Who’s Involved?

Dr. Howell’s research is focused on improving the patient’s experience of cancer care, through health intervention research focused on better care delivery systems and clinical interventions for complex symptoms (fatigue, breathlessness, pain). She also has an active health service research program focused on knowledge translation of best practices in care delivery, specifically the application of chronic disease self-management for survivorship. The testing of routine collection of Patient-Reported Outcomes (PRO) and their use in clinical practice to improve care quality and patient experience of cancer will enable this research. Research expertise includes qualitative and quantitative methods, with specific expertise in qualitative methods (hermeneutic phenomenology) and mixed-method study designs.

Dr. Howell leads standards and guideline development and is a member of the national distress management implementation team under the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer. Dr. Howell has a leadership role in Cancer Care Ontario in Patient-Reported Outcomes.

Dr. Liu is the Alan B. Ball Chair in Molecular Genomics at Princess Margaret Hospital, a scientist within the Applied Molecular Oncology Division of the Ontario Cancer Institute, and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto. He is also a clinician-scientist in the Department of Medical Oncology and Hematology at Princess Margaret Hospital.

Dr. Liu’s major research focus is in the area of molecular prognostic factors and pharmacogenetics of aerodigestive cancers. Trained in Clinical and Molecular Epidemiology, he is PI of several NIH grants in esophageal cancer prognosis and pharmacogenetics, as well as being Co-Investigator of several other NIH grants dealing with molecular prognostic factors and pharmacogenetics of lung cancer.

Presently, he is investigating the pharmacogenetic and molecular outcomes of over 500 esophageal cancer, 200 pancreatic cancers, and 1500 lung cancer patients from Boston, and has initiated parallel studies at Princess Margaret Hospital.

Since his arrival in Canada, he is now the correlative studies leader of six upcoming clinical trials, including three Phase I/II studies, in esophageal cancer, lung cancer, and thymoma. In addition, Dr. Liu is developing xenograft and cultured cell lines of human gastroesophageal cancer tumors for pre-clinical evaluation of novel drugs. This will strongly complement the existing xenogrant and cultured cell lines in lung cancer and pancreatic cancer at Princess Margaret Hospital.

Dr. Eitan Amir is a Medical Oncologist at Princess Margaret Hospital, Toronto and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto. Dr. Amir’s clinical interests are the treatment of breast cancer and toxicities of anti-cancer drugs.

His academic interests include meta-analysis and large database population-based studies. Dr. Amir gained his medical degree from the University of Manchester, UK and trained in medical oncology at the Christie Hospital, Manchester UK. He has also completed a PhD in Clinical Epidemiology at the University of Toronto.

Dr. Amir has over 60 peer-reviewed publications as well as numerous published abstracts and book chapters.

Dr. Barbera is Associate Professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of Toronto, with a cross appointment to the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation. She is an Adjunct Scientist at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences and a Clinician Scientist at the Odette Cancer Centre.

She is a health services researcher whose areas of interest include measuring patient experience, quality of care, palliative care and issues around sexuality in female survivors of cancer.

Her methodological areas of expertise include working with large administrative datasets, patient reported outcomes and large scale observational data collection.

Dr. Bedard is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto. He is a Staff Medical Oncologist in the Division of Medical Oncology and the Fellowship Director for the Robert & Maggie Bras and Family New Drug Development Program at the Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto.

He received his medical degree from the University of Toronto where he was awarded the Cody Academic Silver Medal. He completed his Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology specialty training at the University of Toronto. He received additional training in clinical and translational research at the Breast International Group (BIG) in Brussels, Belgium. He is a board certified fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada and the American Board of Internal Medicine. He received a 2012 Career Development Award by the Conquer Cancer Foundation of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

His clinical practice involves the treatment of patients with breast and testicular cancers. He is a principal investigator for a number of ongoing phase I/II clinical trials in breast cancer and other advanced solid malignancies.

Dr. Bradbury is a medical oncologist; Assistant Professor within the Department of Oncology at Queen’s University working as a physician coordinator at the NCIC Clinical Trials Group, and holds a Cancer Care Ontario Research Chair in Experimental Therapeutics.

She is a graduate of Cardiff University Medical School, UK. She undertook specialist medical oncology training at the MidCentral Regional Cancer Treatment Service in New Zealand, and at the Cancer Research UK Medical Oncology Department, Churchill Hospital, Oxford, UK, obtaining the FRACP in 2005. She undertook fellowship training in Thoracic Oncology at Princess Margaret Hospital, Toronto, and a one year Drug Development Fellowship with the NCIC Clinical Trials Group, as part of The Terry Fox Foundation Training Program in Transdisciplinary Cancer Research at Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

She has a research interest in the evaluation of new therapies for the management of thoracic malignancies and clinical trial methodology. Within the NCIC CTG, she is the physician coordinator for the lung disease site and for National and International thoracic malignancy clinical trials.

Dr. Leighl is a medical oncologist at the Princess Margaret Hospital, and Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto.

After receiving her MD from the University of Toronto, Canada, Dr. Leighl completed residencies in internal medicine at the University of Calgary and in medical oncology at the University of Toronto. She subsequently completed a Fellowship in Thoracic Oncology with Dr. Frances Shepherd at the Princess Margaret Hospital in Canada, a Fellowship in Clinical Oncology with Prof. Martin Tattersall at the University of Sydney in Australia, and received her MMSc in Clinical Epidemiology at the University of Newcastle, Australia.

