Dr. Trevor Pugh
Dr. Trevor Pugh is a Senior Investigator and the Director of Genomics at OICR. He leads the OICR Genomics program, which brings together the Princess Margaret Genomics Centre, OICR’s Genome Technologies, Translational Genomics Laboratory and Genome Sequence Informatics teams under an integrated initiative to support basic, translational and clinical research. His research program is focused on understanding the clinical implications of clonal shifts in cancer and non-cancerous cell populations in tumours during treatment, most recently using cell-free DNA sequencing, single cell RNA-seq analysis, and immune repertoire profiling. He and his collaborators develop software tools and data analysis systems required to enable the aforementioned goals.
Dr. Raymond Kim
Raymond Kim received his MD/PhD from the University of Toronto with Dr. Tak W. Mak in Medical Biophysics. He then completed a residency in Internal Medicine, followed by a fellowship in Medical Genetics at The Hospital for Sick Children. His clinical interests lie in transition of care, complex multi-disciplinary care and adult hereditary disorders. His research interests incorporate novel genomic technologies in clinical care including whole genome sequencing and circulating DNA.
Dr. Yvonne Bombard
Dr. Bombard is a genomics health services researcher and Scientist at the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute of St. Michael’s Hospital. She is an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto in the Institute of Health Policy Management and Evaluation. Her research focuses on evaluating the adoption of new genomic technologies in clinical practice. She also conducts public and patient engagement research to advance health technology assessment and health service delivery. Dr. Bombard is active in numerous international policy advisory committees; her research informs policy development in this area.
Dr. Aaron Pollett
Dr. Aaron Pollett is the Provincial Head, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine Program at Cancer Care Ontario. He is an Anatomic Pathologist and Co-Director of the Division of Diagnostic Medical Genetics at Mount Sinai Hospital and an associate professor in the department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology at the University of Toronto. In his various roles, Dr. Pollett oversees the molecular analysis of solid cancers as well as the development and implementation of new molecular biomarkers.
Eastern Canada
Dr. Lesa Dawson
Dr. Lesa Dawson, MD, FRCSC, trained in Medicine and Obstetrics and Gynecology at Memorial University in St. John’s followed by a fellowship in Gynecologic Oncology at the University of Calgary, Dr. Dawson has worked as a Gynecologic Oncologist for 15 years. In 2002 she established an Inherited Gynecologic Cancer Screening & Prevention Clinic and has worked tirelessly to advance education and research about the importance of genetics in cancer. Her research interests focus on gynecologic cancer prevention for Lynch Syndrome and BRCA families in Newfoundland. She is currently working on a large population based study of the genetics of gynecologic cancers in Newfoundland. This project “Novel Gene discovery in high risk BRCA-negative Hereditary Breast Ovarian Cancer Families” has recently received funding from the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation 2015.
Dr. Lynette Penney
Dr. Penney is an MD at the Dalhousie Faculty of Medicine and IWK Health Centre, Division of Medical Genetics. She specializes in medical genetics in pediatric patients.
Central Canada
Dr. William Foulkes
Dr. William Foulkes is a James McGill Professor in the Departments of Medicine, Oncology and Human Genetics at McGill University. He is a researcher-clinician who has practiced clinical cancer genetics at McGill-affiliated hospitals since 1996 and who heads cancer genetics research laboratories at two McGill-affiliated, hospital-based research institutes, the Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research of the Jewish General Hospital and the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre. He is best known for his work on the clinico-pathological features of hereditary breast cancer and for his discovery and characterization of cancer predisposing founder mutations in Montreal populations, including a germline pathogenic missense variant in MSH2 in the Ashkenazim and disease-causing variants in PALB2 and RAD51D in French Canadians.
Dr. Mark Basik
Dr. Basik is a surgical scientist at the Lady Davis Institute and an associate professor in the Departments of Surgery and Oncology at McGill University since 2003. He is the Head of the Cancer Genomics and Translational Research Laboratory and the Medical Director of the Inter-disciplinary Breast Cancer Team at the Segal cancer Center at the Jewish General Hospital. Dr. Basik’s laboratory is part of the FRQS Réseau de Cancer axe cancer du sein/ovaire, and as such actively participates in a province-wide breast tumor and plasma banking in breast cancer. His primary research interests are: the investigation of DNA changes in breast and colon cancer the study of mechanisms of resistance to different drugs used in breast and colon cancer, including chemotherapy and targeted therapies; the discovery and validation of tissue and plasma biomarkers predictive of response to treatment. Dr. Basik and his team are working in translational-cancer research, which aims at bridging basic and clinical research for the benefit of cancer patients. The strength of his laboratory is his easy access to clinical patient samples and use of cutting-edge technologies.
Western Canada
Dr. Kasmintan (Intan) Schrader
Dr. Kasmintan Schrader received her medical degree from the University of Melbourne (2003), and completed her residency in Medical Genetics at the University of British Columbia, Canada. Dr Schrader undertook the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada Clinician Investigator Program to undertake graduate studies in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine to investigate the association between germline mutations in CDH1 and lobular breast cancer. Her PhD work evolved to include use of next-generation sequencing technology to identify Mendelian disease genes.
Dr. Aly Karsan
Dr. Karsan is Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at UBC, and Distinguished Scientist at Canada’s Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre at BC Cancer. Dr. Karsan is internationally recognized in the field of blood cancer research. His translational research lab has generated seminal work on the role of noncoding RNAs and innate immune signaling in blood cancers. He currently leads a team of six principal investigators in a Terry Fox Research Institute Program Project in acute leukemia research. He is a member of various international hematology committees including: the International Working Group for Prognosis in Myelodysplastic Syndromes (MDS), the Experimental Hematology Subcommittee of the Society for Hematopathology, and the Laboratory Assays Working Group for the Myeloid Malignancies Precision Medicine Initiative.