Building Connections to the Future

Transcription

1 May 8-10 Mai, 2014 Montréal, Québec Building Connections to the Future Bâtir les relations pour notre futur SPEAKERS Conférenciers 1

2 CONTENTS ITEM PAGE SPEAKERS (ALPHA LISTING) PAGE Plenaries Thursday, May 8 Plenary 1 3 Plenary Friday, May 9 Plenary Saturday, May 10 Plenary Plenary 6 10 Workshops Friday, May 9 Workshop 1 11 Workshop 2 12 Workshop 3 13 Workshop Auer, Rebecca 13 Arrowsmith, Cheryl 7 Babcook, John 6 Barnes, Rebecca 11 Bell, John 13 Bénard, François 15 Boutros, Paul 14 Brenton, James 3 Brinkman, Ryan 9 Bristow, Robert 14 Cass, Carol 4 Chan, Jennifer 7 Dancey, Janet 13 Eirew, Peter 3 Gervais, Thomas 15 Gleave, Martin 13 Jaffray, David 12 Johnston, Michael 12 Jones, Russell 10 Koritzinsky, Marianne 6 Leung, Kaston 5 Ling, Victor 8 Marra, Marco 8 Mes-Masson, Anne-Marie 14 Morin, Ryan 4 Morozova, Olena 8 Mousses, Spyro 8 Ng, Kenneth 5 O Donoghue, Sheila 11 Park, Morag 12 Rodier, Francis 10 Schacter, Brent 11 Schaffer, Paul 15 Schimmer, Aaron 6 Shah, Sohrab 3 Steidl, Christian 4 Siu, Lillian 12 Taylor, Michael 3 van Deursen, Jan 10 Watson, Peter 11 Wilson, Brian 5 Yaffe, Martin 9 2

3 PLENARY 1: Thursday, May 8 Chair Sohrab Shah Dr. Sohrab Shah is an assistant professor in the pathology and computer science departments at the University of British Columbia and a scientist at the BC Cancer Agency. He is the recipient of a Canada Research Chair in the Computational Cancer Genomics, a Terry Fox New Investigator Award, and is a Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Career Investigator. His work focuses on the characterization of cancer genomes for determination of pathogenic driver mutations in cancer subtypes and measuring and quantifying tumour evolution. His work is in the field of computational cancer genomics and involves development of statistical models and machine-learning algorithms to interpret nextgeneration sequence data for defining mutational landscapes and quantifying clonal evolution in ovarian and breast cancers. His recent work describing new cancer genes in ovarian cancer has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine and his work describing mutational evolution in breast cancer has been featured in Nature. James D. Brenton Dr. Brenton is a senior group leader at the Cancer Research UK (CR-UK) Cambridge Institute, University of Cambridge and leads the Functional Genomics of Ovarian Cancer Laboratory. He qualified in medicine from University College London in 1988 and trained in medical oncology at the Royal Marsden Hospital, Princess Margaret Hospital, Toronto and the Department of Oncology, University of Cambridge. He has been an honorary consultant in medical oncology at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust since His PhD work was carried out at the Wellcome Trust/ CR- UK Gurdon Institute of Cancer and Developmental Biology and he was a CR-UK Senior Clinical Research Fellow ( ) at the Hutchison/MRC Research Centre. His research focuses on the identification of prognostic and predictive markers for therapy in ovarian cancer and identifying mechanisms of drug resistance. His work has a particular emphasis on the genomic profiling of clinical samples to identify biomarkers of response. He is a member of the international Ovarian Tumour Tissue Analysis (OTTA) Consortium steering committee. Peter Eirew Dr. Peter Eirew is a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Sam Aparicio s lab at the BC Cancer Agency, conducting research into intra-tumoural heterogeneity and clonal evolution in breast cancer. He studied physics as an undergraduate (Cambridge University, UK), followed by an M.Sc. in molecular medicine (Imperial College London, UK) and a PhD on mammary stem cell biology with Dr. Connie Eaves (UBC and Terry Fox Laboratory, BC Cancer Agency). He also has extensive commercial experience, with an MBA (Manchester Business School, UK) and 17 years in investment banking, applying quantitative methodologies to the management of complex investment portfolios. He was awarded the 2012 Governor General of Canada s Academic Gold Medal. Michael Taylor Dr. Michael Taylor is a pediatric neurosurgeon at the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), and a principal investigator at the Arthur and Sonia Labatt Brain Tumour Research Centre. Born in Calgary, Alberta, Dr. Taylor obtained his MD from the University of Western Ontario in 1994 before entering the University of Toronto neurosurgery residency program, where he also completed a PhD in molecular pathology. After completing fellowship training in pediatric neurosurgery and pediatric neuro-oncology at St. Jude Children s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, Dr. Taylor joined the neurosurgery division at SickKids in He has an appointment in the Developmental and Stem Cell Biology Program at the SickKids Research Institute and cross-appointments to the surgery & laboratory medicine and pathobiology departments at the University of Toronto. Dr. Taylor has published over 170 peer-reviewed publications and his laboratory focuses on the genetics of pediatric medulloblastoma and ependymoma. 3