Dr Leighl’s main interest is in developing new treatments in lung cancer. She is involved in clinical studies of novel agents for the treatment of thoracic cancers, is a member of the Lung Disease Site Group Executive in the NCIC Clinical Trials Group. She is also Co-Chair of the NCIC CTG Committee on Economic Analysis. She has received an American Society of Clinical Oncology Career Development Award, ASCO Young Investigator Award and IASLC Young Investigator Award for her work in developing treatment decisions aids for patients with advanced lung, breast and colorectal cancer. Dr Leighl has served on several committees, including the ASCO International and Lung Educational Committees, the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada Medical Oncology Examination Board, and the IASLC Career Development Committee. She is currently President of Lung Cancer Canada and has recently been awarded the OSI Pharmaceuticals Foundation Chair in Cancer New Drug Development at PMH/UHN/University of Toronto.

Dr. Ringash is an associate professor of Radiation Oncology at the University of Toronto, and a staff radiation oncologist at the Princess Margaret Hospital.  She is cross appointed to the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto.

Dr. Ringash obtained her BSc in Chemistry at McMaster University in 1990, and went on to obtain her MD in 1993.  She trained in Radiation Oncology at McMaster University and the Hamilton Regional Cancer Centre.  After obtaining her FRCP(C) in 1997, she was a clinical fellow in Head and Neck radiation oncology at the Princess Margaret Hospital, and simultaneously completed her MSc in Clinical Epidemiology at the University of Toronto in 1999. In 2010/11, she completed a 12 month sabbatical, which involved visits to 43 countries.

Dr. Ringash is the prior Associate Program Director for the graduate program in Clinical Epidemiology at the University of Toronto, the current co-Chair of the Quality of Life  (QOL) committee at the NCIC – Clinical Trials Group, and current QOL coordinator for 4 major international clinical trials.  She is PI of an ongoing phase I/II trial of adjuvant treatment in gastric cancer.  Her research interests include the QOL of cancer patients, cancer survivorship, the interface between technology development and cancer outcomes, and the treatment of head and neck and GI malignancies.  She has a special interest in upper GI malignancies, including esophagus and stomach cancers.

Gary Rodin is the Joint University of Toronto/University Health Network Harold and Shirley Lederman Chair in Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative Care and is Head of the Department of Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative Care at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto. Dr. Rodin is a Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto and a clinician-investigator who has published widely on the psychiatric and psychosocial aspects of cancer and other medical illnesses.  Under his leadership, the Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative Care Program at PMH has now achieved an international reputation for its academic and clinical excellence.  Dr. Rodin has authored texts on Depression in the Medically Ill, and on the Psychiatric Aspects of Transplantation and is currently leading research on the psychological impact of advanced and terminal disease in affected patients and their families.

Dr. Rodin’s research team is focused on the psychosocial problems of individuals and families facing advanced and terminal cancer and hematological malignancies. They have developed novel interventions to alleviate distress and to promote psychological growth in patients and caregivers and to improve the quality of death and dying.

In 2008, Dr. Dancey took up her position as Director, Clinical Translational Research at the NCIC Clinical Trials Group, Program Director, High Impact Clinical Trials at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, Chair, Experimental Therapeutics Network, Cancer Care Ontario and Professor, Department of Oncology, Queen’s University.   In her current positions, Dr. Dancey is responsible for the development of strong translational research programs within NCIC CTG clinical trials and OICR High Impact Clinical Trial Program.  Her clinical focus is on melanoma and gastrointestinal malignancies.

Key accomplishments included the establishment of the High Impact Clinical Trial Program following successful international peer review, the development of novel trials to evaluate investigational drugs in rare tumour settings, to evaluate next-generation sequencing technologies in cancer patient management and to evaluate test new therapies in melanoma and the development of the NCIC CTG research strategy for biomarkers in clinical trials.  Previously, Dr. Dancey was Senior Clinical Investigator in the Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program at the US National Cancer Institute and then Associate Chief of the Investigational Drug Branch.

Dr. Dancey received her MD from the University of Ottawa and completed her residency training in internal medicine and medical oncology at the University of Toronto. In 1994-95, she was a research fellow with the NCIC CTG and continued her fellowship training at the Institut Gustave Roussy in France. Dr. Dancey has special expertise in new anti-cancer drug development, linking drug and biomarker development, and associated clinical trials methodology.

Dr. Craig Earle is a medical oncologist at Sunnybrook’s Odette Cancer Centre, a Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto, a Senior Scientist at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, and the Director of Health Services Research for Cancer Care Ontario and the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research.

Prior to the summer of 2008, he spent 10 years in Boston at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health. While there, he was the founding Director of the Lance Armstrong Foundation Adult Survivorship Clinic at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. In the course of his research, he has conducted and published surveys of patients, family caregivers, and physicians.

His personal research interests focus on evaluating and improving the quality of care, particularly that received by patients with advanced cancer and cancer survivors.

Site Coordinator

Program Coordinator

Andrea completed a B.A. in International Relations from Universidad Iberoamericana, and an M.A. in Political Science from the University of Toronto. She also obtained a Certificate in Project Management from Ryerson University.

Andrea has a longstanding interest in healthcare issues. Her previous experience before joining the On-PROST team includes coordinating a research team at the University of Toronto focusing on access to medicines in developing countries.