2020 marks 20 years of Canada Research Chairs (CRC) program, which is founded on ‘excellence in the pursuit of knowledge’. Coinciding with this anniversary is the announcement of the latest round of new chair holders, including the following three UHN scientists:
Dr. Benjamin Haibe-Kains, Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Computational Pharmacogenomics.
Dr. Haibe-Kains is a Senior Scientist at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre. His work focuses on the prediction of responses to anticancer drugs using integrative machine learning methods. His research project gains valuable insights derived from mining large-scale pharmacogenomics datasets—insights that are being leveraged to identify new drug combinations to target and kill cancer.
Dr. Catherine O’Brien, Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Translational Research in Colorectal Cancer.
Dr. O’Brien is a Scientist at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre. Her research program is centered on the non-genetic mechanisms that drive cancer progression. There is an unmet need to improve outcomes for patients with colorectal cancer; a key part of this problem is the ability of the cancer to develop resistance to chemotherapy. Dr. O’Brien’s research program aims to identify and better understand the drivers of resistance to chemotherapy and to develop novel treatments to target the mechanisms that allow the cancer to evade chemotherapy.
Dr. Paaladinesh Thavendiranathan, Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Cardio-Oncology.
Dr. Thavendiranathan is a Scientist at Toronto General Hospital Research Institute. His work focuses on the cardiovascular complications associated with cancer therapy. By identifying reliable markers for the early detection of heart injury during cancer therapy, Dr. Thavendiranathan aims to develop a risk-prediction algorithm for patients at risk of cardiovascular complications.
Congratulations to Drs. Haibe-Kains, O’Brien and Thavendiranathan!