4 PLENARY 2: Thursday, May 8 Chair Carol Cass Dr. Carol Cass, PhD, is professor emeritus oncology and adjunct professor biochemistry at the University of Alberta. A former Canada Research Chair in Oncology and Terry Fox Cancer Research Scientist, her research on membrane transport proteins and their role in the physiology and pharmacology of nucleosides and anti-cancer nucleoside drugs has translated into better use of nucleoside drugs in cancer treatments. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and the recipient of numerous research awards. She served as chair of the Department of Oncology at the University of Alberta ( ) and director of the Cross Cancer Institute, the tertiary cancer centre for Edmonton and northern Alberta ( ). She currently leads TFRI s Alberta Node and is a member of the Institute s Executive Committee. Christian Steidl Dr. Christian Steidl is an assistant professor in the Department of Pathology (UBC) and Experimental Therapeutics (BC Cancer Agency). He holds an MD from the University of Muenster, Germany, and a PhD-equivalent degree from University of Witten-Herdecke, Germany. Dr. Steidl has expertise in clinical malignant hematology, cytogenetics, molecular genetics, next-generation sequencing and functional genomics. He joined the Centre for Lymphoid Cancer at the BC Cancer Agency in He is currently supervising a translational research laboratory focusing on the pathogenesis of B-cell lymphomas. He is most known for his work on biomarkers in Hodgkin lymphoma and discovery of novel gene mutations in B-cell lymphomas. He has authored 48 refereed articles in the field of hematological malignancies and has been an invited speaker at many conferences. He also serves as a member of the Lymphoma Research Foundation s Panel of Scientific Advisors and the Medical Expert Committee of the Cancer Research Society. Sohrab Shah Dr. Sohrab Shah is an assistant professor in the pathology and computer science departments at the University of British Columbia and a scientist at the BC Cancer Agency. He is the recipient of a Canada Research Chair in the Computational Cancer Genomics, a Terry Fox New Investigator Award, and is a Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Career Investigator. His work focuses on the characterization of cancer genomes for determination of pathogenic driver mutations in cancer subtypes and measuring and quantifying tumour evolution. His work is in the field of computational cancer genomics and involves development of statistical models and machine-learning algorithms to interpret nextgeneration sequence data for defining mutational landscapes and quantifying clonal evolution in ovarian and breast cancers. His recent work describing new cancer genes in ovarian cancer has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine and his work describing mutational evolution in breast cancer has been featured in Nature. Ryan Morin Dr. Ryan Morin, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry at Simon Fraser University and a scientist at the Genome Sciences Centre (GSC), BC Cancer Agency. He received his B.Sc. (Hon.) from Simon Fraser University in After working as a computational biologist at the GSC, he joined the CIHRfunded Bioinformatics Training Program (UBC) where he earned his MS under the supervision of Dr. Marco Marra. After completing his M.Sc. in 2007, Ryan began his PhD with Dr. Marra and spent the following years developing algorithms to identify relevant somatic mutations in human cancers including lymphomas, leukemias and breast and ovarian cancers. Some of this work, such has his discovery of mutations affecting EZH2 and MLL2 in non-hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), has re-shaped our understanding of these cancers and may lead to new therapeutic options for NHLs in the near future. 4

5 PLENARY 2: Thursday, May 8 (continued) (continued) Kaston Leung Originally trained as an electrical engineer, Dr. Kaston Leung, PhD, received a B.Sc. from Queen s University and an M.Sc. from the University of Alberta, where he studied integrated circuit design and testing. After working on the design of radio telescopes at the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, Dr. Leung became interested in applying integrated circuit fabrication technology to micro-mechanical systems and undertook doctoral research at UBC in the design of novel microfluidic devices for single-cell analysis. Now a postdoctoral fellow in the Centre for High Throughput Biology at UBC, he continues to focus on the development of methods for improved single-cell genetic analysis. Brian C. Wilson Dr. Brian C. Wilson holds a PhD in high-energy physics from Glasgow University. He worked in radiological physics in England and Australia before moving to McMaster University and the Hamilton Regional Cancer Centre in In 1993 he was appointed professor of medical biophysics at the University of Toronto and the Ontario Cancer Institute. He has published over 300 peer-reviewed papers on biomedical optics and nanotechnologies, primarily applied to cancer detection and treatment. He has worked with over 30 companies on biophotonics applications and holds patents on several optical biotechnologies. He received the Robert L. Noble Award of the Canadian Cancer Society in 2009, an NIH Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006, the inaugural Michael S. Feld Biophotonics Award from the Optical Society of America in 2013, and the Britton Chance Award in Biomedical Optics from the International Society for Optics and Photonics in In 2013, he was elected a Fellow of the Optical Society of America. Kenneth Ng Kenneth Ng is currently completing his PhD under the supervision of Dr. Gang Zheng at the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Toronto. His research interests lie in the development of biologically inspired materials which can be applied to solve unmet critical needs in medicine. More specifically, his graduate work focuses on studying the synthesis and characterization of self-assembled porphyrin and phospholipids into nanostructures with novel photophysical properties and how they can complement existing imaging and treatment modalities. He is a trainee in the Terry Fox New Frontiers Program Project in Nanoparticle-Enhanced, Photo-acoustic Imaging for Cancer Localization and Therapeutic Guidance. 5

