PROOF CENTRE - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- CEO
- Member of the Board of Directors
Dr. Bruce McManus just completed a 12-year term as CEO of the PROOF Centre. He brought broad academic and clinical skills and leadership qualities to the Centre's mission. As of January this year, Dr. McManus is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine at the University of British Columbia. He led the Cardiovascular Research Laboratory at St. Paul's Hospital through the 1990's, and from 2000 until 2006, Dr. McManus served as inaugural Scientific Director of the Institute of Circulatory and Respiratory Health, Canadian Institutes of Health Research. He then served as Director of the UBC James Hogg Research Centre (now the UBC Centre for Heart Lung Innovation www.hli.ubc.ca) from 2006-2012. He concurrently served as the inaugural Director of the Providence Heart + Lung Institute at St. Paul's Hospital from 2007 to 2010, and subsequently as Co-Director of the community-wide Institute for Heart + Lung Health.
Dr McManus joined the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia in July 1993 as the Department Head of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, bringing 11 years of experience as a clinician-scientist at the University of Nebraska Medical Centre, including sabbatical time as John F. Fogarty Senior International Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Martinsried, Germany. Dr. McManus received the MD degree from the University of Saskatchewan (W.S. Lindsay Gold Medal), completed his residency in medicine and pathology at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Harvard University, Boston, completed the PhD degree at the University of Toledo, and post-doctoral fellowships at the University of California - Santa Barbara and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, NIH.
Dr. McManus' basic and clinical investigative program continues to focus on mechanisms, consequences, detection and prevention of injury and aberrant repair involved in inflammatory diseases of the heart and blood vessels, with particular emphasis on enteroviral infections of the heart and allograft vasculopathy. The pursuit of answers to translational research questions is greatly enabled by computational sciences. In the past decade he has devoted his efforts to biomarker discovery, development and validation, and on further development of the Cardiac Registry within the Centre for Heart Lung Innovation to support research, education and clinical diagnosis. Dr. McManus has co-authored >420 peer-reviewed publications and >60 invited chapters (h index = 85; i10 index = 328). He has edited four books. He is co-holder of several patents. He has served as Councilor for the International Society for Heart Research and for the American Society for Investigative Pathology. He is past-president of the Society for Cardiovascular Pathology. He currently serves on editorial boards of several professional and scientific journals, and on many advisory committees and boards. Dr. McManus has long been committed to training and mentoring young scientists across a range of disciplines, and they have become very successful in their own journeys. He has convened many public and private sector partnerships in research.
Dr. McManus has been recognized for his scientific contributions by numerous institutions and organizations through visiting professorships and lectureships. He was co-recipient of the prestigious Max Planck Research Award in 1991. He was elected to the Royal Society of Canada as a Fellow of the Academy of Sciences in 2002. He received a UBC Killam Research Prize - Senior Scientist Category in 2003. In 2005, he was elected as an inaugural Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and was honoured with the Research Achievement Award of the Canadian Cardiovascular Society. In 2006 Dr. McManus received the BC Innovation Council's Lieutenant Governor's Technology Innovation Award. He has been honored with the 2007 UBC Distinguished Medical Lecturer Award and 2008 David F. Hardwick Lifetime Achievement Award. He was awarded the 2009 CSATVB Scientific Excellence Award, Canadian Society for Atherosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology. Dr. McManus has been recognized by the Society for Cardiovascular Pathology with the 2010 Distinguished Achievement Award and by Providence Health Care with the 2010 Research & Mission Award. He received the 2011 Sarrazin Award Lecture from the Canadian Physiological Society. Recently, he received the 2012 Milton Wong Leadership Award from LifeSciences BC, the 2012 Aubrey J. Tingle Prize from the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research, and the 2012 Alumni Achievement Award from the University of Saskatchewan.
In 2015, Dr. McManus received a Distinguished Achievement Award from the University of British Columbia Faculty of Medicine. He also received the 2015 Howard Morgan Award from the International Academy of Cardiovascular Sciences, the 2015 Lifetime Achievement Award from Canadian Blood Services and the 2015 Jacob Biely Faculty Research Prize from University of British Columbia. Recently, he was recognized by the UBC Faculty of Medicine with the 2017 William and Marilyn Weber Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2018, he was appointed as a Member of the 2018 Order of Canada and was awarded the 8th annual Margolese National Heart Disorders Prize. In 2019 he was appointed to the Order of British Columbia. He also received the Cy Frank Distinguished Service Award from the Friends of CIHR.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Research Associate
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Management
Dr. Knight is the Vice-President, Research and Academic Affairs of Providence Health Care. His role also includes accountabilities as President, Providence Health Care Research Institute; Professor, Department of Anesthesiology, Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia; and Associate Dean, Research, Faculty of Medicine, UBC.
