Rebecca Barnes is the Executive Director for the Network of Networks (N2). She has spent her career working in different leadership roles, all with the common thread of enhancing health research capacity through sustainable systems and processes and robust stakeholder engagement. This included serving as CTRNet’s Program Leader for close to ten years. Other previous roles include overseeing research engagement for the Vancouver Island Health Authority, serving as Lead for CIHR’s Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research Initiative on Vancouver Island, and working as Director of the University of Victoria’s Office of the Vice-President Research and Innovation. Rebecca holds a Bachelor of Science (Biology) and a Master’s degree (Environmental Toxicology/Carcinogenesis).

Dr. Jonathan Bush is a pediatric and perinatal pathologist who completed his pediatric pathology fellowship training at Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago/Northwestern University after obtaining his MD and anatomical pathology residency training at the University of Manitoba. Dr. Bush has been a staff pathologist at BC Children’s and Women’s Hospital, investigator at the BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute, and clinical faculty member at the University of British Columbia since 2015.
The primary research interests of Dr. Bush’s include pediatric tumors, with a special interest in osteosarcoma where he is a study member of the Children’s Oncology Group AOST2031 clinical trial. He also has an interest in using proteogenomics to evaluate inter and intra-tumoral heterogeneity in a wide variety of pediatric cancers. Non-oncologic interests include pathologies of the gastrointestinal tract, placenta, and embryo and fetus.
After completing courses offered by Dr. Peter Watson and the UBCx program in biobanking, Dr. Bush took on the role of Co-Director at the BC Children’s Hospital Biobank. His focus is on expanding the collection of pediatric solid tumor samples and expanding the specimen processing methods to include cryopreserved and primary culture formats.

Jean-Yves Masson is an internationally recognized expert in DNA repair mechanisms. His interest in DNA repair began during his PhD where he studied the function of base excision repair enzymes. He then completed his postdoctoral studies at Clare Hall laboratories to study DNA repair by homologous recombination using biochemical and cellular approaches. He was recruited at the Laval University Cancer Center in 2002 and became in 2013 the director of the Molecular Biology, Medical Biochemistry, and Pathology Department. He has over 150 publications in several high-impact journals such as Science, Nature Communications, and Molecular Cell. He is an Editor of Nucleic Acids Research, NAR cancer, Scientific reports, and Biology direct and currently holds a Tier I Canada research chair in DNA repair and cancer therapeutics. Throughout his career, Dr. Masson focused on radiation and chemicals that impede DNA replication to induce DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) in cancer or rare diseases such as Fanconi anemia. Failure to remove these breaks leads to cell death, genetic mutations, gross chromosome rearrangements, cell transformation and cancer. He is one of the few world experts on PALB2, a protein which is getting scientific and public attention as PALB2 mutations increase breast cancer by 6-8 fold. He established that PALB2 deficient cells are very sensitive to PARP inhibitors, a very promising therapeutic avenue for breast/ovarian cancer.  Dr. Masson, a Canadian Academy of Health Sciences fellow, was awarded the Quebec Breast Cancer Foundation Scientific Distinction Award in 2022. Later that year, he became the director of the FRQS Oncopole Quebec Cancer Research Network (RRCancer.ca). 

Schacter is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Internal Medicine of the University of Manitoba and member of the Department of Medical Oncology and Hematology at CancerCare Manitoba. He has published 90 manuscripts and over 100 abstracts and made about 70 invited presentations. From 1993 to 2003 he was President and CEO of CancerCare Manitoba. He then became CEO of the Canadian Association of Provincial Cancer Agencies (CAPCA) from 2003 until 2008.  He was previously the Principal Investigator for CTRNet and he was President of the International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories (2016/17) and was a member of the Board for eight years. Most recently he has lead the development and diffusion of the ISBER Qualification in Biorepository Science qualification examination for biobanking professionals. He has also been a member of the SCC Mirror Committee for ISO TC276 and contributed to the development of the ISO20387 – Biotechnology-Biobanking-General requirements for biobanking.