6 PLENARY 3: Friday, May 9 Chair Marianne Koritzinsky Dr. Marianne Koritzinsky is a scientific associate at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre and an assistant professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology and the Institute of Medical Science at the University of Toronto (UT). Her current research interests are aimed at mitigating the adverse effects of tumour hypoxia in cancer treatment. As such, her team is investigating biochemical and molecular response pathways to hypoxia, as well as pursuing pharmacological and genetic targeting strategies for targeting hypoxia responses in experimental tumour models. She is a recipient of the ESTRO-Varian-Juliana Denekamp award for excellence in translational radiation oncology research, and holds a New Investigator award from the Terry Fox Research Institute (TFRI). She is also the co-director of the UofT-based, CIHR-TFRI supported Strategic Training Initiative in Health Research (STIHR) Program titled Excellence in Radiation Research for the 21st Century (EIRR21), focused on providing skills essential to conduct innovative research in radiation medicine. John Babcook John is vice-president of Biologics at the Centre for Drug Research and Development, an adjunct professor of molecular biology and biochemistry at Simon Fraser University and the president, chief scientific officer and co-founder of Kairos Therapeutics. For over 20 years, John has made significant contributions to the international biotechnology industry. John co-founded ImmGenics Pharmaceuticals, based on an antibody generation platform he developed, which is used to identify and rescue optimal therapeutic antibody candidates. ImmGenics was acquired by Abgenix, and subsequently by Amgen, who integrated the Canadian site into their global R&D organization, where it has been responsible for generating Amgen s therapeutic antibody pipeline. While at Amgen, Abgenix and ImmGenics, and through collaborations with AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Abbott, Abbott BioScience, Millennium, CellTech, Curagen, Corixa, Agensys, Progenics and the Scripps Research Institute, he has participated in the development of over 100 therapeutic antibody programs. Six therapeutic antibodies he and his colleagues developed are now in the clinic. At CDRD, he is responsible for therapeutic antibody generation and antibody drug-conjugate development, as well as for forming collaborations with academic researchers and biotech companies. Aaron D. Schimmer Dr. Schimmer is a staff physician and senior scientist at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network and the Ontario Cancer Institute. He is an associate professor in the medicine and medical biophysics departments at the University of Toronto. He is also the current president of the Canadian Hematology Society. The Schimmer lab is focused in drug discovery for leukemia with an interest in targeting unique vulnerabilities in the mitochondria and metabolic pathways of AML and AML stem cells. He has advanced three drugs into clinical trial from his lab and has been the principal investigator on seven additional clinical trials of novel agents for leukemia. Dr. Schimmer is the author of over 147 publications and is an inventor on over 20 patent applications. He has received over 35 awards and honours for academic achievement. 6

7 PLENARY 3: Friday, May 9 (continued) (continued) Jennifer Chan Dr. Jennifer Chan is an assistant professor in the Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine at the University of Calgary. She received her BA from Dartmouth College and MD from McGill University, and completed clinical training in anatomic pathology and neuropathology at Harvard University. Following a research fellowship at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, she became a staff neuropathologist at Brigham & Women s Hospital, and the pathology leader of the Biological Samples Platform at the Broad Institute. She joined UofC in 2008 with clinical duties in neuropathology at Foothills Hospital and Alberta Children s Hospital, and a research lab in the Southern Alberta Cancer Research Institute. Her research program focuses on the intersection of growth factor signaling and intrinsic determinants such as transcription factor function in cell fate determination and proliferation in neural development and brain cancers. In 2012, with sponsorship from the TFRI s translational cancer research project in glioblastoma, she received a New Investigator award for her project on glioma modelling. Cheryl Arrowsmith Dr. Cheryl Arrowsmith is a senior Scientist at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre and professor in the Department of Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto, where she holds a Canada Research Chair in Structural Genomics. She received a PhD in chemistry from the University of Toronto and carried out postdoctoral research at Stanford University in the area of protein NMR spectroscopy. Her research focuses on the use of structural and chemical biology methods for understanding the structure-function relationships of proteins and their role in cancer. She is the chief scientist of the Toronto node of the Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC), a European-Canadian, public-private partnership that supports the discovery of new medicines through open access research. 7