Dr. Knight obtained his PhD from the University of Western Australia in 1993. In 2004, he was recruited to UBC as the Canada Research Chair in Airway Disease. He was recruited back to Australia in 2013 and was Professor and Head of School of Biomedical Sciences and Pharmacy at the University of Newcastle. Continuing this pattern, Dr. Knight was recruited back to Canada in 2019 taking up his current role.
Dr. Knight is a cell biologist with an international reputation in the area of lung and airway remodelling. His research career has focused on understanding how abnormal epithelial cell-fibroblast interactions influence the severity and chronicity of respiratory diseases. As of 2019, he has published over 166 peer-reviewed manuscripts and book chapters (h-factor 55; 9120 citations - Google Scholar, May 2019).
Dr. Knight has a strong track record of obtaining research grant funding (>$20 million), including leading a successful application for $7 million from the CFI in 2012. He is regularly invited to present his work and chair sessions at major national and international meetings.
Dr. Knight has strong research leadership credentials. From 2009-2012 he was the Associate Director of the UBC James Hogg Research Centre and sat on the executive of the Institute for Heart and Lung Health. He sits on several national and international scientific research committees, and is on the editorial board of 5 international journals. Dr. Knight has been primary supervisor for 7 Post-doctoral fellows, 17 PhD and 2 MSc students and over 18 Graduate students.
Linda is a statistician and a data scientist, interested in predictive modeling and its applications in healthcare. Her PhD work involved analyzing complications, such as acute kidney injury and delirium, following open-heart surgeries.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Chief Informatics Officer
Raymond's main research area for the past two decades is on data mining, with a specific focus on health informatics and text mining. He has published over 180 peer-reviewed publications on data clustering, outlier detection, OLAP processing, health informatics and text mining. He is the recipient of two best paper awards - from the 2001 ACM SIGKDD conference, the premier data mining conference in the world, and the 2005 ACM SIGMOD conference, one of the top database conferences worldwide. For the past decade, he has co-led several large-scale genomic projects funded by Genome Canada, Genome BC and industrial collaborators. Since the inception of the PROOF Centre of Excellence, he has held the position of the Chief Informatics Officer of the Centre. From 2009 to 2014, Dr. Ng was the associate director of the NSERC-funded strategic network on business intelligence.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Senior Biostatistician at the George & Fay Yee Centre for Healthcare Innovation
- Special Advisor - Statistical Lead
Dr. Robert Balshaw is Senior Biostatistician at the George & Fay Yee Centre for Healthcare Innovation (University of Manitoba). Previously, he was Senior Scientist at the BC Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC), and he has 20 years of research and industry experience in informatics, biomedical statistics and healthcare outcomes analysis within the healthcare and medical sectors. Dr. Balshaw received his Doctorate in Statistics from Simon Fraser University in Canada and a prestigious Post Doctoral Fellowship from the National Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
Dr. Balshaw's research encompasses multivariate analytical methods for the analysis of health data, decision analytic modeling for multi-state chronic diseases, economic analysis and modeling, and innovative methods for the analysis of high dimensional microarray genomic and proteomic data. Dr. Balshaw is the senior statistician for many international research initiatives, and a key advisor to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry on many aspects of advanced methodology and statistical analysis.
Job Titles:
- Chief Executive Officer
- Chief Scientific Officer
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Chief Executive Office
- Professor
Dr. Scott Tebbutt is Chief Executive Office (since 2020) and Chief Scientific Officer (since 2009), of the Prevention of Organ Failure (PROOF) Centre of Excellence.
Dr. Tebbutt provides leadership, general supervision, management and control of the operations of the Centre on a day-to-day basis in accordance with the plans and policies approved by the Board. He provides overall leadership and vision in developing the strategy, tactics and plans necessary to realize the Centre's objectives, and he manages the Centre to ensure annual plans are effectively implemented, with the results monitored and reported to the Board, and financial and operational objectives attained.
