CMHCC Chairs
Laura Dawson MD, FASTRO
Professor,
Department of Radiation Oncology,
University of Toronto,
Radiation Oncologist, PMH,
Toronto, ON
Laura Dawson is Professor and Chair of 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 an internationally recognized leader in hepatobiliary cancer and in oligo-metastases. Her research has primarily focused on implementation of advanced radiation technologies (e.g. stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) and image guided radiation therapy (IGRT)) to improve outcomes and to reduce the risk of toxicity of cancer patients. She has led phase I, II and more recently, phase III clinical trials of radiation therapy to treat patients with hepatocellular carcinoma and liver metastases. Dr. Dawson has published over 200 scientific papers and has mentored over 50 students from around the world. She has received numerous awards for her teaching, research and impact in oncology. She was the 2018 Canadian Association of Radiation Oncology (CARO) Gordon Richards lecturer, and she is the past Chair and past President of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO).
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
Sean P. Cleary, M.D
Professor of Surgery,
University of Toronto
Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery,
Toronto General Hospital
Toronto, ON
Sean P. Cleary, M.D., is a Professor of Surgery and holds the Bernard and Ryna Langer Chair of the Division of General Surgery at the University of Toronto. His clinical practice is focused on Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic surgery at the University Health Network, Toronto General Hospital, in Toronto, Canada.
Dr. Cleary earned his B.Sc. with honors at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, and his M.D. at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario. He completed a residency in general surgery at the University of Toronto, where he also completed the Clinical Investigator Program earning his Master of Science degree. He continued his training at the University of Toronto, completing a fellowship in hepatobiliary oncology and transplantation surgery and earning his Master of Public Health in community health and epidemiology.
Dr. Cleary served on faculty as Professor of Surgery at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota from March 2017-July 2023. He served Division Chair of Hepatobiliary and Pancreas Surgery, co-Deputy Director (Disease Groups) and Chair of the Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Disease Group of the Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center and a consultant in the Division of Hepatobiliary and Pancreas Surgery Department of Surgery at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.
His clinical interests include the surgical treatment of pancreatic, hepatic and biliary malignancies with a specific focus on minimally invasive approaches to these cancers. His research interests include the genetic epidemiology of pancreatic and hepatocellular cancers. He has authored or co-authored >190 peer reviewed publications.
In addition to his clinical and research activities, Dr. Cleary is active in education and has provided mentorship to many residents and fellows, among others. He has over 10 years experience as director of the Hepato-pancreatico-biliary surgical fellowships at UHN and Mayo Clinic. He is a recipient of the Frank Milles Teaching Award and Nicolas Colapinto Teaching Award, conferred by the University of Toronto.
Dr. Cleary is a member of the American Surgical Association as well as a fellow and member of Board of Governors of the American College of Surgeons. He is currently the President of the Canadian Association of General Surgeons and President of the Americas Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Association.
Elizabeth David, MD
Assistant Professor,
University of Toronto
Sunnybrook Hospital
Toronto, ON
Dr David earned her MD from the University of Toronto where she also completed her residency in Radiology. She then did a fellowship in Interventional Radiology which she completed in 2003. She joined the staff at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto that same year. She holds the rank of Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto in the Faculty of Medicine and is the Fellowship supervisor at Sunnybrook. She continues to serve as a member of the Interventional Oncology Emerging Technologies Working Group that has secured funding for ablation, TACE and TARE for Ontario patients.
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
Howard Lim, MD, PhD, FRCPC
Clinical Associate Professor
Faculty of Medicine, UBC
Medical Oncologist
BC Cancer- Vancouver Centre
Vancouver, BC
Howard Lim is a Medical Oncologist at BC Cancer Vancouver Centre and a Clinical Associate Professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia. He specializes in gastrointestinal malignancies and is actively involved in clinical trials, ethics and genomic based research.
Amol Mujoomdar, MD FRCPC FSIR
Division Head for Interventional Radiology, LHSC/SJHC
Associate Professor of Medical Imaging, Oncology, and Medical Biophysics, Western University
Past-President, Canadian Association for Interventional Radiology
London, ON
Dr. Mujoomdar is the Division Head of Vascular and Interventional Radiology at London Health Sciences Centre and St. Joseph’s Health Care, and Professor of Interventional Radiology, Oncology and Medical Biophysics, at Western University, London, Ontario.
He went to medical school in Saskatchewan, completed radiology residency at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec and completed a vascular and interventional radiology fellowship at the University of Toronto (UHN). His clinical and research interests are in interventional oncology, including loco regional therapy of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and neuroendocrine tumours along with liver imaging.