Dr. Trudel obtained her medical degree in Québec City at the Université Laval in 2005 while completing a master degree in Experimental Medicine in 2004 (combined MD/MSc program) working on biomarkers in prostate cancer. She completed her residency in Anatomical Pathology at the Université Laval in 2011. During her residency, she entered the Clinician-Investigator (CI) Program of the Royal College of Canada and she was appointed as residents' representative in the CI Program and she completed her PhD in 2014. From 2011 to 2013, Dr. Trudel worked in the area of prostate cancer as part of The Terry Fox Foundation Strategic Health Research Training Program in Cancer Research at Canadian Institutes of Health Research and Ontario Institute of Cancer Research (Molecular Oncologic Pathology). Since 2014, Dr. Trudel is a clinician scientist at the CHUM (Centre Hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal), and her main research interests are the characterization of an aggressive variant of prostate cancer, intraductal carcinoma of the prostate, and the application of Raman spectroscopy to clinical diagnosis of tumors. She is the only pathologist in Canada who received twice the Junior Scientist Award of the Canadian Association of Pathologists/Association canadienne des pathologistes. She is the co-director of the molecular pathology platform at the CHUM research center and is a reference pathologist in large biobanking initiative such as the Canadian Prostate Cancer Biomarker Network (CPCBN). 

Dr. Lois Shepherd is a Professor in the Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine at Queen's University. 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 moved to Queen's University, Kingston in 1987. Dr. Shepherd is currently the Director of the Transfusion Medicine Service and Immunology at Kingston General Hospital. Since 1989, Dr. Shepherd has worked with the Clinical Trials Group of the NCIC (NCIC CTG) as a Senior Investigator. Her focus has been in Haematology and Breast Cancer as well as the development of the National Tumor/Tissue/Data Repository associated with the NCIC Clinical Trials Group where she is the Operational Director of this resource.

Dr. Tsao is a Pathologist and Senior Scientist at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Professor of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology at the University of Toronto, and the Qasim Choksi Chair in Lung Cancer Translational Research. His research focuses on dissecting the genomic aberrations in lung cancers, identifying aberrations and gene expression signatures that can be used clinically as prognostic markers of survival and predictive markers of response to therapies. Many of these studies involve the use of banked snap-frozen and archival pathology samples from patients involved in pivotal lung cancer clinical trials. He has published more than 320 peer-reviewed manuscripts. Dr. Tsao is the co-Chair of the Correlative Science and Tumor Biology Committee of the National Cancer Institute of Canada Clinical Trials Group (NCIC CTG). He received the 2011 O. Harold Warwick Award from the Canadian Cancer Society. He is the Director of the Terry Fox Foundation Training Program in Clinician Scientists in Oncologic Pathology.

Dr. Zhaolin Xu is a Pulmonary Pathologist and Cytopathologist at the Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre in Halifax, Professor of Pathology at the Dalhousie University, and Senior Scientist at the Beatrice Hunter Cancer Research Institute. He obtained specialist certification from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada in 1997, and the American Board of Pathology in 1998. He is also the Chair of Research Committee, and Medical Advisory Committee member, Lung Cancer Canada. His research focuses on lung cancer molecular profiling, immune check point PD-L1, liquid biopsy for genomic analysis and proteomics in cancer cells. He is one of the two founders and the Director of the QEII Lung Tumor Bank since 2005, which has now become one of the largest and the most comprehensive lung tumor bank in the country. He is the driving force to establish multiplexed molecular profiling in a true reflexive fashion for lung cancer in a clinical setting in Halifax since 2012. Such practice and approach was the first of this kind in Canada, which is now widely accepted in the country.

Lincoln Stein is an MD/PhD who works on biological data integration and visualization. After his training at Harvard Medical School, where he became a board-certified pathologist, he worked at the Whitehead Institute/MIT Center for Genome Research developing databases used for the mouse and human genome maps. From 1998-2008 he worked at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on a variety of genome-scale databases including WormBase, the database of the C. elegans genome, Gramene, a comparative genome mapping database for rice and other monocots, the International HapMap Project Database, and a human biological pathways database called Reactome. He is now Head, Adaptive Oncology, at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research in Toronto, where he works on a number of large-scale genomic data integration projects, including the PanCancer Analysis of Whole Genomes Project, and the International Cancer Genome Consortium

As Director of the Joint Genomics Program of the University Health Network and Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, Dr. Trevor Pugh investigates clinical implications of clonal shifts in cancer and non-cancerous cell populations during treatment. He is a board-certified molecular geneticist (ABMG/ACMG) and cancer genomics researcher specializing in application of cell-free DNA, immune repertoire, and single cell RNA-seq sequencing to clinical specimens.

