New Investigator Biographies 2009

 

Bingshu Chen joined the Canadian Cancer Trials Group as senior biostatistician and assistant professor in the Department of Community Health and Epidemiology, Queen's University in July 2008. Dr. Chen completed his Ph. D. in biostatistics at the University of Waterloo, then spent four years at the United States National Cancer Institute in the Biostatistics Branch, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, first as a Postdoctoral Fellow and then as a Research Fellow. He was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Concordia University from 2007 to 2008. His research interests are survival analysis, statistics computation, design and analysis of clinical trials and cancer epidemiology

 

Dr. Booth studied medicine at Queen's University before undertaking further training in internal medicine and medical oncology at the University of Toronto. He completed a research fellowship at the Canadian Cancer Trials Group and started a full-time faculty appointment within the Division of Cancer Care and Epidemiology at the Queen's Cancer Research Institute in July 2008.His clinical interests involve gastrointestinal and genitourinary cancer. He has an active research program in population-based cancer outcomes and clinical trial methodology. Specifically, he evaluates how the findings of landmark randomized controlled trials are translated into the general population and whether the societal benefits of therapy are what one might expect based on the clinical trial results.

 

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.

 

Elizabeth Eisenhauer is Director of the Canadian Cancer Trials Group Investigational New Drug Program based at Queen’s University in Kingston ON Canada. She also holds an appointment as a Professor in the Department of Oncology at Queen’s. She obtained her MD at Queen’s and went on to train in Internal Medicine and Hematology, obtaining fellowships from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons (Canada) in 1980 and 1981.
Her main research interest and activity is the coordination of phase I and II trials of a wide range of novel anticancer agents through the Canadian Cancer Trials Group network of investigators. She has served on numerous national and international committees in the area of oncology research.
In 1998 she was the Michel Clavel Award lecturer at the NCI-EORTC Symposium on New Drugs in Cancer Treatment held in Amsterdam. In 2002 she was awarded the O. Harold Warwick Prize by the National Cancer Institute of Canada that recognizes a scientist whose research has had a major impact in Cancer Control in Canada. In 2010 The Society of Gynecologic Oncology of Canada (GOC) presented Dr. Eisenhauer with the GOC Presidential Medal Award in recognition of her outstanding contributions to gynecologic oncology in Canada and Abroad.
From June 2006-February 2009 she was president of the National Cancer Institute of Canada. She has served on the Board of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the Canadian Cancer Society, the Ontario Cancer Research Institute, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Institute of Cancer Research is a member of the Scientific Audit Committee of the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer. In 2008 she became co-Chair of the Canadian Cancer Research Alliance and Chair of the Research Action Group of the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer.

 

Dr. Janet Dancey is Director, Clinical Translational Research Canadian Cancer Trials Group, Program Leader, High Impact Clinical Trials, Ontario Institute for Cancer Research; Chair, Experimental Therapeutics Network, Cancer Care Ontario; and Professor, Department of Oncology, Queen's University.
Among her duties are to coordinate translational research activities for the Canadian Cancer Trials Group and to foster and support translation research in clinical trials across the province of Ontario. Among her National and International activities, Chair, Biomarker Task Force for the Investigational Drug Steering Committee, Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program (CTEP), US National Cancer Institute (US-NCI) and Member of the US-NCI Program for the Assessment of Clinical Cancer Tests. Prior to joining the Canadian Cancer Trials Group, Dr. Dancey was Associate Chief, Investigational Drug Branch, CTEP, US-NCI where she coordinated the development of over 200 phase 1-3 trials of experimental therapeutics, including trials of novel targeted agent combinations and biomarker studies. Dr. Dancey received her MD (Magna cum Laude) 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 the author of co-author of over 100 publications in peer-review journals, 100 abstracts presented at scientific meetings and 15 book chapters. She has been an invited speaker at numerous local, national and international meetings, and has been Chair for development therapeutics and biomarker sessions for ASCO and AACR Annual Meetings, and EORTC-NCI-AACR Molecular Targets Meetings.

 

Dr. Squire joined the Canadian Cancer Trials Group in June 2008 as Director, Translational Laboratory Research. His responsibilities within this role include leadership in facilitating the determination of strategic directions in translational research, engagement of basic and translational laboratory-based researchers from across Canada with Canadian Cancer Trials Group activities, and facilitation of these research activities at the Disease Site Committee level. Before coming to the Canadian Cancer Trials Group, Dr. Squire was the J. C. Boileau Grant Chair in Oncologic Pathology at the University of Toronto and a Senior Scientist in the Division of Applied Molecular Oncology at the Ontario Cancer Institute. Dr. Squire received his Bachelor of Science and Master’s degrees at the Queen Mary College, University of London. He completed his PhD in Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto.

