Following tumour evolution into metastasis and resistance

The Goyette Laboratory studies how heterogeneous breast tumours evolve under metastatic and therapeutic pressure, how individual subclones adapt, and which molecular vulnerabilities remain targetable as disease progresses.

Explore the research↗Selected publications

Tumour heterogeneity and metastasis research

primary tumouradaptationmetastatic states

New laboratory · 2026Tumour heterogeneity
& metastasis

Research framework

Heterogeneity is not background noise. It is the history of the disease.

Breast tumours contain genetically and phenotypically distinct populations that do not respond uniformly to therapy. Some subclones survive treatment, interact with organ-specific stromal environments and acquire metastatic traits. The laboratory combines faithful heterogeneous tumour models with single-cell, proteomic and functional screens to reconstruct this evolution and identify vulnerabilities before resistant states become dominant.

Research programmes

Following heterogeneity from primary tumour to resistant metastasis.

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HER2 heterogeneity and subclonal evolution

We reconstruct how HER2-high and HER2-low subpopulations compete, cooperate and change during targeted therapy.

Open programme ↗02

Glycocalyx and stromal resistance

We investigate how stromal contact, glycoproteins and the cancer-cell glycocalyx shield HER2 signalling from targeted therapy.

Open programme ↗03

Metastatic cascade and organ adaptation

We identify the programmes that enable dissemination, tissue entry and growth at distant metastatic sites.

Open programme ↗04

Therapeutic vulnerability mapping

We combine multi-omic profiling and functional screening to find dependencies shared by resistant subclones or created during adaptation.

Open programme ↗

Metastatic evolution · principal investigator

Principal investigator

Marie-Anne Goyette, PhD

Principal Investigator and Assistant Professor

Marie-Anne Goyette leads IRIC’s Tumor Heterogeneity and Metastasis Research Unit. Her programme combines metastasis biology, HER2 heterogeneity and glycosylation to identify how breast-cancer subclones adapt to treatment and distant tissue environments.

Meet the laboratory ↗

Selected work