacter pylori treatment: a retrospective phenotypic and genotypic observational study. Lancet Microbe. 2026 Jan;7(1):101217. doi: 10.1016/j.lanmic.2025.101217. Epub 2025 Dec 23. PMID: 41453373.

Harry JA, Skebo SI, Cole DV, Dinh V, VandenBroek MM, Lee AK, Camacho N, Piepjohn HN, Hoskin V, Laverty KJ, Gao Y, Quilty D, Greer PA, Ormiston ML. Bmpr2 Loss in the Vascular Endothelium Enhances Neoangiogenesis and Growth of Lung Metastatic Lesions in a Mouse Model of Breast Cancer. J Cell Biochem. 2025 Nov;126(11):e70071. doi: 10.1002/jcb.70071. PMID: 41221847

Thorell K, Muñoz-Ramírez ZY, Wang D, Sandoval-Motta S, Boscolo Agostini R, Ghirotto S, Torres RC; HpGP Research Network; Falush D, Camargo MC, Rabkin CS. The Helicobacter pylori Genome Project: insights into H. pylori population structure from analysis of a worldwide collection of complete genomes. Nat Commun. 2023 Dec 11;14(1):8184. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-43562-y. PMID: 38081806; PMCID: PMC10713588.

Zhou J, Kong YS, Vincent KM, Dieters-Castator D, Bukhari AB, Glubrecht D, Liu RZ, Quilty D, Findlay SD, Huang X, Xu Z, Yang RZ, Zhang L, Tang E, Lajoie G, Eisenstat DD, Gamper AM, Fahlman R, Godbout R, Postovit LM, Fu Y. RNA cytosine methyltransferase NSUN5 promotes protein synthesis and tumorigenic phenotypes in glioblastoma. Mol Oncol. 2023 Sep;17(9):1763-1783. doi: 10.1002/1878-0261.13434. Epub 2023 Apr 22. PMID: 37057706; PMCID: PMC10483612.

Quilty D, Chan CJ, Yurkiw K, Bain A, Babolmorad G, Melançon P. The Arf-GDP-regulated recruitment of GBF1 to Golgi membranes requires domains HDS1 and HDS2 and a Golgi-localized protein receptor. J Cell Sci. 2018 Apr 19;132(4):jcs208199. doi: 10.1242/jcs.208199. PMID: 29507113; PMCID: PMC6398479.

https://scholar.google.ca/citations?hl=en&user=NrZQ7R0AAAAJ

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=douglas+quilty&sort=date#

Team

Education

Research Interests

Selected Publications

Faculty