Under his leadership, the Joint Genomics Program has undergone accreditation by CAP and IQMH/ISO to enable clinical reporting of whole genome, transcriptome, and circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) sequencing. Major research contributions have included establishment of ctDNA changes as a predictor of immunotherapy response; invention of a hybrid-capture method for immune repertoire profiling; pioneering ctDNA sequencing and establishing clinical laboratory guidelines for multiple myeloma; genome characterization of several pediatric solid tumours; and deployment of genome technologies and software to support clinical genomic testing. He chairs working groups within national and international genomics data-sharing programs including AACR GENIE and the Terry Fox Marathon of Hope Cancer Centres Network. He leads one of four NIH-funded teams to develop cBioPortal, and has been funded by Genome Canada to build CReSCENT, a cloud-based system for analysis and sharing single cell genomics data. His translational role brings him in contact with a diversity of leading clinical trialists, many of whom are early adopters of the Pugh labs’ genome profiling methods

Dr. Jennifer Chan is a pathologist-scientist and the Director of the Arnie Charbonneau Cancer Institute at the University of Calgary. She earned a bachelor's degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Dartmouth College, and an MD from McGill University. She then completed her residency in Anatomic Pathology, fellowship in Neuropathology, and research fellowship in oncology at Harvard Medical School and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Following her clinical and research training, she held the role of Pathology Leader at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, where she oversaw the tissue and biospecimen support for its cancer studies. Jennifer's ability to traverse between the lab and the clinic has enabled her to bring together investigators from across the cancer research continuum. She has led, co-led, and contributed to several projects to discover new genes and therapeutic targets in a range of cancers through her expertise in tissue histopathologic and molecular analysis, biologic correlates of clinical studies, biobanking, and patient-derived model generation.

Dr Sachin Katyal is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics at the University of Manitoba and is Director of the Manitoba Tumour Bank. Dr. Katyal’s research program studies how normal and tumour cells repair DNA damage, primarily understanding the mechanisms in brain tumours and chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).

Dr Katyal has received many awards for his work including the CIHR Institute of Cancer Research 2014 Early Career Award in Cancer Research and a CIHR New Investigator award. Dr. Katal has established industrial partnerships, which have facilitated the development of innovative methodological platforms to accelerate my DNA damage repair research program.

In his role as the Director of the Manitoba Tumour Bank, Dr. Katyal strives to expand the remit of this invaluable biorepository resource so as to link basic and clinical cancer researchers, engage patient partners and the Manitoba public health system to create and expand translational research capacity and teams. A major initiative launched by Dr. Katyal is the “Manitoba Onco-Multiomics initiative” (MOMi). This new TFRI MOHCCN-supported study aims to profile solid tumours from Manitoban cancer patients with highly aggressive disease, that have poor prognoses, and alter patient treatment trajectories by matching patients onto clinical trials earlier in their disease progression through multiomics- and AI-mediated precision oncology methodologies

Dr. Wang is a distinguished surgical pathologist specializing in genitourinary pathology. He earned his MD from Tongji Medical University and completed his Ph.D. and Anatomic Pathology residency at UBC. Following a fellowship in GU Pathology at the MD Anderson Cancer Center, Dr. Wang commenced his role as a consultant pathologist at BC Cancer in 2017. Currently, he serves as a Clinical Associate Professor at UBC, heads the Department of BC Cancer Pathology, and leads as the principal pathologist of BC Cancer GU BioBank.

Recognized as a prominent clinician-scientist and academic pathologist, Dr. Wang boasts an impressive publication record, with over 60 peer-reviewed original articles featured in esteemed journals such as Nature Communications and the American Journal of Surgical Pathology. Additionally, he has contributed to two book chapters and has been invited as a speaker for various conferences, garnered numerous awards from UBC Health, Faculty of Medicine, and Pathology department.