Our Researchers

Prior to becoming Director of the Canadian Cancer Trials Group on September 1, 2014, Dr. Dancey was Director, Translational Research – Clinical at Canadian Cancer Trials Group. She is also Scientific Director of the Canadian Cancer Clinical Trials Network (3CTN) and from 2008-2015 she was Director of the High Impact Clinical Trials Program at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research. Prior to joining the Canadian Cancer Trials Group, Dr. Dancey was Senior Clinical Investigator in the Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program at the US National Cancer Institute and then Associate Chief of the Investigational Drug Branch. Dr. Dancey received her MD from the University of Ottawa and completed her residency training in internal medicine and medical oncology at the University of Toronto. In 1994-95, she was a research fellow with the Canadian Cancer Trials Group and continued her fellowship training at the Institut Gustave Roussy in France. Dr. Dancey has special expertise in new anti-cancer drug development, linking drug and biomarker development, and associated clinical trials methodology. She is also Professor in the Department of Oncology at Queen’s University.

 

Dr. Seymour completed training in Internal Medicine, Clinical Haematology & Medical Oncology and went on to complete her PhD, focusing on correlative studies and breast cancer. She took the position of Director of Medical Oncology at the Newfoundland Cancer Treatment and Research Foundation. In 1996 she joined the Investigational New Drug Program at the Canadian Cancer Trials Group, and currently serves as the Director of the Program. Her primary interests are in early drug development and methodology and clinical research in lung cancer. She also holds the position of Professor and Medical Oncologist in the Department of Oncology at Queens University.

 

Dr. Chen joined the Canadian Cancer Trials Group as senior biostatistician in July 2008. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences and the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Queen's University. Dr. Chen received his PhD in Biostatistics at the University of Waterloo in 2003. He spent 4 years at the United Sates National Cancer Institute in the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, first as a Postdoctoral Fellow and then as a Research Fellow. Prior to coming to Queens University, he was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Concordia University in Montreal. His research interests are survival analysis, computational statistics, Bayesian statistics, biomarker-treatment interaction, design and analysis of clinical trials and epidemiology.

 

Dr. Ding received his PhD in Statistics in 1999 from the University of Alberta, and subsequently did postdoctoral training in the Department of Biostatistics at the University of Rochester. He joined the Canadian Cancer Trials Group and Department of Community Health & Epidemiology at Queen's in 2001. As a Senior Biostatistician at Canadian Cancer Trials Group, his primary responsibilities are the design and analysis of the cancer clinical trials conducted by the Group. Dr. Ding is also interested in sequential analysis, statistical quality control procedures, and, statistical computing.

 

Dr. Hay is a Hematologist and clinician scientist within the Department of Medicine, cross appointed to the Department of Oncology, and a Senior Investigator with the Canadian Cancer Trials Group. Having completed medical and hematology training in Scotland, Dr. Hay undertook 2 ½ years of fellowship with the Canadian Cancer Trials Group, transitioning to a Senior Investigator position in 2014. In this role her responsibilities include development and conduct of clinical trials for patients with hematological malignancies, economic evaluations of cancer interventions, and improving opportunities for adolescents and young adults with cancer to participate in clinical research. Interests also include exploration of more efficient means to conduct clinical trials, whilst upholding patient privacy and safety.

 

Dr. O'Callaghan received his Doctorate in Veterinary Medicine and MSc and PhD degrees in Epidemiology from the University of Guelph, based on work conducted on the epidemiology of infections of livestock while a Medical Research Council of Canada Fellow at the International Livestock Research Institute in Nairobi, Kenya. He continued his research and training in infectious diseases epidemiology as a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow at the University of Warwick. In 2001 he joined the Canadian Cancer Trials Group where he continues to oversee the Gastrointestinal and Brain Site Committees as Senior Investigator. He is also a Professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences. His research interests are diverse and include clinical trials design and methodology and infectious disease epidemiology.

 

Wendy Parulekar is a graduate of the University of Ottawa Medical School where she also completed residency training in Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology. This was followed by a fellowship in Clinical Pharmacology at the Toronto Sunnybrook Regional Cancer Centre. Since 1999, she has held a joint clinical/research position at Queen’s University. Within the Canadian Cancer Trials Group, she acts as Senior Investigator for national and international studies in carcinoma of the breast, head and neck and gynecology systems and is Chair of the Education Committee. In addition to her involvement in national and international scientific advisory committees, she is an active participant in the SPIRIT initiative whose goal is to define standard protocol items for randomized trials and is an associate editor for the journal Clinical Trials and section editor for Current Oncology. She was named a Fellow of the international organization, Society for Clinical Trials and was President from 2015-2016.

 

Dr. Richardson received her PhD in Epidemiology & Biostatistics at McGill University, where she studied the natural history of HPV infections and cervical neoplasia. She is Assistant Professor in the Department of Community Health & Epidemiology and joined the Canadian Cancer Trials Group in 2004 where she is the current Project Coordinator for the Quality of Life Committee and provides oversight for trials with a focus on breast cancer prevention. Her research also involves tissue and blood banking for future biomarker development projects and evaluating quality of life data from clinical trials. Dr. Richardson who bridges the Division of Cancer Clinical Trials (Canadian Cancer Trials Group) and Cancer Care and Epidemiology in the Queen’s Cancer Research Institute also conducts etiologic research primarily focused on understanding specific environmental causes of breast cancer and their interaction with genetic and hormonal factors and elucidating intermediate mechanisms in the causal pathway to breast cancer.

 

Dr. Shepherd is a Professor in the Department of Pathology & Molecular Medicine. She completed her medical school training at McGill and spent three years in England where her interest in hematology developed. She completed her training as a Hematopathologist at the University of Ottawa and came to Kingston in 1987. Dr. Shepherd is currently the Director of the Transfusion Medicine Service & Immunology at Kingston General Hospital. Since 1989, Dr. Shepherd has worked with the Canadian Cancer Trials Group as a Physician Coordinator. Her focus has been in Haematology and Breast Cancer, as well as the development of the National Tumor/Tissue Repository associated with the Canadian Cancer Trials Group and correlative studies in clinical trials.

 

Dr. Smoragiewicz is a medical oncologist who completed his undergraduate BSc and MD.CM at McGill University, and internal medicine and medical oncology training in British Columbia. He has completed a fellowship in early phase clinical trials at the University of Cambridge, focusing on immune approaches in pancreatic cancer as part of a PhD program.

 

Dr. Tu is a Senior Biostatistician in the Canadian Cancer Trials Group with appointments in both the Departments of Community Health & Epidemiology, and Mathematics & Statistics. He came to Queen's in 1996 from the Therapeutic Products Directorate of Health Canada. His primary responsibilities are the design, management and analysis of the cancer clinical trials. He is also interested in the methodological research on the development and evaluation of statistical procedures for the design and analysis of cancer clinical trials and maintains an interest in the general mathematical theory of statistics.

 

Dr. Vera Badillo is an Associate Professor in the Department of Oncology. He completed his medical training and internal medicine residency at The Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education. He completed his Medical Oncology Training at The Autonomous University of Nuevo Leon in Monterrey, Mexico. This was followed by a fellowship in Medical Oncology at The Princess Margaret Cancer Centre and a Masters in Science at The Institute of Medical Sciences – University of Toronto. He joined the Canadian Cancer Trials Group in September 2015. In his role as Senior Investigator, his responsibilities include development and conduct of clinical trials for patients with thoracic and genitourinary malignancies. Interests also include exploration of prognostic and predictive biomarkers in breast and genitourinary cancer and evaluation of quality of reporting clinical trials in oncology.