Dr. Godbout was the President and Chief Executive Officer of Genome Canada from April 2000 to October 2009, and before that he was Senior Vice President at BioCapital and President and General Manager of Société Innovatech Québec. Between 1996 and 2004, he was a member of the Board of the “Conseil de la Science et de la Technologie du Québec” and he has been an Advisory member of several Canadian biopharmaceutical venture firms such as SGF Santé, Société Innovatech du Grand Montréal and Royal Bank Ventures Inc. In 2005,

Dr. Godbout was appointed Officer of the Order of Canada. He was also awarded the Grand Prix de Recherche from the Québec Foundation for Mental Disorders for his previous work on Alzheimer’s disease in 1991 and the “Prix Summa” in 1994 from the Faculty of Science and Engineering of Université Laval. In 1994

he also founded BioContact Québec which has become one of the most important biopharmaceutical symposiums in North America. He holds a B.Sc. in Biochemistry and a Ph.D. in Physiology and Molecular Endocrinology from Université Laval. In March 2006, Dr. Godbout was shortlisted by the editors of Nature Biotechnology, as one of twenty nominees who have made the most remarkable and influential contribution to biotech in the past ten years in the category “Biobusiness in the rest of the world.

Dr. Woodgett holds dual roles as Investigator and Director of Research of the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute. He applies his visionary approach to research into the manipulation of cell processes to treat certain cancers, diabetes and neurodegenerative conditions, and to ensuring that discoveries made by the world-renowned Institute are applied to patient care.

Dr. Woodgett is interested in the causes and treatment of breast cancer, colorectal cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer Disease and bipolar disorder. What links this apparently broad range of diseases is their common basis in disruption of the lines of communication within the cells, or the signalling pathways. By studying the ways in which components of these pathways are mutated and transformed by disease, Dr. Woodgett can identify new and more effective therapeutic targets. Study of the WNT pathway, which contains a number of genes which account for about 90% of human colon cancer, is a particular area of interest.

Recent advancements made by Dr. Woodgett’s team in adult stem cell division pave the way for scientists to harvest large quantities of these specialized cells which hold great promise for the treatment and cure of life-threatening illnesses.

Dr. Srinivas Murthy is a Board certified in Pediatric Critical Care and Pediatric Infectious Diseases. Interested in innovative clinical trials and international collaborations. He is currently an investigator at University of British Columbia Clinician at BC Children's Hospital.Dr. Murthy’s research focuses on pandemic clinical research infrastructure, and aims to establish Canada as a leader in adaptive, integrated clinical trials in hospitalized patients for the purpose of rapid knowledge generation for both this and future outbreaks. The main objectives of his research are to expand a national platform for sharing data from patients hospitalized with severe acute respiratory infections and to develop a research infrastructure for rapid clinical trials.

The researcher will also assess barriers to and facilitators of implementation of pandemic-specific clinical trials in Canada and conduct a priority-setting exercise for severe acute respiratory infection research to establish a framework for generating critical questions for responding to future pandemics. Supporting the recovery plans, Dr. Srinivas Murthy, a pediatric critical care and infectious diseases specialist, is leading the Canadian Treatments for COVID-19 trial.

He is examining potential treatments for COVID-19, a multinational initiative being coordinated by the World Health Organization (WHO) and supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). Dr. Srinivas Murthy has been awarded Health Research Foundation of Innovative Medicines Canada Chair in Pandemic Preparedness Research.

Isaac Veinbergs' most current role is CEO of Libra Therapeutics Based in California. Previously, Isaac has worked at Sanofi and Amgen as Principal Scientist. Isaac's educational background includes Ph.D. from University of California, San Diego.

Alexandra Stewart was the former Executive Director of the Weston Brain Institute and the Executive Director, Neuroscience of The W. Garfield Weston Foundation.

Prior to this position Alex was Chief Operating Officer of Tribute Entertainment Media Group, a multimedia publisher. She previously spent 7 years at McKinsey & Co. in the New York and Washington, D.C. offices, where she was a member of the Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology practice. Her clients included C-suite executives from Fortune 100 as well as mid-size companies. She worked on a range of functions and developed extensive expertise in business building and commercialization. This work covered five continents, including work on the ground across the U.S., Europe, Latin America, and China. Alex has held other positions at Tribute and in the venture capital group at American Express.

Alex holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, a Business Bridge certificate from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth University, and an Intensive B.Sc. with Distinction in Neurobiology – Biology and Computer Science from Yale University, where her research focused on artificial neural networks. She lives with her husband and sons between Toronto and Florida

He is Senior Scientist and Director of the Kidney Research Centre of the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, University of Ottawa, and is cross-appointed to the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine. Dr. Burns received his B.Sc. and M.D. degrees from McGill University. He completed Internal Medicine Residency and Clinical Nephrology Fellowship training at the University of Ottawa, undertook basic science research training at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and returned to Ottawa in 1992 as a clinician scientist. Dr. Burns was University and Hospital Division Head of Nephrology from 1997-2005. Attachments area .

​Dr. Naveed Aziz serves as the Chief Administrative & Chief Scientific Officer of CGEn, Canada’s national platform for genome sequencing & analysis, with nodes at The Hospital for Sick Children (Toronto), McGill University (Montréal) and Canada’s Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre (Vancouver). .

Dr. Aziz leadership has enabled CGEn to fuel Canadian research and innovation, playing a key role in the advancement of technological developments within the field of genomics. He is passionate about championing the generation of large-scale genomic datasets, along with supporting the development of powerful and efficient solutions for big data storage, data deposition to “open-science” databases, and high-speed data exchange at national and international scale.

Dr. Aziz holds a PhD in Gene Targeting from University of Dundee, UK, in addition to an MPhil in Biotechnology and an Executive MBA from Bradford School of Management, UK. His previous roles include serving as the Director of Technology programs at Genome Canada, Head of Genomics at University of York, UK and as Research Fellow at the Noble Research Institute, USA. In 2018, Dr. Aziz was named as one of Canada’s emerging executive leaders as a member of the adMare and Pfizer Canada's Executive Institute program, focused on executive development of senior-level life sciences professionals in Canada.

Mr. Pras Kayilasanathan is a Principal at INFOR Financial Group (INFOR) with an investment banking practice focused on Technology and Healthcare. Pras devotes his time to assisting public and private companies with asset divestitures, acquisitions, M&A strategy development and capital raising. He leads the day-to-day execution of M&A and capital raising mandates, working closely with business owners, executive management teams, board of directors, Private Equity (PE) sponsors, institutional and individual investors to create successful outcomes.

Prior to joining INFOR, Pras worked in Investment Banking on Wall Street with Jefferies LLC in New York as a leveraged finance specialist and at BDO Canada LLP as an M&A specialist. He began his career as a corporate finance and M&A lawyer with Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP in Toronto assisting leading national and international clients with their complex M&A and corporate finance needs.

Pras holds an MSc from the London School of Economics (LSE), Juris Doctor (JD) from Queen’s University, an MBA from the Ivey School of Business (Western University), and an Honors Bachelor of Arts from Trent University.