Scott M. Dehm, PhD
Masonic Cancer Center, University of Minnesota - Minneapolis, Minnesota

Dr. Dehm received his BSc, with high honors in Biochemistry, from the University of Saskatchewan, Canada. He remained there to obtain his PhD in Biochemistry. He moved to Minnesota to attend the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, where he completed his postdoctoral fellowship. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Masonic Cancer Center and Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, at the University of Minnesota.

Dr. Dehm first discovered the college degree he wanted to pursue, while studying what he now knows to be “the central dogma of biochemistry,” in his 11th grade biology class. He began cancer research during his undergraduate years, primarily focusing on transcriptional regulation, the change in gene expression levels by altering transcription rates, and carried this focus into to his postdoctoral studies.

“A lot of the major concepts in the field of transcription had been established by researchers studying nuclear receptors,” explains Dr. Dehm, “so I had been keeping abreast of the major breakthroughs in this field. It was easy to come across important papers that investigated transcriptional regulation by estrogen, glucocorticoid, and progesterone receptors, but there were relatively few studies on the androgen receptor.”

Inhibiting androgen receptor activity is how prostate cancer is treated, so Dr. Dehm was baffled by the lack of research in this area. This fueled him to head to the Mayo Clinic to perform his postdoctoral education in the field of prostate cancer research.

In addition to his PCF Young Investigator Award, Dr. Dehm has acquired many other accolades. During his graduate and postdoctoral training, he received two Scholar-in-Training awards from the American Association for Cancer Research.  He received first place in poster competitions from the National Cancer Institute of Canada, the Saskatchewan Cancer Agency and the Alberta Cancer Board, a biochemistry award from the Chemical Institute of Canada, and a gold medal from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research’s Third Annual CIHR National Graduate Student Research Poster Competition. His gold medal win was featured in the Fall 2001 issue of University of Saskatchewan’s Green and White publication, the 2001-2002 University of Saskatchewan Annual Report, and in an interview on CBC Saskatchewan Radio “The Morning Edition.”

Dr. Dehm’s work appears in 18 publications and a book chapter. He also provides journal reviews for Biochemistry and Cell Biology, BMC Cancer, Cancer Research, Endocrine-Related Cancer, Expert Review of Anticancer Therapy, Gene, Molecular Endocrinology, Neoplasia, Oncogene, and Tumor Biology.  He participated in the training of three graduate students, all of whom completed their PhD degrees recently. 

Currently, Dr. Dehm runs his own independent lab where he actively trains undergraduate and graduate students in the field of prostate cancer and other related areas.

During his free time, Dr. Dehm enjoys spending time with his wife and three children, ages 6, 5, and 3. The family spends most of their time playing, exploring, learning and laughing, and Dr. Dehm takes great pride in teaching his children to participate in his favorite outdoor activities, such as golfing, fishing, hiking and camping. Although he thoroughly loves his work as a teacher and researcher, he didn’t always expect his life to turn out this way. “Up until I hit university,” he says, “a career in science was my fall-back plan in case I couldn’t make a career playing basketball…not a very feasible career path for a kid from the prairies!” Now, aside from his family, his main focus is to help find a cure for prostate cancer.