The 1st Annual Ontario Translational Research Network Forum
Friday, October 3RD, 2008
SPEAKER BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES
Ms. Deborah Collyar has been a leader in cancer patient advocacy since 1991, utilizing her
successful business experience to bridge many research gaps between science and patients. Her
advocacy work spans across a broad spectrum of diseases and experiences: from grassroots efforts
with local groups, to regional programs, to national consortiums and policies, to international guidance.
Deborah has also worked in depth with collaborators from many government agencies, academic and
private institutions, companies, professional societies, non-profits, advocacy organizations, and cancer
patients.
Ms. Collyar founded the PAIR: Patient Advocates In Research international network; started patient
advocacy in CALGB, serves as Co-Chair of their Committee on Advocacy, Research Communications,
Ethics, and Underserved Populations (CARE); and helped develop advocate programs for other
cooperative groups. Deborah served as Program Director for the SPORE Patient Advocate Research
Team (PART) Program grant, expanding the UCSF pilot she helped to create, which fully integrated
cancer patient advocates into translational research programs. Results included a clinical trial
workshop for communities that is being considered by the Intercultural Cancer Council (she is an
Advisory Board member) and others. Deborah also participates in NCI’s cancer Biomedical Informatics
Grid’s (caBIG) Clinical Trials, and Data Sharing and Intellectual Capital workspaces. She has served on
many NCI/NIH committees (e.g. Board of Scientific Counselors, Investigations Drug Steering
Committee, Consensus Panels); as faculty in AACR workshops and ASCO workshops and committees;
on ethical and executive advisory boards for companies, cancer centers, and advocacy organizations;
and on DOD/DOE panels. Ms. Collyar has survived two cancers prior to age 40, and lives with her
husband (a lung cancer survivor) and son in California. Contact information: collyar@att.net Tel:
925.736.8155
Dr. Carolyn Compton is the Director of the Office of Biorepositories and Biospecimen Research as
well as the Acting Director of the Office of Technology and Industrial relations at the National Cancer
Institute of the United States. She came to the NCI from McGill University where she had been the
Strathcona Professor and Chair of Pathology and the Pathologist-in-Chief of McGill University Health
Center from 2000-2005. Prior to this, she had been a Professor of Pathology Harvard Medical School
and the Massachusetts General Hospital, where she was the Director of Gastrointestinal Pathology for
15 years. She received her MD and PhD in degrees simultaneously from Harvard Medical School and
the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. She trained in both Anatomic Pathology and Clinical
Pathology at Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Her current research involves translational
studies in colon cancer and human biospecimen science.
Dr. Compton currently holds several national and international leadership positions in professional
organizations such as the College of American Pathologists, the Cancer and Leukemia Group B, the
American Joint Committee on Cancer, and the American Society of Clinical Oncology. She is an
Associate Editor of Cancer and Cell Preservation Technology. She has published more than 350 original
scientific papers, reports, review articles, books and abstracts.
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Dr. Janet Dancey is Program Leader, High Impact Clinical Trials, Ontario Institute for Cancer
Research and Director, Translational Research (Clinical) at NCIC CTG. Previously, she was Associate
Chief in the Investigational Drug Branch of the Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program of the National
Cancer Institute (NCI-US). She completed medical school at the University of Ottawa in 1988 and
trained in internal medicine and medical oncology at the University of Toronto. She received
certifications in internal medicine and medical oncology from the Royal College of Physicians and
Surgeons of Canada in 1992 and 1993 respectively. She has completed research fellowships at the
Investigational New Drugs Division of NCIC CTG and at the Institut Gustave Roussy, Villejuif, France.
Prior to her appointment at NCI-US, she was a Staff Medical Oncologist at The Toronto Hospital and
Princess Margaret Hospital and Assistant Professor, Division of Medical Oncology, Faculty of Medicine,
University of Toronto.
