The Team

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Dr. Steven Jones, Genomics and Bioinformatics Node

Steven Jones is a Professor, FRSC, FCAHS Associate Director and Head of Bioinformatics at the BC Cancer Agency's  Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre. Dr. Jones is also Professor of Medical Genetics at the University of British Columbia Professor, Molecular Biology & Biochemistry, Simon Fraser University.

Dr. Rod Rassekh, Clinical Site Node Lead

Dr. Rod Rassekh is a clinician at the BC Children and Women’s Hospital, Associate Clinician Scientist at the Child and Family Research Institute and Clinical Assistant Professor in the Division of Oncology at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Rassekh's research interest is in the treatment and long term outcomes of children treated for cancer, with a specific focus on quantifying what complications are seen in survivors of childhood cancer.

Dr. Caron Strahlendorf, Ethics Node

Dr. Caron Strahlendorf is the Division Head of the Division of Hematology, Oncology & Bone Marrow Transplantation at BC Children’s Hospital and is a Clinical Professor in the Division of Pediatric Oncology/Hematology/Bone Marrow Transplant, Department of Paediatrics at the University of British Columbia. Her research focuses on stem cell research (processes that will allow maximal efficient cell harvest in very young children), potential of product manipulation related to dendritic and cellular therapies, returning research results to research participants, and issues highlighting cross-cultural care as well as the psychosocial issues that present to the patients and families within different cultural populations.

Dr. Suzanne Vercauteren, Biobanking Node

Dr. Suzanne Vercauteren is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine in the Faculty of Medicine at UBC, Head of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Hematological Pathologist and Investigator at the BC Children’s Hospital.  In addition, she is the Co-Director of BC Children’s Hospital BioBank at BC Children’s Hospital. Dr. Vercauteren’s main research area of interest is biobanking and public education and engagement in research participation.

Dr. Jennifer Chan, Biobanking Node

Dr. Jennifer Chan is a neuropathologist and Assistant Professor of Pathology at the University of Calgary. She was previously Pathology Leader of the Biological Samples Platform at the Broad Institute (MIT/Harvard), overseeing development of its tissue repository, and contributed to the experimental design and execution of all tissue‐based cancer projects. Dr. Chan directs the Brain and Pediatric Tumour Bank at the University of Calgary, including the development of unique live cell resources.

Dr. Jan-Willem Henning, Adolescent and Young Adult (AYA) Node

Dr. Jan-Willem Henning is a Medical Oncologist at the Tom Baker Cancer Centre, Calgary Alberta and Clinical Assistant Professor, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary. He received his medical degree (MBChB) in 1999 from the University of Orange Free State, South Africa and after immigrating to Canada; he received his certification of specialty training in Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology at the Royal College of Canada (FRCPC). His areas of clinical expertise include Breast Cancer, Sarcoma and Adolescent and Young Adult (AYA) Oncology. Dr. Henning is the immediate past program director for the medical oncology residency program in Calgary, and currently serves as the vice-chair for the Royal College Subspecialty Training Program for Medical Oncology. His research interest includes leading therapeutic clinical trials, health services research in AYA-oncology, Breast Cancer and Sarcoma. He is the AYA-oncology medical lead in Southern Alberta and co-chair of the Systemic Treatment Council at the Tom Baker Cancer Centre.

Dr. Sapna Oberoi, Adolescent and Young Adult (AYA) Node

Dr. Sapna Oberoi is a Pediatric Oncologist-Hematologist, Assistant Professor, Affiliate Scientist, and Adolescent and young adult oncology (AYA) lead at CancerCare Manitoba. Dr. Oberoi is also a Clinical Investigator and Adjunct Scientist at the Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba (CHRIM). Her research focuses on improving the symptom management and supportive care of children and young adults with cancer to improve their overall outcomes and quality of life during and after cancer treatment. Another area of her research is to improve outcomes for children and young adults with sarcomas.

Dr. Lesleigh Abbott, Adolescent and Young Adult (AYA) Node

Dr. Lesleigh Abbott is a Pediatric Hematologist/Oncologist at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) and an Assistant Professor at the University of Ottawa. Her oncology expertise is in sarcomas, lymphoma, adolescents and young adults with cancer and post-bone marrow transplants. Her current research focuses on quality of life in early phase clinical trials, the development and implementation of early phase clinical trials as well as access to clinical trials for adolescents and young adults. She is actively involved in the PROFYLE project as a co-clinical site lead at CHEO and involvement in the therapeutic node. She is also interested in differences between AYAs and younger patients in terms of side effects to treatment and barriers to clinical trial enrolment. Dr. Abbott is a researcher at the CHEO Research Institute and the Principal Investigator on a C17 study looking at quality of life in phase 1 studies. Dr. Abbott recently co-chaired a task force on the relapse registry for C17 through her work on the C17 Developmental Therapeutics committee. Finally, she is the Program Director for our subspecialty residency program as well as a mentor to fellows, residents and medical students at the University of Ottawa.