8 PLENARY 5: Saturday, May 10 Co-Chairs Marco Marra Dr. Marco A. Marra is director and distinguished scientist, Genome Sciences Centre, BC Cancer Agency, a professor in the Department of Medical Genetics at University of British Columbia, an adjunct professor in the Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry at Simon Fraser University, and UBC Canada Research Chair in Genome Science. He completed his PhD (1994) in genetics at Simon Fraser University and subsequently worked as a postdoctoral fellow and research faculty instructor at Washington University in the US. He has been involved in the development and application of efficient, high-throughput genomics approaches, with special emphasis on large-scale genome mapping and DNA sequencing. His work at Washington University and at the Genome Sciences Centre has been central to the identification, mapping, and sequencing of tens of thousands of genes from numerous organisms as part of the Human Genome Project. His current activities include the development and application of next-generation analysis approaches to characterize genomes, with the aim of comprehensive identification of the genetic changes that drive cancer progression. Victor Ling Dr. Victor Ling is the founding President and Scientific Director of the Terry Fox Research Institute. He is a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the University of British Columbia and a Distinguished Scientist at the BC Cancer Agency. He served previously as vice-president of research at the BC Cancer Agency and assistant dean at UBC. In that capacity he was instrumental in launching the Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre in Vancouver and the construction of the $90-million BC Cancer Research Centre. Dr Ling is known for his discovery of P-glycoprotein (MDR) and the superfamily of ABC transporters. He has been honoured by the General Motors Kettering Prize, the Gairdner Foundation International Award, a Michael Smith Foundation Distinguished Scholar Award and many others. He has received honorary degrees from four different Canadian universities, the Order of Canada, the Order of British Columbia, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Olena Morozova Dr. Olena Morozova is a postdoctoral scholar in Dr. David Haussler s laboratory at the University of California-Santa Cruz. She conducts interdisciplinary research into the links between normal development and cancer, and uses both computational and experimental approaches in her work. Her research interests include large-scale analysis of cancer genomics data, with a focus on neurological cancers and pediatric solid tumours, and modelling cancer development using pluripotent stem cells. Dr. Morozova s stem cell research is funded by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. Dr. Morozova joined the Haussler Laboratory in 2013 after completing a PhD in bioinformatics with Dr. Marco Marra at the University of British Columbia. Before that, she obtained a B.Sc. (Hons.) from the University of Toronto where she specialized in molecular genetics and biology. Spyro Mousses Dr. Spyro Mousses is president and co-founder of Systems Imagination Inc., a computational technologies company focused on partnering with health care networks and pharmaceutical companies to apply advanced knowledge computing solutions to empower molecular medicine and accelerate the translation of genomic data to transform drug discovery and development. He serves as adjunct professor at the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) and at the Arizona State University, Department of Biomedical Informatics. Dr. Mousses received his B.Sc., M.Sc., and PhD degrees from the University of Toronto. He served as staff scientist at the National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health (NIH), where he led a program in cancer genome scanning and high-throughput technology development ( ). After serving four years at the NIH, he joined TGen at the inception of the institute as one of the founding scientists ( ). As vice-president for innovation at TGen, he developed and managed industry partnerships to co-develop innovative molecular medicine solutions. 8

9 PLENARY 5: Saturday, May 10 (continued) Martin Yaffe Dr. Yaffe received a doctorate in medical biophysics from the University of Toronto and is a professor in the Departments of Medical Biophysics and Medical Imaging at the University of Toronto. He is a senior scientist at the Sunnybrook Research Institute, where he holds the Tory Family Chair in Cancer Research in the Imaging Research Program. He is director of the Smarter Imaging Research Program of the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research. With his group of 28 scientists, engineers and graduate students, he conducts research in improving medical imaging as applied to detection, diagnosis and management of breast cancer. He also has led the Physics Consulting Group for the Ontario Breast Screening Program since its inception in His research on digital mammography helped move this new modality into clinical evaluation and widespread use internationally. He chaired the International Atomic Energy Agency Committee to develop harmonized quality control standards for digital mammography and several other international committees focussing on image quality standards in breast cancer detection Ryan Brinkman Dr. Ryan Brinkman received his PhD in genetics from the University of British Columbia. He is a senior scientist with the BC Cancer Agency and an associate professor of medical genetics at the University of British Columbia. His research is focused on flow cytometry bio-informatics: developing automated data analysis methods for large, high-dimensional datasets. His early work centered on creating the data standards and a free, open source computational infrastructure to support high-throughput computational statistical analysis of flow data. Recently, his efforts have concentrated around developing complete analysis pipelines that cover all the steps from flow cytometry data pre-processing to clinical diagnosis and biomarker discovery across all the areas where the technology is applied. The R/BioConductor flow analysis platform now supports diverse, collaborative research and patient care projects in cancer and immunology. He is a Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Scholar, a Terry Fox Foundation New Investigator, and an ISAC Scholar. 9

