Quest for orthologs 2024

I received an undergraduate degree in human biology and zoology at the University of Toronto, M.Sc. in laboratory medicine and pathobiology at the SickKids Research Institute, followed by a Ph.D. in molecular genetics with Profs. Charlie Boone and Brenda J. Andrews at the Donnelly Centre, University of Toronto. I then conducted postdoctoral work with Prof. Morag Park at the Goodman Cancer Research Centre, McGill University. Currently, I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology at Concordia University and affiliated with the Centre for Applied Synthetic Biology and Centre for Structural & Functional Genomics, as well as Canada Research Chair Tier 2 in Synthetic and Functional Genomics. I am cross-appointed to the Goodman Cancer Institute and the Department of Human Genetics at McGill University. My main research area is integrative synthetic and functional genomics, with a focus on complex genetic interaction networks.

Markus Hecker is a Professor and a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Predictive Toxicology and Chemical Safety with 26 years of experience in conducting research in environmental toxicology and chemical safety assessment. He is considered a global expert in environmental risk assessment, ecotoxicogenomics, hazard characterization of contaminants in native fishes and amphibians, and development of alternatives to live animal testing. Dr. Hecker is a member of the College of the Royal Society of Canada, an endowed guest professor at Goethe University in Frankfurt (Germany) and a visiting/guest professor at Xiamen University (China). He served as the co-Editor-in-Chief of Aquatic Toxicology and is/was an advisor/expert to several national and international organizations including Environment and Climate Change Canada, Health Canada, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the European Food Security Agency and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Markus has authored or co-authored over 230 peer-reviewed papers, review articles, editorials and book chapters over his career (H-Index: 61).

Keywords: Adverse outcome pathways, alternatives to animal testing, aquatic toxicology, cross-species extrapolation, ecological risk assessment, endocrine disruption, environmental DNA, fish biology, in vitro assays, new approach methods, one health, test validation, toxicogenomics.

The Orengo Group's research focuses on how proteins function and evolve, how relatives in a family acquire new functions and how they evolve to operate in different biological contexts. Over twenty years ago, the group established the CATH evolutionary classification of protein domains which is a partner resource in InterPro and widely accessed. The Orengo Group develops methods for predicting functions for proteins and the networks they participate in. They are interested in integrating heterogenous functional genomics data to learn how protein networks rewire during evolution and under different biological conditions. To optimise and validate these methods the group collaborate with experimental groups characterising the signalling processes involved in development, neuropathic pain, ageing and cancer. Orengo has collaborated with over 30 groups worldwide and several consortia including the EU funded InteGr8, Biosapiens, EMBRACE, ENFIN, IMPACT, Europain consortia exploiting CATH tools and data, the NIH funded MCSG, SGCID consortia researching structural genomics and the CRUK funded LPC and DDIP consortia researching biological networks. The original CATH resource publication has been cited ~2600 times. Christine Orengo became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology in 2014, an elected member of EMBO in 2014, and a Fellow of the International Society of Computational Biology in 2016. She has been on the board of ISCB since 2011 and a Vice president of ISCB since 2013.

Fiona Brinkman is a Distinguished Professor in Bioinformatics and Genomics at Simon Fraser University, interested in developing more preventative, sustainable, and holistic approaches for infectious disease control and supporting health. She is most known for R&D of software and databases aiding analysis of microbial and human omics data, including PSORT, IslandViewer, Pseudomonas.com, and InnateDB.com. She leads data integration for the CHILD Cohort Study - the largest multidisciplinary, longitudinal, population-based birth cohort study in Canada, including diverse omics data. She has co-led development of the IRIDA.ca platform, which is now the primary platform for Canada’s Public Health Agency to analyze infectious disease outbreaks using combined epidemiological/lab/genomics data. She contributed to the pandemic response, co-leading Data Analytics for the Canadian COVID-19 Genomics Network and more recently CoVaRR-Net. She has a strong interest in bioinformatics education and mentoring young scientists. She is on several committees/Boards, including the ELIXIR and European Nucleotide Archive Scientific Advisory Boards. Her awards include a TR100 award from MIT, Thompson Reuters “World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds”, and most recently she received a University of Waterloo Distinguished Alumni Award and became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.