Dr. Jason Berman, Model Systems Node

Dr. Jason Berman is the CEO and Scientific Director of Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute (CHEO RI) and the VP Research of CHEO. Dr. Berman's lab uses the zebrafish model to study mast cell biology and model human cancers. His group has pioneered a human zebrafish cancer xenograft platform to study tumour-drug responses and interaction with the microenvironment. They also study genotype-phenotype correlations in rare genetic diseases.

Dr. Avram Denburg, Health Technology Assessment/Pharmaceutical Policy/Drug Access

Dr. Avram Denburg is a staff oncologist and clinician-scientist in the Division of Hematology/Oncology at the Hospital for Sick Children. He has a Master of Science in Health Policy, Planning and Financing from the London School of Economics, and a PhD in Health Policy from McMaster University. Dr. Denburg’s research centres on the analysis and strengthening of childhood cancer care systems, with specific focus on issues related to pharmaceutical policy, health technology assessment, and drug access. Dr. Denburg is Immediate Past Chair of the Essential Medicines Committee for the International Society of Pediatric Oncology, Chair of the Drugs & Therapeutics Committee at The Hospital for Sick Children. He serves as an expert member of the pan-Canadian Oncology Drug Review for the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health and the Ontario Steering Committee for Cancer Drugs. Dr. Denburg currently leads a Terry Fox Research Institute-funded program of research to develop a national policy framework for access to precision cancer therapies for children and youth in Canada.

Dr. Cynthia Hawkins, Biomarker Node

Dr. Hawkins obtained her PhD in 1996 and her MD in 1997 from the University of Western Ontario. She completed her residency training in neuropathology at the University of Toronto in 2002, including a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Zurich. Dr. Hawkins joined The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) as a neuropathologist in 2002 and has been appointed at the Research Institute in the Cell Biology program since 2004. She is a principal investigator at the Arthur and Sonia Labatt Brain Tumour Research Centre and a Professor at the University of Toronto.

Dr. Meredith Irwin, Model Systems Node

Dr. Meredith Irwin is a pediatric oncologist and clinician-scientist at the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) and Associate Professor in the Department of Paediatrics & Institute of Medical Sciences at the University of Toronto. Dr. Irwin's main areas of research are p53-family protein biology, signaling, apoptosis, and neuroblastoma. Her neuroblastoma studies include the identification of signaling pathways involved in cell survival and invasion, identification of drug targets and therapies through functional screens, and cellular and animal models of metastatic neuroblastoma.

Dr. Michael Moran, Proteomics Node

Dr. Michael Moran is a Senior Scientist in Cell Biology at the SickKids Research Institute, a Professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto, and an Affiliate Scientist at Princess Margaret Hospital, Ontario Cancer Institute, University Health Network. Dr. Moran’s research interests include integrating proteomics and functional genomics datasets in order to define and stratify cancers according to their distinctive molecular signatures. Underlying signal transduction and metabolic networks, and their regulation by post-translational modifications, are then molecularly characterized for their contributions to cancer phenotypes. In addition, his research has focused on the intracellular signaling networks that control growth, survival, and spreading of tumours, and how drugs may be designed to target key components in these molecular networks. His group uses proteomics technologies including mass spectrometry and bioinformatics to identify and characterize proteins activated in cancers, and to determine drug mechanisms of action.

Dr. Daniel Morgenstern, Therapeutics Node

Dr. Daniel Morgenstern is a Staff Physician in the Solid Tumour Section, Medical Director of the Oncology & BMT/CT Clinical Trials Support Unit, Director of the New Agent and Innovative Therapy Program (NAIT), and Director of the Therapeutic MIBG Program in the Division of Haematology/Oncology at the Hospital for Sick Children, an Associate Scientist in Translational Medicine at the SickKids Research Institute, and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Paediatrics at the University of Toronto. Dr. Morgenstern’s research interests include novel therapies and clinical trials for high-risk neuroblastoma patients, early phase clinical trials, and the use of immune checkpoint inhibitors and immunotherapy for hypermutant childhood cancers.

Dr. Adam Shlien, Genomics and Bioinformatics Node

Dr. Shlien's research uses the tools of modern sequence-based genomics to discover the mutations that are present in the genomes of paediatric cancer patients, and to understand how these mutations alter the somatic transcriptome. He has a strong interest in sarcoma biology, and is directly involved with the  introduction of cutting-edge genomics, such as whole genome sequencing, into clinical practice.

Dr. James Whitlock, Therapeutics Node

Dr. James A. Whitlock is the Division Head and Women’s Auxiliary Millennium Chair in Haematology/Oncology and Director of the Garron Family Cancer Centre at The Hospital for Sick Children, Senior Associate Scientist in the Child Health Evaluative Sciences Program at the SickKids Research Institute, and Professor of Paediatrics at the University of Toronto.