10 PLENARY 6: Saturday, May 10 Chair & Speaker Francis Rodier Dr. Francis Rodier is an assistant professor in the radiology, radio-oncology and nuclear medicine department in the Faculty of Medicine, Université de Montréal (UdeM). He holds an FRQS Junior I Career Award and is a Terry Fox New Investigator. His laboratory is established at the Centre hospitalier de Université de Montréal and his expertise focuses on the roles of mammalian DNA damage signalling pathways and cellular senescence during cancer progression and treatment. Dr. Rodier earned his PhD in molecular biology at UdeM where he used transgenic mouse models expressing viral oncogenes to uncover genetic or epigenetic events involved in cancer progression. He subsequently performed his postdoctoral research at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (University of California-Berkeley) and Buck Institute for Age Research in California with cellular senescence expert Judith Campisi, which allowed him to develop his complementary interests in cancer and aging. Russell Jones Dr. Russell (Rusty) Jones is an assistant professor in the Department of Physiology and a member of the Goodman Cancer Research Centre at McGill University. Dr. Jones received his PhD degree in medical biophysics in 2003 from the University of Toronto, and completed postdoctoral training at the University of Pennsylvania with Dr. Craig Thompson. His research focuses on investigating how energy metabolism is altered in cancer cells, and dissecting the genetic and biochemical pathways that control energy metabolism in cancer. One current focus of Dr. Jones research is investigating how cellular energy sensors influence cancer progression, immune function, and inflammation. Dr. Jones recently identified the energy sensor AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) as a tumour suppressor in lymphoma, and is currently exploring whether manipulating AMPK activity can have therapeutic benefit for cancer treatment. He holds several research grants and is the recipient of a CIHR New Investigator Award. Jan van Deursen Dr. Jan van Deursen performed his graduate studies at the University of Nijmegen in The Netherlands and is currently a professor of biochemistry/molecular biology and a professor of pediatrics at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. His research is focused on the molecular biology of cancer. More specifically, he developed a strong expertise for transcriptional regulation, mitotic checkpoints and chromosome stability that has led him to explore the links between cancer, aging, and the phenomena of cellular senescence. 10

11 WORKSHOP 1: Friday, May 9 Chair Peter Watson Dr. Peter Watson is director of the Tumour Tissue Repository Program at the BC Cancer Agency, chief physician at the Vancouver Island Centre and professor of pathology at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Watson completed medical training at the University of Cambridge and St Thomas s Hospital London, UK (1983) and specialist training in anatomic pathology at the University of Manitoba (1988). He was a clinician-scientist at the University of Manitoba (1993) before moving to the BC Cancer Agency (2005). He currently combines a clinical practice as a breast pathologist with research interests in the molecular pathology of breast and ovarian cancer, and in the discipline of biobanking. Dr. Watson s research program focuses on biomarkers of breast tumour progression and response to therapies and his research on the S100A7 gene in breast cancer has led to the publication of over 150 scientific research papers. Dr. Watson serves on the executive of the Canadian Tumour Repository Network (CTRNet) and is the director of the UBC Department of Pathology Office of Biobank Education and Research. Brent Schacter Dr. Brent Schacter is a professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Manitoba and member of the Department of Medical Oncology and Hematology at CancerCare Manitoba. During his career, Dr. Schacter has held the position of president and CEO of CancerCare Manitoba ( ), CEO of the Canadian Association of Provincial Cancer Agencies ( ) and was a member of the Provisional Board of the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer (CPAC) at its inception in He is also currently a co-chair of the Canadian Task Force on AYA (Adolescents and Young Adults) Oncology and a board member of the International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories (ISBER) since May Dr. Schacter is the principal investigator on the Canadian Tumour Repository Network (CTRNet) Program Grant from CIHR-ICR. Rebecca Barnes Rebecca Barnes is the program co-ordinator for the Canadian Tumour Repository Network (CTRNet). She is responsible for helping the executive and management committees with strategic planning and for overseeing some of CTRNet s current initiatives. Rebecca has a long-standing history with CTRNet, having been part of several task forces to help develop its tools and programs, such as their standard operating procedures and the Biobank Certification Program. She has worked in cancer research and biobanking for nearly 10 years, including positions managing biobanking programs in BC. In addition to her CTRNet position, Rebecca has taken on a new role to establish a permission to contact for research program for a regional health authority. The common thread for her various roles has been enhancement of health research capacity through sustainable and standardized systems and processes. Rebecca holds a bachelor of science (biology) and a master s degree (environmental toxicology and carcinogenesis). Sheila O Donoghue Sheila O Donoghue is the biobank leader, Tumour Tissue Repository, BC Cancer Agency and a project manager for the UBC Office of Biobank Education and Research. She is responsible for the education and certification programs offered by the Biobank Resource Centre. She is an active member of the International Society of Biological and Environmental Repositories (ISBER) Education and Training Committee and the ISBER 2014 annual meeting Organizing Advisory Committee. She was the project manager for the BC BioLibrary and also spent 10 years managing national clinical trials for academic researchers. 11

