Experts
Khanh Dao Duc got his PhD in applied mathematics in 2013 from the Ecole Normale Superieure (Paris, France) under the supervision of Dr. David Holcman, and did his postdoctoral training with Professor Yun Song at UC Berkeley and UPenn from 2014 to 2019. He joined UBC in 2019 as an assistant professor in Mathematics and associate member in Computer Science, where he runs an interdisciplinary group that develops theoretical and computational methods and tools for analyzing biological data and study various biological processes across biological scales. Recent works include computational methods for Cryo-EM, database and web application for ribosome structures, pipeline to analyze Ribo-seq data, cell shape analysis and algorithm from AFM and fluorescence image data, ML methods for interpreting electronic health records.
Kieran received his BSc from the University of Edinburgh in Mathematical Physics followed by a masters in Computational Biology at Cambridge University and a DPhil (PhD) in statistical genomics at Oxford University. He was subsequently a Banting postdoctoral fellow at the University of British Columbia and BC Cancer Agency (2017-2019). He is now Principal Investigator & Scientist at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Molecular Genetics and Statistical Sciences, University of Toronto, and affiliate faculty at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research.
Laura Hug seeks to define microbial diversity and function at contaminated sites using culture-based and culture-independent methods, generating a blueprint of which species are there and which pathways are active.
Her research expands our understanding of the tree of life, while simultaneously developing solutions to address the impacts of human activities on the environment.
Prior to joining OICR in 2006, Dr. Stein played an integral role in many large-scale data initiatives at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Genome Center. He led the development of the first physical clone map of the human genome, and ran the data coordinating centre and the data portal for the SNP Consortium and the HapMap Consortium. Dr. Stein has also led the creation and development of Wormbase, a community model organism database for C. elegans, and Reactome, which is now the largest open community database of biological reactions and pathways.
At OICR, Dr. Stein has led several international cancer data sharing and research initiatives, including the creation and development of the data coordination centre for the International Cancer Genome Consortium and other related projects. He continues to collaborate with national and international partners to create and promote data sharing standards, protocols and implementations.
Lingling Jin received her Ph.D. degree in Computer Science specializing in Bioinformatics from the University of Saskatchewan. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of Saskatchewan and an adjunct faculty member at Thompson Rivers University. Her primary research interest is in the computational modelling of genome evolution and various aspects of Comparative Genomics and Phenomics with specific attention on flowering plants. Her research aims to improve our understanding of plant genomes and the consequences of genome evolution.
Dr. Strug is a Professor in the Departments of Statistical Sciences, Computer Science and cross-appointed in Biostatistics at the University of Toronto and is a Senior Scientist in the Program in Genetics and Genome Biology at the Hospital for Sick Children. She is the Lead of the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis (CF) Gene Modifier Study, Co-Lead of the International CF Gene Modifier Consortium, Director of the Ontario Regional Centre of the Canadian Statistical Sciences Institute (CANSSI) and the inaugural Academic Director of the Data Science Initiative (DSI) at the University of Toronto. As a statistical geneticist, her research focuses on the development of novel statistical approaches to analyze and integrate multi-omics data to identify genetic contributors to complex human disease. She has received several honours and awards including the Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Genome Data Science.
Dr. Lourdes Peña-Castillo,PhD, is a Professor in the Departments of Computer Science and Biology (jointly appointed) in the Faculty of Science at Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN). She leads the Bioinformatics lab at MUN which is focused on the application of machine learning-based methods to solve microbiology problems. Before coming to MUN, Dr. Peña-Castillo obtained her Ph.D. from the Otto-von-Guericke University in Germany and did a 3-year postdoc in the Banting and Best Department of Medical Research at the University of Toronto.
Marcel Turcotte is a Computer Science Professor at the University of Ottawa’s School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. His group applies machine learning, algorithm design, and efficient data structures to solve complex bioinformatics problems such as identifying cell type-specific DNA signatures of transcription factor binding, classifying non-coding RNA sequences, and determining RNA virus-host susceptibility.
Dr. Marra has demonstrated the pivotal role that genomics can play in human health and disease research, including through contributions to the Human Genome Project, leading the sequencing of the SARS coronavirus genome and first proof-of-concept study demonstrating the effective use of whole genome analyses in personalized cancer medicine. His research has uncovered new cancer mutations, candidate biomarkers and therapeutic targets, and has been instrumental in demonstrating the functional interplay between the cancer genome and epigenome.
Pr. Brunet qualified as a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine and later completed her PhD at the University of Cambridge under a prestigious Gates Cambridge scholarship. She did her postdoc in Biochemistry and Functional Genomics at the University of Sherbrooke, before establishing her own research group at the University of Sherbrooke in 2021. With collaborator Pr Roucou, she develops and manages the OpenProt resource, the first proteogenomics resource endorsing a polycistronic annotation of eukaryotic genomes. Beyond OpenProt, her research focuses on non-annotated coding sequences in our genomes, notably within pseudogenes. She is part of the international Ribo-seq ORF consortium. She uses both fundamental and computational research methods to better explore biological data and understand human diseases. She holds a research chair in Multi-omics and Deep Learning, and a FRQS Junior 1 career grant recognizing her leadership at the intersection of health sciences and artificial intelligence.
Marie-Pierre Dubé has been the director of the Beaulieu-Saucier Pharmacogenomics Centre at the Montreal Heart Institute since 2011 and a full professor at the University of Montreal since 2005. She holds the Canada Research Chair in Data Analysis for Precision Medicine and has received multiple awards and career grants. Over the years, she has led several large-scale research projects funded by governmental agencies. As the author of over 200 scientific articles, her research in pharmacogenomics has notably led to the creation of the pharmaceutical company DalCor. Her research interests include studying the impact of sex, gender, and temperature extremes on health and drug response, particularly in the context of cardiovascular diseases and diabetes.