Capstones to Careers: Queenie Wong

Queenie Wong is a recent graduate of the M.H.Sc. Medical Genomics program and currently works as a Senior Genetics Analyst at North York General Hospital. She performed her Medical Genomics Capstone Practicum at The Hospital for Sick Children, working there as a genome analyst and research student in the Costain lab. Prior to performing her master’s, Queenie completed a Bachelor of Applied Science in Molecular Biology and Genetics from McMaster University (2020).

As a Senior Genetics Analyst, Queenie Wong has her hand in various projects within the hospital. Her main tasks involve variant interpretation and report writing for patients requesting for NGS hereditary cancer panel testing and Sanger testing. Queenie spoke to the large volume of NGS hereditary cancer gene panels run at North York General: “We have more than 40 panels being offered in our lab, around 48 patients per run, and I get three runs per two weeks. If you do the math, you’ll figure out how many patients I’m actually looking at and returning reports for bi-weekly.” In addition to conducting genomic variant analysis, she also performs wet lab research and development: “Today I was analyzing some variants in the morning, [and] in the afternoon I was in the wet lab doing some R&D for a new [pharmacogenomics] assay we will be implementing." Aside from these tasks, Wong is also involved in variant interpretation for microarray analysis.

During her Capstone Practicum at SickKids, Queenie worked in the Costain Lab led by Dr. Gregory Costain, where she was a part of the Complex Care & Genome Clinic research project. Throughout her time there, she was vocal about following her interests and communicating what she wanted to get out of the four-month placement. She shared how she continues to advocate for herself now in her current role: “I’m always telling [my supervisor], ‘I’m interested in this. Can you let me handle this?’ Or, if I think I might be interested in genetic counselling in the future: ‘Can I sit in on one of these sessions where you’re counselling the patients? Can I look at the report and can I take part in it?’” In team meetings, Queenie suggests participating as much as possible, even if it’s out of your comfort zone. She also stressed the importance of advocating for yourself online: “Another thing that I do a lot is advocating on LinkedIn. I rarely share posts, but I try to follow as many genetics related accounts as I can to keep up-to-date with current news, technologies, guidelines, and the new positions that are out.” Although she remembers there being some bumps along the way coming out of the Medical Genomics master’s program and beginning with North York General, Queenie feels everything worked out in the end.

Throughout her academic and professional journey, Queenie has been recognized for some major contributions. Recently, her undergraduate thesis exploring if males and females experience sex-biased selective regimes in mental disorders was published in the Journal of Molecular Evolution. Queenie also had the opportunity to contribute to the GENCOV project exploring the relationship between genetics, immunity, and COVID-19: “I was really proud of the fact that I was able to work with Dr. Jordan Lerner-Ellis [alongside] friends from the program on the GENCOV project.” Prior to conducting variant interpretation in the Lerner-Ellis lab, Queenie got started with this kind of work though volunteering with ClinGen – an online resource for variant description: “I started off with ClinGen, and from there I found out that there are certain types of variant interpretation that I like more than others and where I wanted to go from there. With Jordan Lerner-Ellis, it was mostly research based, but with my practicum, it was mostly clinical based.” Queenie continued, “With my practicum at SickKids, we were actually telling the patients that this might be what’s contributing [to] their disease or symptoms, versus with Lerner-Ellis, we recruited a group of people known to have COVID-19 and we’re trying to find a correlation between their genetics and their reactions to and symptoms of COVID-19.” For those interested in learning more about the GENCOV project, check out our features on Dr. Jordan Lerner-Ellis and Medical Genomics alumnus David Di Iorio, another contributor to the project.

For those interested in applying to the Medical Genomics master’s program, Queenie Wong recommends reaching out to current and past students to get a feel for the program. Wong decided to apply following her interest in genetics and found the master’s program enticing due to its course-based structure and emphasis on dry lab analysis. She spoke further about what really sold her on the Medical Genomics master’s program: “It opens doors to a whole new realm of genetics.”  Wong emphasized how the Medical Genomics master’s program at UofT is positioned at the cutting-edge of the field: “They’re teaching us the skills in hopes that we can use [them] in jobs that will be created for us or jobs that we can create for ourselves.”

We are excited to watch Queenie’s growth and wish for her continued success!