12 WORKSHOP 2: Friday, May 9 Chair Michael Johnston Dr. Johnston is a thoracic surgical oncologist and professor of surgery at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He received his MD degree from the University of Illinois, trained in general surgery at the University of Washington, and cardiothoracic surgery at the University of Pennsylvania. He held appointments as senior investigator in the surgery branch of the US National Cancer Institute and as head of surgical oncology at the University of Colorado Cancer Center before moving to Toronto in He practiced for many years at Princess Margaret, Mt. Sinai and Toronto General hospitals and was professor of surgery at the University of Toronto. He and his co-investigators are currently in the process of commercializing a lymphatic targeting device through a joint venture in Wuxi, China. Dr. Johnston is director of the Beatrice Hunter Cancer Research Institute and TFRI s Atlantic Region Node Leader. Morag Park Dr. Morag Park is a professor of biochemistry and oncology at McGill University and the Diane and Sal Guerrera Chair in Cancer Genetics. She held the position of scientific director of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research-Institute of Cancer Research from 2008 to She has also served as director of the McGill Molecular Oncology Group, joint head of the Cancer Axis at the McGill University Health Centre and a member of the Fonds de recherche du Québec Santé, Réseau Cancer. Dr. Park was recently appointed as director of the Rosalind and Morris Goodman Cancer Research Centre (GCRC) at McGill. She received her PhD at Glasgow University (Scotland) in Over the last 30 years, she has honed her research interests in the molecular mechanisms of cancer, in particular on the Met receptor tyrosine kinase and signalling pathways that regulate cell migration and invasion in cancer. Lillian Siu Dr. Lillian Siu is a senior medical oncologist at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre and a professor of medicine at the University of Toronto. Dr. Siu is the director of the Phase I Program and co-director of the Bras Drug Development Program. She currently serves on the board of directors for the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). Dr. Siu s major research focus is in the area of new anti-cancer drug development, particularly with respect to Phase I trials. She is the principal investigator of a Phase I co-operative agreement U01 award ( ), sponsored by the United States National Cancer Institute (NCI), which aims to expedite the access and evaluation of novel anti-cancer agents for patients. Internationally, Dr. Siu was the recipient of the NCI Michaele C. Christian Award in Oncology Drug Development in She has published over 160 peer-reviewed manuscripts, and is currently an editor for the Journal of Clinical Oncology and Cancer Discovery. David Jaffray Dr. David Jaffray is a professor in the radiation oncology, medical biophysics, and biomaterials and biomedical engineering departments at the University of Toronto. He is also the director of the Institute of Health Technology Development at the University Health Network. After completing a B.Sc. in physics (1998) and a PhD in medical biophysics (1994), Dr. Jaffray held a position as staff physicist at the William Beaumont Hospital, Michigan. In 2002, he joined the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto as head of radiation physics and a senior scientist within the Ontario Cancer Institute. He has an active interest in commercialization and led the development of a variety of commercial products, including the development of small animal irradiator systems for basic research. His current research interests focus on the development of novel approaches of targeting radiation therapy, the development of image-guided therapies for cancer, and translating these advances to clinical practice. 12

