CMHCC Chairs
Laura Dawson MD, FRCPC, FASTRO
Professor, University of Toronto
Radiation Oncologist, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre
Toronto, ON
Dr. Laura Dawson is a Professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of Toronto, and a practicing radiation oncologist at the Radiation Medicine Program, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, in Toronto. She is the multi-disciplinary hepatobiliary cancer and pancreatic cancer site lead for the Princess Margaret Cancer Committee. She is an internationally recognized leader in hepatocellular carcinoma and in oligo-metastases stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT). She is the principal investigator of two randomized phase III clinical trials investigating the use of radiation therapy in hepatocellular carcinoma (RTOG1112 and CCTG HE1).
Rachel Goodwin, MSc, MD, FRCPC
Assistant Professor of Medicine,
Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa
Ottawa, ON
Dr. Rachel Goodwin graduated from Mount Saint Vincent University with a Bachelor of Science and from the University of Guelph with a Masters of Nutritional Science. She completed medical school and her internal medicine and medical oncology residency at the University of Ottawa. Dr. Goodwin went on to complete a two-year Investigational New Drug Development Fellowship at NCIC Clinical Trial Group at Queen’s University, with a focus on Phase I/Phase II cancer clinical trials.
She is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Ottawa. Her clinical interests include gastrointestinal cancers, neuroendocrine cancers and new drug development. Dr. Goodwin is an active member of the Canadian Cancer Trials Group where she is New Drug Development Liaison and co-chair for the Colon Disease Site Group.
Brandon Meyers, MSc, MD, FRCPC
Associate Professor, Oncology
McMaster University
Hamilton, ON
Dr. Meyers completed medical school at the University of Ottawa. He then completed at McMaster University post-graduate training in Internal Medicine, and Medical Oncology followed by a fellowship in Gastrointestinal Malignancies. He is an Associate Professor and staff Medical Oncologist at the Juravinski Cancer Centre in Hamilton, Ontario. His gastrointestinal clinical practice primarily focuses on hepatocellular carcinoma. He recently helped develop the Cancer Care Ontario guidelines on the management of advanced hepatocellular carcinoma, and is involved in phase I-III trials examining novel agents for liver cancer. He also collaborates with basic scientists working with animal models of liver cancer. He is a member of the Planning Committee of the Canadian Multidisciplinary HCC Conference.
Vincent Tam, MD, FRCPC
Associate Clinical Professor,
University of Calgary
Calgary, AB
Dr. Vincent Tam is Associate Clinical Professor at the University of Calgary and a staff medical oncologist at the Tom Baker Cancer Centre. He specializes in the treatment of gastrointestinal malignancies and particularly hepatobiliary cancer. His research interests include clinical trials in hepatobiliary cancer and real world outcomes of HCC patients treated with various systemic therapies.
CMHCC Faculty
Jennifer Knox, MD, MSc ,FRCPC(C)
Professor of Medicine
University of Toronto
Co-Director, McCain Centre for Pancreatic Cancer
Toronto, ON
Dr. Jennifer Knox is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto, working as a staff Medical Oncologist and Researcher since 2001 at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre. She is currently the Co-Director of the McCain Centre for Pancreatic Cancer. Her research interests include multidisciplinary therapeutic and translational trials in pancreas, biliary and hepatocellular carcinomas. She has been the study chair of numerous clinical trials conducted with the Canadian Clinical Trials Group (CCTG), the US National Cancer Institute (NCI), investigator–initiated trials and with pharma companies as well as past co-chair of the NCI Hepatobiliary Cancer task force. Her significant career awards include the Wilfred G. Lewitt Chair in Pancreatic Cancer Research in 2017, and in 2019 with the U of T Divisional Research Achievement award. Dr. Knox is sought internationally to speak on her research, oncology leadership and better patient care strategies
Gonzalo Sapisochin MD, PhD, MSc
Associate Professor of Surgery
LeGresley Chair in Transplant Oncology at UHN
UHN, Multi-Organ Transplant and HPB Surgical Oncology
Division of General Surgery
Staff Surgeon, Toronto General Hospital
Toronto, Ontario
Dr. Gonzalo Sapisochin is Staff Surgeon at The Toronto General Hospital, UHN. Dr. Sapisochin received his Medical Diploma in 2005 from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain and went on to complete his General Surgery residency training in 2011 at the University Hospital of Vall d’Hebron in Barcelona where he successfully defended his Doctoral Thesis, “Optimization of Liver Transplantation for Hepatocellular Carcinoma”, to receive his PhD be the Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona. He went on to complete his Clinical Fellowship in Abdominal Transplant & HPB Surgical Oncology with the University of Toronto and was subsequently recruited in a position at the Toronto General Hospital as Staff Surgeon with the Multi-Organ Transplant Program and the Division of General Surgery. He is currently an Associate Professor of Surgery at the University of Toronto. Dr. Sapisochin main research interest is the “interface” between liver transplantation and cancer. He has been one of the drivers of the concept of Transplant Oncology and chaired in 2019 the ILTS Consensus Conference in this topic. He has focused his research in the management of hepatocellular carcinoma, cholangiocarcinoma and colorectal liver metastases. He has published more than 100 original manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals such as Journal of Hepatology, Hepatology or Annals of Surgery.
Pablo E. Serrano, MD, MSc, MPH, PhD
Associate Professor
McMaster University
Hamilton, ON
Pablo E. Serrano is an Associate Professor of Surgery at McMaster University. He joined the Department of Surgery in 2014 after finishing his fellowship in Hepatobiliary Surgical Oncology at the University of Toronto. He completed his General Surgery Residency at the University of Toledo, Ohio where he also completed a Master of Science in Molecular Biology and a Master of Public Health. He completed his PhD in Health Research Methods at McMaster University in 2022. He recently joined the Department of Health Research Methods Evidence and Impact as an Associate Member, allowing him to supervise graduate students at the masters and PhD level. He is an active researcher and scientist at the Escarpment Cancer Research Institute (ECRI) and has led several trials within the Ontario Clinical Oncology Group (OCOG), an academic Clinical Trials Group based at McMaster University. He has been the recipient of several research grants and is currently the principal investigator of multi-institutional nation-wide multidisciplinary clinical trials. He is also an Associate Member of the Centre for Discovery in Cancer Research (CDCR) at McMaster University, a cancer research centre that develops collaboration and synergy between scientists and clinicians, focusing on comprehensive translational studies that inform the rational development of combinational therapies for cancer treatment.
Research Focus
Clinical epidemiology, Surgical Oncology Clinical Trials, and Evidence-Based Surgery in Hepatopancreatobiliary Oncology.
Erica Tsang, MD, MPH, FRCPC
Assistant Professor
University of Toronto
GI Medical Oncologist
Princess Margaret Cancer Centre
Toronto, ON
Dr. Tsang is a GI medical oncologist at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre and Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto. She completed her Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology training at the University of British Columbia, followed by further training in GI and early phase oncology at the University of California, San Francisco. Her research interests include genomics and clinical trials, with a focus on HPB cancers.