Professor Dent's primary research interest is in the field of breast cancer, with a focus on locally advanced breast cancer and triple negative/basal-like breast cancers. She has served as Chair of the locally advanced breast cancer program and Head, Breast Cancer Clinical Trials at the Sunnybrook Odette Cancer Center in Toronto, Ontario Canada from 2008-2011. They were actively developing novel therapies and imaging strategies for these high risk patients and up to 75% of their locally advanced breast cancer patients were enrolled onto one or more trials. Recognized as a national leader in triple negative breast cancers with several publications in this area with over 4,000 citations including three citations in the New England Journal of Medicine, she has been invited to speak about her research at major cancer centers in Canada, US, Asia and Europe. 

Since beginning her position in February 2011 as a consultant and now senior consultant at the National Cancer Center in Singapore, she has founded and co-chaired the 5th Asia Pacific Breast Cancer Summit. This is a multidisciplinary meeting for the treatment of breast cancer in which are able to attract almost 400 attendees from over 25 countries in the region and globally. She serves on a number of internal steering committees for clinical trials for breast cancer as well as the principal investigator for trials investigating novel therapies for patients with triple negative breast cancer. Finally she serves on a number of prominent international committees such as the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Scientific Committee (ER/HER2 track) and the Editorial Board of the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Most recently, she was the only ex-US participant in the ASCO Leadership Development Program.