13 WORKSHOP 3: Friday, May 9 Chair Rebecca Auer Dr. Rebecca Auer is a surgical oncologist specializing in colorectal surgery and retroperitoneal sarcomas at The Ottawa Hospital. She is an assistant professor in the Department of Surgery at the University of Ottawa and a scientist in the Cancer Therapeutics Program at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute. Dr. Auer s translational research program focuses on understanding the promotion of metastatic disease in the peri-operative period, following surgical stress, and how to counteract these effects with novel immunotherapies, including oncolytic viruses. She runs a research laboratory that studies these therapies in pre-clinical models and is the principal investigator on related clinical trials of perioperative cancer therapies. She holds a Terry Fox New Investigator award as part of the Canadian Oncolytic Virus Consortium. Martin Gleave Dr. Martin Gleave is an award-winning clinical scientist and surgeon, director of the Vancouver Prostate Centre, and a distinguished professor in the Department of Urologic Sciences at UBC. His research focus is understanding the molecular mechanisms affecting the progression of prostate cancer and its resistance to treatment, and the use of this information to develop innovative therapies that specifically target these mechanisms. Some of his discoveries have been licensed to biotechnology companies and have already progressed to clinical trial the first step in developing a new therapy for general use in the clinic. The most promising of these is a compound, OGX-011, which appears to improve the efficacy of hormone withdrawal therapy and chemotherapy. Dr. Gleave is the founder and chief scientific officer of OncoGenex Technologies and he holds the Liber Ero BC Leadership Chair in Prostate Cancer Research. John Bell Dr. John Bell received his PhD from McMaster University in 1982, before training as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Ottawa and then at the Medical Research Council in London, England. He is a member of the Cancer Therapeutics Program at the Ottawa Hospital Cancer Centre, a senior scientist with the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute and a professor of medicine at the University of Ottawa. He heads the Canadian Oncolytic Virus Consortium, a Terry Fox-funded group from across Canada that is developing virus-based cancer therapeutics, and he is also the director of the Biotherapeutics Program for the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research. His research program is directed towards the identification and characterization of novel viruses that specifically infect and kill cancer cells. Currently he is the chief scientific officer for Jennerex Biotherapeutics, a small bio-tech company that performs clinical testing of virus therapeutics in patients. Janet Dancey Dr. Janet Dancey is a professor in the Department of Oncology at Queen s University, program leader for High-Impact Clinical Trials at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR), and recently assumed the position of scientific director for the Canadian Cancer Clinical Trials Network (CCCTN). Dr. Dancey completed medical school at the University of Ottawa in 1988 and has completed research fellowships at the NCIC Clinical Trials Group (NCIC CTG) and at the Institut Gustave Roussy, Villejuif, France. In her current position, she is responsible for the development of strong translational research programs within NCIC CTG clinical trials and OICR High-Impact Clinical Trials Program. Her clinical focus is on melanoma and gastro-intestinal malignancies. Key accomplishments include the establishment of the High-Impact Clinical Trial Program following successful international peer review, and the development of novel trials to evaluate investigational drugs in rare tumour settings, to evaluate next-generation sequencing technologies in cancer patient management. 13

14 WORKSHOP 4: Friday, May 9 Chair Christian Steidl Dr. Christian Steidl is an assistant professor in the Department of Pathology (UBC) and Experimental Therapeutics (BC Cancer Agency). He holds an MD from the University of Muenster, Germany, and a PhD-equivalent degree from University of Witten-Herdecke, Germany. Dr. Steidl has expertise in clinical malignant hematology, cytogenetics, molecular genetics, next-generation sequencing and functional genomics. He joined the Centre for Lymphoid Cancer at the BC Cancer Agency in He is currently supervising a translational research laboratory focusing on the pathogenesis of B-cell lymphomas. He is most known for his work on biomarkers in Hodgkin lymphoma and discovery of novel gene mutations in B-cell lymphomas. He has authored 48 refereed articles in the field of hematological malignancies and has been an invited speaker at many conferences. He also serves as a member of the Lymphoma Research Foundation s Panel of Scientific Advisors and the Medical Expert Committee of the Cancer Research Society. Robert Bristow Dr. Robert Bristow is a clinician-scientist at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre and professor of radiation oncology and medical biophysics within the University of Toronto. His primary research interests are in tumour hypoxia, DNA damage signalling, and prostate cancer genomics. Dr. Bristow is the lead PI for the Canadian whole-genome prostate cancer sequencing project (CPC-GENE) and is head of the Campbell Family Research Institute-PMH Prostate Cancer Research Program. He also serves on several scientific advisory boards, including Prostate Cancer Canada (co-chair), the Prostate Cancer Foundation (USA) and the Advisory Council for Research (ACOR)-CCSRI. Dr. Bristow has won a number of awards, including the Virginia Logan Lectureship (Thomas Jefferson University), the Picchione Scholar Award (Pathology- Dalhousie University), Vivian Sakyly Visiting Professor (Oncology-McGill University) and the John F. Ferguson Prostate Cancer Hero Award (Prostate Cancer Canada). Paul Boutros Dr. Paul Boutros is a principal investigator in informatics and biocomputing at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR) and an assistant professor in the departments of pharmacology and toxicology, and medical biophysics at the University of Toronto. Dr. Boutros completed his undergraduate education (chemistry) at the University of Waterloo, during which time he completed a work term at Michigan State University developing computer models of how cells respond to drugs and toxins. He was awarded his PhD in 2008 for his development of novel biomarkers for predicting cancer severity. Dr. Boutros research focuses on personalizing therapy for prostate cancer by developing novel statistical methodologies. He leads the bioinformatics analysis of the sequencing of 500 prostate cancers as part of the Canadian Prostate Cancer Genome Network (CPC-GENE), and is using these data to develop biomarkers for intermediate-risk prostate cancer. He is a Terry Fox New Investigator award recipient. Anne-Marie Mes-Masson Dr. Anne-Marie Mes-Masson is a professor in the Department of Medicine at the Université de Montréal. She is presently the scientific director of the Institut du cancer de Montréal and head of cancer research at the Centre de recherche du Centre hospitalier de l université de Montréal (CRCHUM). In 2003, Dr. Mes-Masson was named the director of the Réseau de recherche sur le cancer du Fonds de recherche Québec - Santé (FRQS). Her research includes the development of cancer models and the identification of molecular events that contribute to cancer development, and her research has focused mainly on ovarian and prostate cancer. She has developed multiple collaborations and participates in several translational oncology research initiatives. 14