Dr. Dancey has extensive experience in cancer therapeutic and biomarker development. At the NCI
she was responsible for identifying areas of therapeutic potential for the agents, initiating and
monitoring clinical trials and providing expert advice to NCI senior staff, extramural investigators and
pharmaceutical collaborators on scientific and regulatory issues. In addition, she was co-chair of the
Bioimarkers Task Force of the Investigational Drugs Steering Committee. She was a member of the
Lung Cancer Concept Evaluation Panel, responsible for reviewing, and approving proposals for
cooperative group phase 3 studies in lung cancer. She served on the joint ASCO-FDA committee
assessing traditional and non-traditional endpoints in lung cancer studies. She was a member of the
American Society of Clinical Oncology Program Committee 2001-2002, and 2007-8, and served as Chair
of the Clinical Pharmacology Subcommittee for the 2002, Track Leader for the Developmental
Therapeutics – Molecular Therapeutics subcommittee in of the 2007-8 ASCO Program Committee. She
was a member of the Scientific Committee of the AACR-NCI-EORTC Molecular Targets 2003 and 2005
Meetings and the co-chair of the Scientific Committee for the 2004 meeting. Dr. Dancey has presented
at national and international oncology meetings and has been an invited speaker at other cancer
centers and CME events. She is a member of the Editorial Board of PDQ. She is the author or coauthor of over 85 peer-reviewed publications, 80 abstracts presented at international meetings in
oncology and 15 book chapters in the areas of oncology therapeutics development, clinical trial
methodology patient reported outcomes research, and treatments for lung and gastrointestinal
malignancies.
Ronald J. Heslegrave, Ph.D., is currently an Associate Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry,
Public Health, School of Graduate Studies and the Institute of Medical Sciences at the University of
Toronto. Over the last 25 years he has served as a working scientist in a number of areas including the
effects of sleep deprivation on cognitive performance and the impact of medication on quality of life.
However, for the last 17 years, he has been the Chair of various Research Ethics Boards in academic
hospitals connected to the University of Toronto. These Boards which review all medical research
involving humans carried out at the Insitution. Dr. Heslegrave currently Chairs a number of hospital
REBs including the University Health Network (including the Toronto General, Toronto Western,
Princess Margaret (Cancer) Hospitals), Mount Sinai Hospital and the Ontario Cancer Research Ethics
Board. Together these hospitals conduct over 1400 new medical research protocols each year. Dr.
Heslegrave has led the Harmonization Task Force for the Toronto Academic Health Science Committee
for the University of Toronto to standardize research ethics board procedures and practices across the
9 University of Toronto fully-affiliated hospitals.
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From a research perspective, however, he has been working in the area of fatigue and shiftwork for
the last 25 years. In this regard, he has recently been involved in projects on fatigue-related
performance changes in shiftworkers who are nuclear power plant workers, air traffic controllers, coast
guard personnel, Hydro workers, Canada Post workers, underground mine workers, and truck drivers
and is actively involved in educating shiftworkers and assessing workplaces in terms of shiftwork
demands. Dr. Heslegrave has assisted Transport Canada, Coast Guard, the Canadian Trucking Alliance,
air traffic controllers, airline pilots, and Correctional Services with their efforts to investigate fatigue and
shiftwork in occupational settings and the utility of fatigue countermeasures. In terms of policy making,
Dr. Heslegrave is part of the advisory panel to Transport Canada with regard to their new policy on the
Hours of Service regulations for the trucking industry, to the US Federal Administration Association
(FAA) on their project on fatigue management of air traffic controllers, to NavCanada, Transport
Canada, and the Canadian Association of Air Traffic Controllers on policies associated with fatigue
management of air traffic controllers in Canada, and to the American Association of Railroads on their
fatigue management of railraod personnel, particularly engineers. He is currently involved in the
implementation of a fatigue management strategy for shiftworking commercial motor vehicle drivers in
Canada and the U.S. Dr. Heslegrave has over 200 scientific publications and presentations in a variety
of areas and maintains international collaboration in the area of fatigue and shiftwork. Dr. Heslegrave
has coauthored 3 references guides in the last 4 years on shiftwork issues: Making the ShiftWork,
Working the Shift: A Self-Health Guide, and Fatigue Management: A Guide for Canadian Coast Guard
Managers, Officers, and Crew.