 

Dr. Ringash is an associate professor of Radiation Oncology at the University of Toronto, and a staff radiation oncologist at the Princess Margaret Hospital. She is cross appointed to the Department of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto. She previously served as Associate Programme Director for the graduate programme in Clinical Epidemiology.
Dr. Ringash obtained her BSc in Chemistry at McMaster University in 1990, and went on to obtain her MD in 1993. She trained in Radiation Oncology at McMaster University and the Hamilton Regional Cancer Centre, where she was Chief Resident from 1996-97. After obtaining her FRCP(C) in 1997, she was a clinical fellow in radiation oncology at the Princess Margaret Hospital, and simultaneously completed her MSc in Clinical Epidemiology at the University of Toronto in 1999. In 2010/11, she completed a 12 month sabbatical, which involved visits to 43 countries.
Dr. Ringash is currently co-Chair of the Quality of Life committee at the Canadian Cancer Trials Group. Her research interests include the quality of life of cancer patients, clinical decision making, and the treatment of head and neck and GI malignancies. She has a special interest in upper GI malignancies, including esophagus and stomach cancers.

 

Dr. Iglesias was born and raised in Montevideo, Uruguay, where he graduated from Medical School in 1986. Prior to his graduation, he spent time in 1981-2 as Visiting Scientist at the Weizmann Institute of Science (Rehovot, Israel), where he worked on the immunology of lectins (plant agglutinins) with Prof. Nathan Sharon. In 1983-4 he spent a year as a fellow at Duke University Medical Center (Durham, NC), with Prof. Hillel Koren, using lectins to isolate and characterize Natural Killer (NK) cells, a prime natural defense against tumors.
After graduation from Medical School in 1986, he spent 2 years attending Oncology clinics, and in private Oncology and Hematology practice. In 1988 Dr. Iglesias came to Canada, after being awarded a post-Doctoral fellowship from the University of Toronto, where he worked with Prof. Alexander Marks of the Charles H. Best Institute and at Prof. Armand Keating’s labs at Toronto Hospital, testing the ability of NK cells from patients with Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia (CML) to eliminate malignant cells from their own bone marrow.
In 1991, Dr.Iglesias joined the Pharmaceutical Industry. He was Research Scientist at Glaxo Canada, later moving to become Associate Director of Oncology Clinical Research at Adria Laboratories of Canada. In November 1994, Dr. Iglesias joined Eli Lilly Canada as Associate Director of Clinical Research. In June 2002, he was transferred to Sydney, in the role of Oncology Medical Advisor for Eli Lilly’s Australian and Asian Operations, covering the Asia-Pacific region.
In November 2004, Dr. Iglesias returned to Canada to join AMGEN Canada as Oncology Medical Director, a position he occupied until September 2006. In such role, he was responsible for the AMGEN Oncology Clinical Trials Program in Canada.
In September 2006, Dr. Iglesias accepted the position of Vice President, Global Clinical Development, with Abraxis Oncology (now Abraxis Bioscience) and in May 2008, he became Chief Medical Officer of Abraxis Bioscience. In this global role, based in Toronto, Dr. Iglesias is responsible for the worldwide clinical development of Abraxane and other Abraxis Bioscience pipeline molecules.
Dr. Iglesias is author or co-author of more than 30 publications in the area of Oncology. For a period of 5 years, Dr. Iglesias has also served as peer-reviewer for the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (Medical Research Council of Canada) within the University-Industry Programme

 

Dr. Kim N. Chi is a medical oncologist at the Vancouver Cancer Centre, BC Cancer Agency and the Prostate Centre at Vancouver Hospital, and an Associate Professor of Medicine with the University of British Columbia with a research focus on novel therapeutics and genitourinary cancers. He is an experienced investigator on the design and conduct of clinical trials and holds peer reviewed grant funding from the U.S. Department of Defense, the Canadian Cancer Society/Canadian Cancer Trials Group, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Terry Fox Research Institute and the Prostate Cancer Research Foundation. He has collaborated with investigator cooperative groups nationally and internationally as well as with industry partners from small biotechnology start-ups to large pharmaceutical companies for the investigation of novel agents from the pre-clinical stage to registration phase III studies. At the BC Cancer Agency, he currently is the Medical Director for the Clinical Trials Unit and chairs the provincial Genitourinary Cancer Systemic Therapy Group. For the Canadian Cancer Trials Group, he serves on the executive committee of the Genitourinary Disease Site, chairs the Advanced Prostate Cancer Disease Oriented Group and chair for the Investigational New Drug Program. He is also a member of the US NCI CTEP Prostate Cancer Task Force Committee.

