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August/September 2016 Laboratory Focus www.laboratoryfocus.ca
Appointments
Rob Baker has taken the reins as McMaster’s new vice-president Research. Baker previously served as McMaster’s Dean of Science, coming to McMaster from the University of Toronto in July 2013. A behavioural ecologist, Baker has more than 30 years of research experience of his own, much of it spent trying to better understand
art comes to the NRC from the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, where he held several senior positions, most recently associate secretary. He has also served in a number of leadership positions in the innovation, science and economic development portfolio. Previously, he was the assistant vice-president of research at Dalhousie University. Stewart replaces outgoing president John McDougall, who has decided to retire from the public service. Ms. Maria Aubrey will continue acting as president of the NRC until Mr. Stewart begins in late August.
Dr. Gary Newton, (CNW Group/Sinai Health System)
Rob Baker
the evolution of animal behaviour. He has also spent many years as a university administrator: first as chair of biology at the University of Toronto in Mississauga, and as associate dean of science at that campus. On U of T’s St. George campus he served as chair of the Department of Zoology, chair of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and, in the Faculty of Arts and Science, vice-dean of Graduate Education and Research and vice-dean, Research and Infrastructure. ChroMedX Corp. has named Ash Kaushal as its new president and CEO, effective immediately. Mr. Kaushal has over 25 years of experience in product development in the medical, defence, safety and nuclear industries. He has also held vice president and senior level management positions with several Canadian and British corporations throughout his career including NIR Science Corp and NIR Diagnostics Corp in Campbellvile, ON; CME Telemetrix in Waterloo; Indal Technologies in Mississauga, ON and several companies based in England, UK. Kaushal takes over from Wayne Maddever who has stepped down as an officer and director of ChroMedX Corp. Dr. Gary Newton, currently chief medical strategy officer and Physician-in-Chief of Sinai Health
System, will assume the role of president and CEO of Sinai Health System, effective October 3, 2016. Dr. Newton is a graduate of the University of Toronto Medical School and has been on faculty at the University of Toronto since 1996. He completed internal medicine at the University of Toronto and training in adult cardiology at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute. Additionally, Dr. Newton served as the head of the Division of Cardiology, University Health Network and Mount Sinai Hospital, from 2009 through 2013. He was appointed Physician-in-Chief at Mount Sinai Hospital in November 2013 and assumed his current role in January 2015. Vaxil Bio has hired Dr. Limor Chen as the company’s new vice president. Dr. Chen is a highly experienced scientist, having been a senior researcher and team leader within the Special Projects Division at Israel’s largest pharmaceutical company, Teva. Most recently, Dr. Chen worked as head of business development for an Israeli biotech, which was successful in listing on the NASDAQ. Dr. Chen earned his Ph.D. at Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science, in the laboratory of prof. Ruth Arnon, the developer of Teva’s blockbuster Copaxone against Multiple Sclerosis. He was a Research Fellow at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, and at the Sunnybrook Research Institute in Toronto. The National Research Council of Canada (NRC) has named Iain Stewart as its new president effective August 24, 2016. Stew-
ProMIS Neurosciences has appointed Dr. Johanne Kaplan to the post of chief development officer. Dr. Kaplan joins ProMIS following 24 years at Genzyme, where she held positions of increasing responsibility culminating in her decade-long tenure as VP of Research. ProNAi Therapeutics appoints Dr. Christian Hassig as senior vice president of research. In his new role he will lead ProNAi’s research activities from discovery research through to early candidate development. Dr. Hassig has a strong track record in both discovery research and preclinical development across multiple therapeutic areas and has pioneered lead discovery projects against innovative targets in oncology, from target discovery through to IND. He was formerly the vice president of Drug Discovery at the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, having previously served as its director of Drug Discovery from 2010 to 2015. Prior to this, Dr. Hassig served as the Department head of Biology at Kalypsys, Inc., a privately owned biopharmaceutical company specializing in small molecule drug discovery and development, and held multiple roles within its Biology and Lead Discovery departments. Dr. Christine Williams has joined OICR as deputy director and vice-president, outreach. Previously she was the chief mission officer for the Canadian Cancer Society and prior to that she was the national vice-president, research at the Society. She holds a PhD in Immunology from the University of Toronto and completed postdoctoral training at Massachusetts General Hospital, where she studied the
Dr. Christine Williams molecular pathways involved in the development of leukemia and lymphoma in children. TRIUMF announces that Dr. Jens Dilling will become Associate Laboratory Director for its Physical Sciences Division (ALD-Physical Sciences), effective September 2016. In this role he will work closely with TRIUMF’s Accelerator Division to strengthen isotope delivery, enabling leading edge science and discovery and preparing the lab for its new flagship facility – the Advanced Rare IsotopE Laboratory (ARIEL). A nuclear physicist and an expert in trapping radioactive isotopes, Dilling is no stranger to TRIUMF having first been recruited to the lab’s Science Division (now Physical Sciences Division) in 1995. Prior to his new role, he served as deputy and department head for nuclear physics, deputy division head of the Science Division, and most recently as the interim Associate Laboratory Director for the Physical Sciences Division. Dilling received both his undergraduate degree (Diplom) and doctorate (PhD) in physics from the University of Heidelberg in Germany. As an expert on ion traps, Dilling has been involved in experiments around the world, including at facilities at ISOLDE, CERN, and SHIP at GSI. Dilling designed, built, and operated the TITAN (TRIUMF’s Ion Trap for Atomic and Nuclear science) system at TRIUMF’s ISAC accelerator complex. Dilling also serves on many national and international committees, and received the CAP-Vogt Award for outstanding contributions to subatomic physics research in 2013.
