Professor
Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of British Columbia, Canada
Torsten Nielsen is a clinician-scientist pathologist based at the University of British Columbia. His credentials include MD and PhD degrees from McGill University, residency training in Vancouver, research training at Stanford and in London, and clinical fellowship training at the Cleveland Clinic and Royal Orthopaedic. He has been a CTOS member for 20 years, was one of the hosts of last year's meeting in Vancouver, and is currently on the CTOS Board of Directors. Prof. Nielsen is known for pioneering work in sarcoma gene expression profiling, work which led to new diagnostic biomarkers such as DOG1 and TLE1 as well as to the identification of rearrangements activating CSF1 as the driving event in tenosynovial giant cell tumor. His recent work has focussed on epigenetic mechanisms of sarcomagenesis, working on epithelioid sarcoma, myxoid liposarcoma and in particular synovial sarcoma. Professor Nielsen is also keenly involved in clinical trials (with the Canadian Cancer Trials Group, and the International Rare Cancers Initiative), as well as in the training and mentorship of clinician-scientists through his role as director of his university's MD/PhD program. Prof. Nielsen was recently inducted into the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.