Dr. Malcolm Moore is Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology in the Division of Medical Oncology
and Hematology at the Princess Margaret Hospital, University of Toronto, and a Senior Scientist in the
Division of Experimental Therapeutics at the Ontario Cancer Institute. He is the Director of the Bras
Family New Drug Development Program at Princess Margaret Hospital, and Head of the Division of
Hematology/Oncology in the Department of Medicine, University Health Network and Mount Sinai
Hospital in Toronto.
Dr Moore received his MD from the University of Western Ontario in London and carried out his
postgraduate training in Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology at the University of Toronto. His major
interest over the past 10 years has been innovative drug development for cancer therapy, and he has
been a principal investigator for many phase I, II and III studies in gastrointestinal and genitourinary
cancer. He has been instrumental in the development of several agents that have subsequently been
approved for clinical usage, including both gemcitabine and erlotinib in pancreatic cancer.
Dr. Moore has authored over 150 peer reviewed publications and has given over 100 invited lectures
worldwide
Dr. Amit Oza is a Senior Staff Physician and Professor of Medicine at Princess Margaret Hospital,
University of Toronto. He is a Scientist with the Ontario Cancer Institute and cross appointed to the
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Toronto. He graduated from St.
Bartholomew's Hospital, University of London (UK), in 1983 and completed his internal medicine and
medical oncology training in UK. He completed Clinical Research Fellowships at St. Bartholomew's
Hospital/Imperial Cancer Research Fund, London (UK), Princess Margaret Hospital, Toronto and at the
Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam. His postgraduate research thesis was on Molecular
Epidemiology of Hodgkin's Disease. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London and
Canada.
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Dr. Oza has been the principal investigator and co-investigator in phase I, II, and III trials for
gynecological cancer and advanced colorectal malignancies. His research interests are focused towards
the development, assessment and validation of novel therapeutic strategies for cancer including
molecular targeted therapies. Many of these studies also incorporate novel endpoints and translational
research which is developed in close relationship with scientists and pathologists from the OCI/PMH.
Dr. Oza has been the recipient of various awards such as the University of Toronto Award for Teaching
Excellence for the Medical Oncology Training Program, the Hasselback Award for Teaching Excellence
from Princess Margaret Hospital and many others. He has also been principal and co-author of
numerous publications in major peer reviewed journals such as Cancer Research, Journal of Clinical
Oncology, Annals of Oncology, Investigational New Drugs and Clinical Cancer Research.
He is currently Co-Director of the Robert and Maggie Bras and Family Drug Development Program at
Princess Margaret Hospital. This is the largest new drug development program in Canada and the only
center outside the US to have a contract with the NIH for Early Phase Therapeutic studies. He is also
Co-Chair of the Gynecology Site Committee of the NCIC Clinical Trials Group and represents NCIC CTG
at the Gynecologic Cancer Inter Group.
Dr. Bob Phillips is currently the Deputy Director of the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, a new
institute dedicated to enhancing translation of basic research through the creation of novel multidisciplinary teams from various Ontario cancer centres. In January 2002, he was appointed the
founding President and CEO of the Ontario Cancer Research Network, a program of the Ontario
government to speed up the development of new cancer therapies. In December 2005, when the
Ontario Government asked the OCRN to evolve into the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, Dr.
Phillips served as interim CEO and assisted in the recruitment of the new President. Prior to these
appointments, Dr. Phillips worked as a scientist at the Ontario Cancer Institute/Princess Margaret
Hospital (1965-1986) and the Hospital for Sick Children (1986-1996) and was Executive Director of the
National Cancer Institute of Canada (1996-2001). His research interests focused on cancer with special
emphasis on hematopoietic stem cells and retinoblastoma, an inherited eye tumour in children.
Dr. Patricia Shaw is Director of the PMH/UHN Biobank, which includes the Cancer Biobank Core
laboratory, and has over 12 years experience developing and directing biorepositories. She developed
Canada’s largest and most comprehensive ovarian tissue bank and clinical database in 1996, and
developed a pilot for a national ovarian bank. Dr. Shaw is an Associate Professor in the Department of
Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, University of Toronto, and is a well-known gynecological
pathologist, with a strong interest in quality control issues in the pathology laboratory. Her research
program is focused on discovery of the early molecular/genetic events of serous oncogenesis and
improved molecular characterization of ovarian carcinoma, none of which can be achieved without a
well-characterized high quality biorepository..
