Dr. Trang Hoang is Principal Investigator and Director of the Laboratory of "Hematopoiesis and Leukemia", Institute for Research in Immunology and Cancer (IRIC) and Professor of Pharmacology and Physiology at the Université de Montréal (UdeM). She completed her PhD at the Swiss Cancer Institute in Lausanne, Switzerland, and her postdoctoral trainings in the Department of Immunology at Cambridge University, UK, and in Medical Genetics at the Ontario Cancer Institute in Toronto. In 1986, Dr. Hoang was recruited to the Clinical Research Institute of Montreal. She became Chair of the graduate program of Molecular Biology at UdeM for fifteen years, before assuming a position as Chair of the Medical and Scientific Advisory Committee, Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of Canada (LLSC) for five years, until 2017.

Dr. Hoang has been a tireless advocate of interdisciplinary research, and instilled this distinctive character to the Graduate program of Molecular Biology of UdeM in the nineties. In 2003, she contributed with several other colleagues to the creation of IRIC, a cutting-edge research institute that integrates systems biology and translational research. In 2006, she implemented with her colleagues at IRIC the new graduate curriculum in Systems biology and Cancer at the Université de Montréal. The IRIC team led by Dr. Hoang received the Award of excellence in graduate training from the Faculty of Medicine. Her research is consistently published in top-tier journals. She has trained over 72 students and postdoctoral fellows who later held leadership positions in academia, in biotech companies or in funding agencies. Throughout her career as mentor, she has fostered creativity in women and encouraged them to pursue careers in research.

Recognized for her expertise at the forefront of normal and leukemic stem cell biology, Dr. Hoang has served on Canadian and international grant review panels, as well as advisory boards of the Québec Health Research Funds (Fonds de Recherche du Québec-Santé) and of the LLSC. Dr. Hoang is an Officer of the National Order of Québec (Ordre National du Québec, 2019) and a Commander of the Order of Montréal (Ordre de Montréal, 2019) for her pivotal work in acute lymphoblastic leukemia and for developing and nurturing multidisciplinary skills in cancer research to train the next generation of scientists.

Dr. Hoang’s research has provided decisive insights into the molecular mechanism of leukemogenesis, initiated by the oncogenic reprogramming of normal precursors into aberrantly self-renewing pre-leukemic stem cells. Replicative stress in these cells leads to the accumulation of additional mutations and converts pre-LSCs into hypercompetitive leukemia propagating cells. Her current research involves quantitative analysis of chemical-genetic interactions in mammalian cells, using high throughput functional assays for the systematic identification of pre-LSC vulnerabilities.

Jean-Philippe Julien received his B.Sc. from McGill University, obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto, and trained as a postdoctoral fellow at The Scripps Research Institute. In Fall 2014, he joined the Molecular Medicine Program at the Hospital for Sick Children Research Institute and the Departments of Biochemistry and Immunology at the University of Toronto where he leads a team of multi-disciplinary researchers. His laboratory focuses on the molecular characterization of antibodies by studies of their interactions with a variety of viral, bacterial, parasitic and cell-surface antigens, providing the atomic blueprints for the development of next-generation therapeutics and vaccines. Notably, he is a Canada Research Chair in Structural Immunology, a CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar and a Member of the College of the Royal Society of Canada.

Peter Davies grew up in Liverpool, UK, and obtained his B.Sc. in Biochemistry and Soil Science from the University of Wales. His Ph.D. research on the ATPase of oxidative phosphorylation in E. coli was done in Phil Bragg’s lab at UBC in the Department of Biochemistry. After post-doctoral training in Lund, Sweden, with Professor Klaus Mosbach on affinity chromatography, and in Calgary, AB, with Gordon Dixon on protamine mRNA, Peter joined the Department of Biochemistry at Queen’s University, Kingston, as an MRC Scholar. Some of his early work was on the cloning and sequencing of fish antifreeze protein genes. A timely sabbatical leave in Michael Smith’s lab helped redirect some of this research effort towards protein structure-function relationships. This has been a consistent research theme over the years that he has also applied to calpains, the intracellular cysteine proteases of calcium signaling, and more recently to bacterial adhesins that help their hosts colonize various surfaces. Peter is currently the Canada Research Chair in Protein Engineering in the Department of Biomedical and Molecular Sciences at Queen’s with a cross-appointment in the Department of Biology.