Melyssa Aronson, M.S.

EDUCATION

M.S.:  Sarah Lawrence College
B.Sc.:  University of Waterloo

BIOSKETCH

My speciality is cancer genetics and I became interested in this area while working on the New York Breast Cancer Study at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. Upon graduation in 1998, I joined the Familial GI Cancer team at Mount   Sinai Hospital where a province-wide study of the genetics of colorectal cancer was just embarking. I am now the Senior Genetic Counsellor at the Zane Cohen Centre for Digestive Diseases, in the Familial GI Cancer Registry. Primarily, I provide genetic counselling and testing for patients suspected of having inherited GI cancer syndromes, and I have a special interest in hereditary gastric cancer. Our clinic focuses on research and I am an author on 20 articles and chapters focused on inherited gastrointestinal cancer. I have served on several provincial and international committees, including the Ministry of Health’s Clinical Practice Committee which established criteria for inherited colorectal cancer testing in the province of Ontario.   I am involved in the University of Toronto’s Master of Genetic Counselling Program as the Cancer Genetics course co-director, clinical supervisor and interviewer on the panel for new applicants to the program.