Dr. Terrence Sills is Vice-Prsident Ontario Cancer Biomarker Network. He received his Ph.D. from
University of Toronto in 1994, and was a Fogarty Visiting Fellow at the National Institute of Mental
Health in Bethesda, MD until 1996. Following his tenure at the NIMH, Dr. Sills returned to Toronto
where he was a NARSAD-funded Research Scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.
Dr. Sills moved to industry in the spring of 1999, taking the position of clinical research scientist at
Boehringer Ingelheim, where Dr. Sills worked on a number of international drug-development
programmes (depression, stroke, female sexual dysfunction, and HIV/Aids). In 2003, Dr. Sills left
Boehringer Ingelheim to co-found AXON Clinical Research, which provided clinical research consulting
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services to the biotech sector. At AXON, Dr. Sills worked on a number of development programs for
small and mid-sized biotech companies.
Following the successful launch and growth of AXON Clinical Research, Dr. Sills joined the Ontario
Cancer Biomarker Network as Vice President to develop and grow the organization into a profitable
business, and to work towards applying biomarkers and diagnostics to the development of personalized
therapeutics, the medical model that will become prevalent in the 21st century. Title of Presentation:
Medicine in the 21st Century: Biomarkers and Personalized Therapeutics
Dr. Ming Tsao is a Consultant Oncologic Pathologist and Senior Scientist, University Health Network.
He is also the Professor, Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology and Department of
Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto. Dr. Tsao also holds the M. Qasim Choksi Chair in Lung
Cancer Translational Research, Princess Margaret Hospital and University of Toronto. Dr.Tsao oversees
multiple translational research programs as well. He is the Director of Lung cancer translational
research program, Princess Margaret Hospital, Director of Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR)
Training Program in Molecular Pathology of Cancer, Director of Applied Molecular Profiling Laboratory,
Ontario Cancer Institute and Co-chair, Correlative Science and Tumor Biology Committee, National
Cancer Institute of Canada Clinical Trials Group.
Aside from being a surgical pathologist specializing in thoracic diseases, Dr. Tsao also maintains a very
active laboratory research programs funded by the CIHR, Canadian Cancer Society and Ontario
Institute of Cancer Research. His research interests are in the molecular profiling of lung cancers at
gene expression, sequence and copy number variation levels. Special areas include prognostic gene
expression signatures, tumor stroma and stroma-tumor cell interaction, predictive biomarkers of
response for chemo and targeted therapies, and molecular basis of lung and pancreatic carcinogenesis.
Dr. Tsao is often invited to grant review panels in the US and Canada, and is frequently invited to
speak at international meetings on molecular pathology of lung cancer. He has served on the Medical
Advisory Boards around the world for oncology and targeted cancer therapies
Dr. Brent Zanke is Vice-President, Ontario Institute for Cancer Research and Director, Ontario
Tumour Bank Program He is also a Research Scientist at the Cancer Care Ontario as well as Chairman
and Chief Medical Officer, ArcticDx, Inc. he is a Medical Oncologist at University of Ottawa General
Hospital. He was previously Director of the Cross Cancer Institute, Edmonton, Canada as well as Vice
President and Provincial Head of Systemic Therapy, Cancer Care Ontario.
Dr. Zanke received his MD from University of Manitoba and his PhD in molecular genetics from
University of Toronto. Dr. Zanke has over 34 peer reviewed publications. His current research projects
are Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Canadian Tumour Repository Network (CTRNet); Genome
Canada- Assessment of Risk for Colon Tumors in Canada; CIHR Team Grant: Interdisciplinary Research
on the Determinants and Impact of Colorectal Cancer: Molecular-Genetic Factors, Risk Modifiers and
Population Health (CIHR Team in Interdisciplinary Research; NCIC Program Project Grant: Cancer Risk
Evaluation (CaRE) Project. His research grants are approx. $17M.
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