Jason Bielas's Biography

Jason Bielas, Assistant Member, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center

Dr. Bielas is an Assistant Member in the Molecular Diagnostics Program at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (FHCRC) and holds an Affiliate Assistant Professorship in Department of Pathology at the University of Washington. Dr. Bielas has had a long-standing interest and commitment to discerning the role of mutagenesis in aging and cancer. Dr. Bielas earned his Ph.D. with Distinction and the Governor General of Canada’s Gold Medal in 2004 from the Department of Biology at York University in Toronto. Together with doctoral thesis advisor, Dr. John A. Heddle, he developed novel methods to measure DNA repair and mutation to delineate the relationship between proliferation and mutagenesis. Following his doctoral work, Jason pursued postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. Lawrence A. Loeb. Here, at the University of Washington, Jason’s primary research focused on the role of a mutator phenotype in carcinogenesis, where he continued to develop novel methods to monitor mutagenesis, including the Random Mutation Capture (RMC) assay, which demonstrates that tumors exhibit point mutation instability (PIN), and that mitochondrial point mutations do not limit natural lifespan. During his tenure as graduate student and postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Bielas received a number of awards, including a graduate scholarship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), an Ontario Graduate Scholarship in Science and Technology, the RH Haynes Scholarship for Academic Excellence, and Postdoctoral Fellowships from NSERC, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and the Terry Fox Foundation.

The Bielas lab studies the fundamental and clinical implications of nuclear and mitochondrial DNA mutations in the pathogenesis of cancer and age-related disease. Ongoing research projects include the development and implementation of ultra-sensitive mutation detection methods to characterize and establish novel DNA-based biomarkers. Since opening his laboratory at the FHCRC, Jason has received a New Scholar Award from the Ellison Medical Foundation, a New Investigator Award from the Department of Defense, and an Outstanding New Environmental Scientist (ONES) (RO1) Award from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.