Miruna Bala: Ensuring High Quality Data for Cancer Research

Hello everyone, my name is Miruna Bala and I am very happy for the opportunity to blog this month.

I am the Quality Systems group leader for the Holt Lab at the Genome Sciences Centre and the immunotherapy program at the BC Cancer Agency, which means I am responsible for the design, implementation, monitoring and improvement of the Quality Management System (QMS). QMS ensures accurate, consistent and high quality data and processes are delivered in an efficient manner to our collaborators, and ultimately, to cancer patients.

I have always been passionate about delivering high quality care and medical services to patients, especially those with cancer. When I hear stories from cancer survivors about how translational research gave them hope and prolonged their life with their loved ones, I feel very satisfied and proud to be part of the BC Cancer Agency team.
 

Immunotherapy Clinical Trials

Cancer is a complex disease – without the generosity of BC Cancer Foundation donors and their ongoing support for research, it would not be practical to find new, novel therapies to treat many types of cancers. The immunotherapy clinical trial, focused on ovarian and cervical cancer patients, is very exciting to me. I am delighted to be working with researchers at Holt Lab and at the Deeley Research Centre to ensure clinical trial activities are carried out according to Canadian regulatory requirements and accurate high quality data are delivered in a consistent manner for further analysis and research.

The QMS quality approach will enable us to translate conventional bench research to immunotherapy-based clinical treatment options for cancer patients in B.C. I hope that through innovative genomics and research, we’ll better understand the complexity of various cancers and discover new treatment options for the well-being of patients across Canada and all over the world.  

Miruna