15 WORKSHOP 4: Friday, May 9 (continued) Thomas Gervais Dr. Thomas Gervais is assistant professor of engineering physics and biomedical engineering at Polytechnique Montréal, where his research focuses on the design and fabrication of microfluidic systems for the interrogation and analysis of biological samples. He holds a bachelor degree in engineering physics from École Polytechnique de Montréal and a PhD in bio-engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Prior to his professorship appointment in early 2013, Dr. Gervais worked as senior lecturer in physics and biomedical engineering at Polytechnique Montréal. He is also a seasoned popularizer of science, having presented scientific research on-screen for five consecutive years on the weekly science show Le Code Chastenay (Télé-Québec, ) and in the written press. François Bénard Dr. François Bénard trained in medicine and nuclear medicine in Sherbrooke, Quebec. He obtained further clinical and research training in positron emission tomography (PET) at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the head of nuclear medicine and professor in the Department of Radiology at UBC, where he holds the BC Leadership Chair in Functional Cancer Imaging. He is also the scientific director of the Centre of Excellence for Functional Imaging of Cancer at the BC Cancer Agency and a distinguished scientist at the BC Cancer Research Centre. His research interests are in PET, nuclear medicine, and cancer imaging. His current projects involve the development of new radiopharmaceuticals to image receptors and enzymes overexpressed in breast and prostate cancers, as well as the development of new isotope production methods to replace Tc99m produced in nuclear reactors. Paul Schaffer Dr. Paul Schaffer is head of the nuclear medicine program at TRIUMF. He holds a B.Sc. (chemistry and biochemistry) from the University of British Columbia, and a M.Sc. (chemistry) and PhD from McMaster University. After successfully completing his doctoral thesis (2003), Dr. Schaffer undertook a period of postdoctoral work before settling as a research scientist at the McMaster Nuclear Reactor (MNR). In this role, Dr. Schaffer was responsible for demonstrating medical applications for isotopes produced at MNR. In 2006, Dr. Schaffer became lead scientist at General Electric Global Research in New York. He returned to Canada in 2009 to accept the role of deputy head of the nuclear medicine program at TRIUMF. Now the program head, he is responsible for maintaining TRIUMF s medical isotope and radiotracer production programs in support of neurological and oncology research. He is also interested in establishing a research program geared toward labelling novel, large molecular-weight compounds for imaging and diagnosis of disease. 15

16 The Terry Fox Research Institute from coast to coast BC AB SK MB ON QC PEI NL NB TFRI is an Institute without walls linking the capabilities of 63 leading cancer care and cancer research institutes and universities organized through six regional nodes. NS NATIONAL PARTNERS The Terry Fox Foundation Canadian Partnership Against Cancer Corporation (CPAC) Canadian Tumour Repository Network (CTRnet) Genome Canada BRITISH COLUMBIA BC Cancer Agency BC Cancer Foundation The Centre for Drug Research and Development Genome British Columbia St. Paul s Hospital (Providence Health) Simon Fraser University University of British Columbia Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute ALBERTA Alberta Cancer Foundation Alberta Health Services Alberta Innovates Health Solutions Cross Cancer Institute Genome Alberta Tom Baker Cancer Centre University of Alberta University of Calgary PRAIRIES CancerCare Manitoba Manitoba Health Research Council Saskatchewan Cancer Agency Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation University of Manitoba University of Saskatchewan ONTARIO Brock University Children s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Hospital for Sick Children Juravinski Cancer Centre London Health Sciences Centre McMaster University Mount Sinai Hospital Ontario Cancer Institute Ontario Institute for Cancer Research Ottawa Hospital Research Institute Queen s University Sunnybrook Research Institute Thunder Bay Research Institute University Health Network (Princess Margaret Cancer Centre) University of Ottawa University of Toronto QUEBEC Centre hospitalier de L Université de Montréal Centre hospitalier Universitaire du Québec Hôpital Maisonneuve-Rosemont Institut Universitaire de Cardiologie et de Pneumologie de Québec Jewish General Hospital L Institut de Recherches Cliniques de Montréal McGill Cancer Centre McGill University Health Centre McGill University Université de Montréal Université Laval Université Sherbrooke ATLANTIC Atlantic Cancer Research Institute (Moncton) Capital District Health Authority Dalhousie University (Halifax) New Brunswick Health Research Foundation Memorial University of Newfoundland (St John s) New Brunswick Cancer Network QEII Health Sciences Centre (Halifax) The University of New Brunswick The University of Prince Edward Island 675 West 10th Ave / Vancouver, BC / Canada / V5Z 1L3T / info@tfri.ca /