Dr. Mujoomdar is a former board member and past president of the Canadian Association for Interventional Radiology (CAIR).
Ciara O’Brien MD (MB BCh BAO, FFR RCSI)
Staff Radiologist, Abdominal Division
Abdominal Fellowship Program Director
Joint Department of Medical Imaging
University Health Network, Mt. Sinai Hospital, Women’s College Hospital
Assistant Professor, Department of Medical Imaging, University of Toronto
Toronto, ON
Dr. Ciara O’Brien is a Staff Abdominal Radiologist at the Joint Department of Medical Imaging at the University of Toronto. She completed her medical education and radiology residency in Dublin, Ireland. She then completed an abdominal imaging fellowship at JDMI in 2020 and following a year of hepatobiliary imaging at St Vincent University Hospital Dublin. She is an Assistant Professor at the department of Medical Imaging at the University of Toronto and is the Abdominal Imaging Fellowship director at UHN. Hepatobiliary imaging is her subspecialist interest. She has presented at national and international conferences throughout her career and has several publications in peer-reviewed journals.
Ravi Ramjeesingh, MD, Ph.D., FRCPC
Medical Oncologist & Assistant Professor
Chair of the HPB Cancer Disease Site Group Halifax
Medical Director of ACCRU and Interim Medical Director of ACTN Oncology
Division of Medical Oncology and Department of Community Health and Epidemiology
Nova Scotia Cancer Centre & Dalhousie University
Halifax, NS
Dr. Ramjeesingh joined the Division of Medical Oncology at Dalhousie University in May 2015 as a staff physician and promotion to Associate Professor in 2020. He completed his Ph.D in cancer research (2004), and his MD (2008) at the University of Toronto. He then subsequently completed his Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology residencies at Queen’s University before completed a clinical trials methodology fellowship at the Canadian Cancer Trials Group (CCTG) in Kingston, Ontario. His main clinical expertise is in the areas of hepatopancreobiliary (HPB) cancers and breast cancer. He is currently the chair of the HPB Disease site group in Nova Scotia and is both the Medical Director of ACCRU, the Nova Scotian oncology clinical trials group and the interim Oncology medical director for the Atlantic Clinical Trials Network (ACTN). Nationally, he is a founding member of the Canadian GI Oncology Evidence Network and is a board member of Craig’s Cause Pancreatic cancer society. His research activities are in the fields of health service delivery, and translational research in oncology.
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.
Anand Swaminath MD FRCP(C)
Associate Professor, Department of Oncology, McMaster University
Scientist, Escarpment Cancer Research Institute
OARO Clinician Scientist and Radiation Oncologist
Juravinski Cancer Centre
Dr. Swaminath is an Associate Professor, Clinician Scientist and Radiation Oncologist at the Juravinski Cancer Centre, McMaster University, Hamilton.
He received his medical degree from the University of Ottawa, finished residency training at McMaster University, and completed a clinical-research fellowship in image-guided radiotherapy/SBRT for lung and liver cancer at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre.
His clinical and research interests are in the application of new technologies in radiation therapy, specifically SBRT for a wide variety of indications including lung, kidney, and liver cancer, both for symptom control and in the management of metastatic disease.
Dr. Swaminath is a PI or radiation lead on several local, national, and international trials evaluating SBRT in both the primary and metastatic setting. Some trial highlights include the lead on the Canadian LUSTRE randomized lung SBRT trial, and radiation lead on the CYTOSHRINK and RADSTER trials in kidney cancer, and ADVANCE trial for HCC. He has authored or co-authored more than 80 peer reviewed publications and book chapters, and has obtained several large-scale grants through CIHR and CCSRI for trials that both locally and nationally involve the evaluation of SBRT in the primary and metastatic setting.
Amandeep Taggar, MD, MSc, BSc
Assistant Professor
Radiation Oncologist,
Odette Cancer Center,
Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre,
University of Toronto,
Toronto, ON
Dr. Taggar is an Assistant Professor and Radiation Oncologist at the Odette Cancer Center, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center, University of Toronto. He earned his BSc, MSc, and MD from the University of British Columbia, Canada, and completed his Radiation Oncology residency at the Tom Baker Cancer Centre in Calgary, followed by a fellowship in Brachytherapy at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. Specializing in brachytherapy techniques, Dr. Taggar has a particular interest in treating gastrointestinal malignancies with brachytherapy, especially esophageal and biliary cancers. He has pioneered the implementation of image-based intraluminal brachytherapy for biliary cancers at Sunnybrook.
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.