 

Lillian Siu is a staff Medical Oncologist at Princess Margaret Hospital since 1998, and is a Professor at the University of Toronto. She is the Director of the Phase I Program and Co-Director of the Robert and Maggie Bras and Family Drug Development Program at Princess Margaret Hospital. Dr. Siu’s major research focus is in the area of new anticancer drug development, particularly with respect to phase I trials and head and neck malignancies. In 2009, she has been awarded a Cancer Care Ontario Chair in Experimental Therapeutics. In 2010, Dr. Siu was awarded by the US NCI the Michaele C.Christian Award in Oncology Drug Development. In addition, she is the principal investigator of the Princess Margaret Hospital Phase I Consortium, supported by a grant from the United States National Cancer Institute. Dr. Siu was the Chair for 2010 ASCO Grants Selection Committee, and is Co-Chair of the 2012 AACR Annual Meeting Program Committee. Dr. Siu has a strong interest in clinical trial methodology and has been one of the course directors of the ECCO/ASCO/AACR workshop in Flims, Switzerland. Dr. Siu has published over 120 peer-reviewed manuscripts and serves on the editorial board of Journal of Clinical Oncology, Cancer Discovery, European Journal of Cancer and Investigational New Drugs.

 

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 Repositiory associated with the Canadian Cancer Trials Group and correlative studies in clinical trials.

 

Melanie Walker is a doctoral student at Queen’s University in Cancer Epidemiology where she also completed her Masters of Science in Community Health and Epidemiology in 2002. Melanie joined the Canadian Cancer Trials Group in 2001 as a Study Coordinator for a radiotherapy trial in head and neck cancer and for an international lung cancer therapy trial. Melanie was appointed as Senior Manager to the Ethics and Regulatory office in 2003 where she was responsible for establishing policies and procedures to ensure the group’s compliance with all national and international guidelines and regulations pertaining to the conduct of clinical trials in human subjects. She was also responsible for the management of informed consent review for all trials and developed and oversaw an internal safety desk for the review of adverse events. Her research interests include chemoprevention, molecular epidemiology, risk factors for cancer, clinical trial design and research ethics.

 

Dr. Ralph Meyer received his medical degree from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario in 1978. He completed a rotating internship at Ottawa General Hospital and residency training in Internal Medicine (1982) and Hematology (1984) at McMaster University. He joined the Department of Medicine, McMaster University in 1984 where his academic interests included clinical trials and implications for health policy in the hematologic malignancies. Dr. Meyer was Professor in the Department of Medicine, Associate Member in the Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine and Division Director of Hematology (2000 – 2006) at McMaster University, and Head of Hematology–Oncology at the Juravinski Cancer Centre. He previously chaired the Hematology Site Committee of the Canadian Cancer Trials Group and the Hematology Disease Site Group, Cancer Care Ontario Practice Guidelines Initiative, and was a co-editor in the Malignant Hematology Group of the Cochrane Collaboration. Dr. Meyer has previously sat on the editorial boards of Cancer Treatment Reviews and the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
In April 2006, Dr. Meyer joined the Canadian Cancer Trials Group as Director Designate and in 2007 became the Group’s Director. Currently, Dr. Meyer is the Edith Eisenhauer Chair in Clinical Cancer Research, Professor in the Departments of Oncology, Medicine and Community Health and Epidemiology at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, and Hematologist at the Kingston General Hospital and Cancer Centre of Southeastern Ontario.

 

Wendy Parulekar is a graduate of the University of Ottawa Medical School where she also completed residency training in Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology (1996). 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 Physician Coordinator for national and international studies in carcinoma of the breast, head and neck and genitourinary 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. In 2011, she was named a Fellow of the Society for Clinical Trials.
Her academic interests include the methodology of efficient clinical trial design and conduct from a non-statistician’s perspective and the art and science of mentoring in academic medicine.