Dr. Anita Villani, Molecular Tumor Board Committee

Dr. Anita Villani is an Associate Staff Oncologist in the Division of Haematology/Oncology at The Hospital for Sick Children, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Paediatrics at the University of Toronto, and the Associate Director of the SickKids Precision Oncology Research Program (“KiCS”). Dr. Villani’s clinical and research interest is in cancer genetics and predisposition, including the creation and evaluation of surveillance strategies for cancer-prone children, using both traditional and novel approaches. She is interested in exploring the clinical utility of genomic findings, describing novel germline susceptibility genes and pathways, and exploring the ethics and the stakeholder experience of precision oncology research.

Dr. Guillaume Bourque, Genomics and Bioinformatics Node

Dr. Guillaume Bourque is a professor in the Department of Human Genetics at McGill University, the Director of the Canadian Centre for Computational Genomics (C3G), the Director of Bioinformatics at McGill University and Génome Québec Innovation Center, and the head of the Epigenomics Mapping Center at McGill University. His research interests focus on understanding mammalian genomes using comparative genomic and epigenomic analyses, the evolution of regulatory sequences, the role of transposable elements in gene regulation, and the impact of genome rearrangements in evolution and cancer. His lab develops advanced tools and scalable computational infrastructure to enable large-scale applied research projects.

Dr. Nada Jabado, Biomarkers Node

Dr. Jabado is a professor in the Division of Hematology/Oncology at Montreal Children’s Hospital, McGill University. Her research focuses on genetic/genomic basis of pediatric high grade brain tumours for which she was recently awarded a large multi‐centre Genome Canada grant. She was awarded the 2012 CCS William E. Rawls Award.

Dr. Donna Senger, Model Systems Node

Dr. Donna Senger is an Associate Professor in the Gerald Bronfman Department of Oncology at McGill University, a Senior Scientist at the Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research, and an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Oncology at the University of Calgary. Dr. Senger has had a long-standing interest in the development of pediatric and adult central nervous system (CNS) tumours including defining the molecular characteristics of invasive glioma, investigating cancer stem cells as a therapeutic target, and understanding how the brain microenvironment impacts treatment. More recently, Dr. Senger’s research has focused on mechanisms important for the development of organ selective cancer metastasis, establishing in vivo cancer models for preclinical testing and identification and implementation of therapeutics for the treatment of sarcoma and metastatic melanoma. 

Dr. Daniel Sinnett, Bioinformatics Node

Dr. Daniel Sinnett is a professor in the Departments of Pediatrics and Biochemistry at the University of Montreal and holds the François-Karl Viau Research Chair in Pediatric Oncogenomics. Dr. Sinnett is currently spearheading two Canadian childhood leukemia initiatives aimed at using next-generation sequencing technologies to fully characterize the genomic determinants of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia. His group has made significant contributions in the understanding of genetic determinants of childhood leukemia both at the gene and at the genomic levels.

Dr. Stephanie Villeneuve, Policy Node and Adolescent and Young Adult (AYA) Node

Dr. Stephanie Villeneuve is a Pediatric Hematologist/Oncologist and Assistant Professor at Dalhousie University and the IWK Health Centre.  Before moving to Halifax in 2020, she completed her fellowship in Hematology/Oncology at The Hospital for Sick Children.  She is the Clinical Site Lead for PROFYLE at the IWK, and subsequently joined the Adolescent and Young Adult (AYA) and Policy Nodes.  She has a strong interest in the care of patients with leukemia, lymphoma, and bone marrow transplant.  Her research interests are in AYA oncology, supportive care, and quality improvement. 

Dr. Paul Moorehead, Biomarkers Node

Dr. Paul Moorehead is a Pediatric Hematologist/Oncologist in the Section of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology at Janeway Children’s Health and Rehabilitation Centre and a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Discipline of Pediatrics in the Faculty of Medicine at Memorial University.  His research areas of interest are pediatric oncology, the care of newborns with bleeding disorders, and pediatric thromboembolic disease.

Ms. Sandra Judd, Pediatric Oncology Drug Access Navigator

Sandra Judd is a Staff Pharmacist at the Hospital for Sick Children. Prior to commencing in the role of National Pediatric Oncology Drug Access Navigator, she supported the New Agents and Innovative Therapies (NAIT) program at SickKids. Sandra works to address unique pediatric oncology drug access issues in Canada, to better understand the regulatory, funding and access challenges faced, and to improve available resources of known drug access programs for clinicians. She serves as a local and national resource assisting pediatric, adolescent and young adult cancer patients and their care teams to navigate regulatory, funding and access processes in order to obtain novel, innovative or investigational drug therapies.