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 trials in hepatobiliary cancer and real world outcomes of HCC patients treated with systemic therapies. Dr Tam is currently an active member of the Canadian Clinical Trials Group where he is the co-chair of the Hepatobiliary Disease Site Group.
CMHCC Faculty
Peter R. Galle, MD, PhD
Professor of Medicine
Director, First Department of Internal Medicine
University Medical Center
Mainz, Germany
Dr. Galle majored in internal medicine at the Universities of Berlin, Marburg, Mannheim and Heidelberg, Germany, at Hammersmith Hospital, London/UK and, as a Fulbright grantee at University of Texas/USA and received his M.D. degree from Marburg University and Ph.D. degree from Heidelberg University.
Initially he held a position as postdoctoral fellow in Molecular Biology at the Centre for Molecular Biology Heidelberg working on the replication of hepatitis B viruses. Afterwards he completed his residency in Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology at the University Hospital of Heidelberg. In 1998 he became Director of the I. Medical Department in Mainz and from 2005 – 2008 he hold the CEO position of Mainz University Hospital.
He is member of several national and international societies such as the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) and the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL), served as Co-editor for the Journal of Hepatology and was on the Editorial Boards of several other Journals. He served as congress president of the German Society for Digestive Diseases (DGVS) in 2014. He was member of the Executive Board and President of the International Liver Cancer Association (ILCA). He was the President of the German Association for the Study of the Liver (GASL) for the year 2020.
His research has focused on elucidating important aspects of apoptotic cell death in the liver, immune escape of tumour cells and on clinical and molecular aspects of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). He chaired the panel updating the EASL Clinical Practice Guideline on HCC, which appeared in 2018. He was awarded several prizes, amongst others the prestigious Tannhauser award, the highest prize of the German Society for Digestive Diseases. In 2024 he received the Blue Faery Award for Excellence in Liver Cancer Research. He has published more than 550 peer-reviewed papers.