ALBERTA PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS Dr. Gregory Cairncross is Head of the Department of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Calgary and holder of the Alberta Cancer Foundation Chair in Brain Tumor Research. In 1996, he founded the Brain Tumor Section of the National Cancer Institute of Canada s Clinical Trials Group. He is best known for his research on a brain cancer of young adults, called oligodendroglioma. He and his colleagues contributed to the development of highly effective treatments. He is now leading a team of investigators at the Universities of Calgary, British Columbia and Toronto who are using brain tumor stem cells as tools to identify new drug therapies for glioblastoma a highly aggressive form of brain cancer that affects older adults. In Calgary, Dr. Cairncross is a member of the Hotchkiss Brain Institute and Southern Alberta Cancer Research Institute. 1
Stephen Robbins, PhD, joined the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Calgary in 1996 after training at the University of California, San Francisco in the laboratory of Nobel laureate Dr. J. Michael Bishop. He is currently an Alberta Innovates- Health Solutions (AIHS) scientist and has been the recipient of a Canada Research Chair for the past 10 years. He is the Director of the Southern Alberta Cancer Research Institute, a multidisciplinary Institute within the Faculty of Medicine that has a comprehensive focus on cancer prevention and control. His research activities include deciphering how extracellular signals are recognized by cells to control cellular proliferation and differentiation. His work will lead to the development of new agents for cancer therapy. In addition to maintaining a productive research program he is also committed to teaching and has won several awards with respect to these activities including the 1999 and 2002 Watanabe Award for Overall Excellence as well as the 2003 McLeod Award for Excellence in Teaching with the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Calgary. His expertise is recognized nationally as he serves and has chaired several national grant panels including the National Cancer Institute of Canada, Cancer Research Society, and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. 2
Samuel Weiss, PhD, is a professor and Alberta Innovates- Health Solutions (AIHS) scientist in the Departments of Cell Biology & Anatomy and Pharmacology & Therapeutics at the University of Calgary Faculty of Medicine. He is the inaugural Director of the Hotchkiss Brain Institute, whose mission is to translate innovative research and education into advances in neurological and mental health care. In 1978, Dr. Weiss received his B.Sc. in Biochemistry at McGill University and in 1983 completed his Ph.D. in Chemistry (Specialization: Neurobiology) at the University of Calgary. Following post-doctoral fellowships (1983-1988), funded by AHFMR and the Medical Research Council of Canada (MRC), at the Centre de Pharmacologie- Endocrinologie, Montpellier, France, and at the University of Vermont College of Medicine, Burlington, Vermont. Weiss was appointed Assistant Professor and MRC Scholar at The University of Calgary in 1988. 3
BRITISH COLUMBIA PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR Marco A. Marra, PhD, FRS(C), FCAHS, OBC Director & Distinguished Scientist, Genome Sciences Centre, BC Cancer Agency Professor, Department of Medical Genetics, University of British Columbia Adjunct Professor, Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Simon Fraser University UBC Canada Research Chair in Genome Science Dr. Marra completed his PhD in Genetics at Simon Fraser University in 1994 and subsequently worked as a postdoctoral fellow and research faculty instructor at Washington University in St. Louis. 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. Current activities include the development and application of next generation sequencing approaches to characterize genomes, with the aim of comprehensive identification of the genetic changes that drive cancer progression. Dr. Marra is the UBC Canada Research Chair in Genome Science, and a member of the Order of British Columbia. He is a recipient of a 2012 UBC Faculty of Medicine Distinguished Achievement Award. He was elected to the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences in 2009; received the Frontiers in Research Award from the BC Innovation Council in 2008; and was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2007. In 2004, he received a Terry Fox Young Investigator Award and BC Biotech s Innovation and Achievement Award (together with the entire GSC staff) for sequencing the SARS coronavirus genome. Dr. Marra has published 13 book chapters and 244 peer-reviewed papers. 4
ONTARIO PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS Dr. David Kaplan Senior Scientist, Cell Biology Program, The Hospital for Sick Children Professor, Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto David Kaplan received his BA from Clark University in Worcester, MA, in 1978, and his PhD from Harvard University in Cambridge, MA in 1987. His PhD thesis work at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute identified PI-3 kinase, a protein important in the growth and survival of many cells in the body. Dr. Kaplan performed his post-doctoral studies at the University of California, San Francisco with Dr. Harold Varmus, studying how growth factors induce their effects in our cells. In 1990, Dr. Kaplan established a laboratory at the National Cancer Institute in Frederick, MD where he identified Trk as the receptor for nerve growth factor, a protein that promotes the survival and growth of nerve cells. In 1996, Dr. Kaplan relocated his laboratory to the Montreal Neurological Institute at McGill where he was a professor in the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, research head of the Brain Tumour Research Centre, and William Feindel Chair in Neuro-oncology. In 2002, he became a senior scientist at The Hospital for Sick Children and professor, Department of Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto. He holds the Canada Research in Cancer and Neuroscience, and heads a drug discovery effort by the Stem Cell Network to identify new therapeutics for cancer. His laboratory focuses upon examining how neurodegeneration arises and can be prevented, how stem cells build the brain, on developing drugs to mobilize our stem cells to repair injuries and degeneration, and discovering new drugs to treat brain and childhood cancers. 5
Dr. Warren Mason, MD, FRCPC Medical Director, Pencer Brain Tumor Centre Staff Physician, Department of Medicine, Princess Margaret Hospital Kirchmann Family Chair in Neuro-Oncology Research, Princess Margaret Hospital Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, University of Toronto Dr. Mason is the medical director of the largest multidisciplinary treatment centre for brain tumors in Canada. In addition to his clinical and research activities at the Princess Margaret Hospital, he is also the chair of the brain disease site group of the NCIC Clinical Trials Group. Dr. Mason graduated in medicine from the University of Toronto, and completed residences in Internal Medicine and Neurology at the University of Toronto and McGill University, Montreal. He received fellowship training in neurooncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. The focus of Dr. Mason s current research is the development of medical therapies for primary brain tumors. 6