Wan Lam is an internationally renowned lung cancer researcher and was an early pioneer in gene expression and transcriptome studies. His team has developed whole-genome technologies, bioinformatics, imaging and computational biology tools for tracking genetic, epigenetic, and gene expression events critical to cancer development, progression and treatment responses in lung cancer. Over his career, Dr. Lam has received over $50 million in research funding and produced nearly 300 peer reviewed scientific articles. He is an Editor of the journal Frontiers in Oncology, and is on the editorial board of the journal Thoracic Cancer. He was the Chair of the Canadian Cancer Society Research Institute (CCSRI) Innovation Grant Panel for many years, and has been a member of grant panels for multiple Canadian (NCIC, CCSRI, CIHR, Alberta Heritage, Michael Smith) and US agencies (National Institutes of Health, US Dept. of Defense). 

Morgan Langille has expertise in microbial genomics and bioinformatics, and is focused on novel computational methods to analyze clinical and population based data. He has published 48 peer-reviewed publications, including a highly (>2,700) cited Nature Biotechnology article on PICRUSt, a software program for microbiome analysis used extensively in that field. Dr. Langille is the director of the Integrated Microbiome Resource, which provides sequencing and bioinformatics for microbiome projects from hundreds of research projects in 22 countries. He has taught over 300 trainees via international microbiome bioinformatic workshops, and served on the Council of Microbial Sciences for the American Society of Microbiology from 2015-2018. He is an editor at journals including Microbiome, mSystems, and PLoS Computational Biology. Dr. Langille leads an interdisciplinary research team incorporating computer science, statistics, sequencing and microbiology, and has several ongoing human microbiome projects including studies that demonstrating the prediction of treatment outcome in pediatric Crohn’s disease58 and identifying risk factors for infection complications in pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia. 

Anne-Marie Nicol holds a Ph.D. in Health Care and Epidemiology from UBC, and has published extensively on environmental exposures in cancer with a total of 23 peer-reviewed publications in health journals. Dr. Nicol is currently an Associate Professor of Professional Practice at Simon Fraser University where she teaches toxicology, environmental health and risk assessment in the Master’s of Public Health program. She is a lead investigator of the Health Canada-funded “Take Action on Radon" Program, where she leads community level initiatives to reduce radon levels. Dr. Nicol also works in the area of environmental knowledge translation for public health professionals through the PHAC funded National Collaborating Centre for Environmental Health (NCCEH). She is on the board of the Canadian Association for Radon Scientists and Technologists (CARST) and, as such, is integral to Canada’s radon testing standards, certification and industry association. 

Jong Sung Kim is focused on toxicology and human health risk assessment, and has published 30 peer-reviewed papers on this topic. Dr. Kim has served on the Technical Committee for the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Working Group on nanotechnology. He has been recognized by the Society of Toxicology as the recipient of “MB Research Award for Distinction in Practical In Vitro & Alternative Toxicology Methods” and the American Public Health Association for “Delta Omega Honorary Society in Public Health’s Best Paper Award”. His work responds to needs identified by end-users, including regulatory agencies and clinical professionals.  Currently, Dr. Kim is collaborating with other team members on the correlation between arsenic and other metals in toenails with chronic diseases including cancer. 

Dr. Alison Wallace is a thoracic surgeon and scientist who treats lung cancer. Based at Dalhousie University (NS), her research is focused on studying how environmental exposures lead to the development of lung cancer. Dr. Wallace is working in partnership with the Lung Association of Nova Scotia, as well as the teams lead by Evict Radon and CE2C members Dr. Dellaire and Dr. Goodarzi, to understand the relationship between residential radon exposure and lung cancer incidence and outcomes in Canada

Trevor Dummer is an environmental epidemiologist and population health scientist with training in geographic information science (GIS). He is focused on how the environment influences health and has published 80 peer-reviewed papers in this field. His current work involves cancer prevention through community knowledge translation, especially related to environmental exposures. He is a member of the Centre of Excellence in Cancer Prevention, a unique collaboration between University of British Columbia (UBC) and the Canadian Cancer Society focused on vertical integration of researchers and practitioners to conduct scientific research that informs policy and practice for cancer control. Dr. Dummer had led several arsenic studies, including quantifying cancer risk in relation to arsenic levels around current maximum acceptable concentration levels and knowledge-to-action research identifying barriers to testing and remediation of arsenic in private wells. Current funded research connects population health, epigenomics, environmental exposures and risk assessment and communication. 

Paola Marcato is an expert on understanding the role of CSLCs and epigenetic factors (i.e. DNA methylation, histone modifications, and long non-coding RNA; lncRNA) in cancer progression and response to therapy. She has published 50 peer-reviewed publications, with highlights including discoveries from 2011-2019 on the CSLC marker ALDH1A3, its role in cancer progression and regulation of a pro-cancer stem survival lncRNA NRAD. Her team are now investigating the potential of ALDH1A3 as a target for anti-cancer drugs, which has garnered international interest from top-30 pharmaceutical company Eisai (who have awarded Dr. Marcato multiple research contracts). Specifically related to the effects of arsenic on DNA methylation and treatment, Dr. Marcato’s lab has demonstrated that effective treatment of acute promyelocytic leukemia requires sustained demethylation of target genes by arsenic. This research was initiated by Dr. Marcato’s growing interest in studying the long-term epigenetic effects of arsenic and how it affects the tumour microenvironment and CSLC population. 

Natalie Saint-Jacques is an early career investigator with expertise in environmental health. She has published 15 peer-reviewed papers in this area, and holds funding from CIHR, NSHRF and CCS. Her program is focused on urinary tract cancer risk attributable to low-level arsenic exposure in Nova Scotia well drinking water, using epidemiology, health, physical geography and geospatial statistics. Dr. Saint-Jacques has funding to develop a platform to assess the joint distribution of cancers and how they relate to neighborhood socioeconomic profiles, built environments and prevalent risk factors including environmental carcinogens such as arsenic and radon. 

Michael Wieser’s research is driven by the challenge to develop advanced and reliable analytical technologies with real-world applications to the relationship between our environment, our health and Earth systems. Dr. Wieser has published 51 peer-reviewed papers on the distribution and abundance of isotopes of importance in biogeochemical processes using mass spectrometry. He is a member of TITAN collaboration (TRIUMF Ion Trap for Atomic and Nuclear Science) at the TRIUMF particle accelerator laboratory in BC, which works at the frontiers of nuclear physics. Dr. Wieser is actively involved with the Commission on Isotopic Abundances and Atomic Weights, a commission under the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry responsible for the evaluation and dissemination of atomic weight and isotope abundance data in education, research and industry. 

Dr. Victor Martinez is a Clinical Genomics Specialist (IWK Health Centre) and Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Medicine, Dalhousie University. Dr. Martinez’s research interests combine clinical bioinformatics, genomics, and environmental carcinogenesis. He started his research career investigating the effects of arsenic in the genome of lung tumours. Subsequently, he used next-generation sequencing technologies to further characterize genomic and epigenomic changes associated with exposure to environmental carcinogens. On his clinical research, Dr. Martinez is leading the implementation of whole exomes and genomes for the detection of disease-causing genetic and structural variants in cancer and rare diseases.