His scientific responsibilities have included the evaluation and deployment of new, high-performance technologies to improve biomarker discovery, development and implementation, as well as bioinformatic approaches to better deal with sample heterogeneity and integration of high-dimensional omic datasets. He leads major biomarker programs in lung disease, heart transplantation, vaccine immunogenicity, and COVID-19, and he directly supervises many of the PROOF Centre's trainees.
Dr. Tebbutt is also Professor in the Department of Medicine (Respiratory Division), University of British Columbia, as well as Principal Investigator and Director of Education at the Centre for Heart Lung Innovation, St. Paul's Hospital, Vancouver, Canada. His academic research program is focused on the molecular and cellular understanding of complex disease and other health-related conditions, including inflammatory disorders of the lung, allergic rhinitis, heart failure, and neonatal vaccinology.
Dr. Tebbutt has served on numerous local and international scientific advisory committees, including the BC Children's Hospital Research Institute "Transplantation and Cell Therapy (TRACE) Program Biomarker and Cell Therapy Oversight Committee (BCTOC)," the United States National Institutes of Health Human Immunology Project Consortium (HIPC) "Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Subcommittee," and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) "Systems Immunology Task Force." He is a member of the Human Vaccines Project (HVP) Bioinformatics Hub, a member of the Langara College Program Advisory Committee (PAC) for the Bachelor of Science in Bioinformatics program (Vancouver, Canada), and a member of Providence Health Care's Joint Steering Committee for Multi-omics & Medical Imaging Datalab - MOMI (Vancouver, Canada).
He holds a B.A. in biochemistry from the University of Oxford and a Ph.D. in molecular genetics from the University of East Anglia (Cambridge Laboratory, John Innes Centre).
Job Titles:
- Head
- Member of the Board of Directors
Dr. Suzanne Vercauteren is a hematopathologist and head of the department of pathology and laboratory medicine at BC Children's Hospital.
Jinelle is a graduate student working under the supervision of Dr. Scott Tebbutt at St. Paul's Hospital. She graduated from the University of the West Indies (U.W.I), Mona Campus, Jamaica in 2016 with a Bachelor of Basic Medical Science in Pharmacology, and completed a Master's degree in Biomedical Research at UWI in 2018.
Her current research aims include using transcriptomics datasets to develop a biomarker panel for diagnosing western red-cedar asthma (WRCA). As a PROOF Centre trainee, she aims to deepen her understanding of computational biology and statistical modelling and their applications in biomarker discovery.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- General Practice Partner
- President of the Stanley Theatre Society
Mr. Bruce Milley was a general practice partner (1971 - 2002) and former managing partner (1984 - 1987) of the Vancouver office of Grant Thornton, Chartered Accountants, and its predecessor firms. His major clients included public companies, municipalities and not-for-profit organizations.
Since he obtained his degrees as a Charted Accountant and an MBA, Mr. Milley has contributed widely to his professions. Of particular note, he has been a Member of Council of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of B.C. for four years and has chaired and served on numerous committees of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of B.C.
Mr. Milley's involvement in the community includes: Director of the Hamber Foundation (2008 - current), Executive Member of the Spirit of B.C., North Shore Committee and Chair of its Cultural sub-committee (2006 - 2008), Chair of the West Vancouver Community Foundation (2004-2008), Director of the West Vancouver Community Foundation (1999-2008), Director of the Jack Bell Foundation (2002-2009), and Director and Treasurer of the Arts Club Theatre Foundation (2006 - current).
As President of the Stanley Theatre Society, Mr. Milley was heavily involved in raising over $7 million to acquire and renovate the heritage building and convert it to a live theatre venue.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Data Scientist
- Director of Data Science
- Director of Data Science / Operations
- Director of Data Science, PROOF Centre of Excellence
Casey Shannon is a data scientist and computational biologist. At the PROOF Centre of Excellence, he uses high dimensional gene, protein, and metabolite data to derive clinically useful diagnostic or prognostic tests. This involves the application of machine learning approaches to identify informative features from the vast amounts of data generated by high throughput omics platforms.
Prior to joining PROOF, Casey's research interests included the study of spinal cord injury in rodent models, particularly the use of adult skin-derived stem-cells in spinal cord injury repair. This work lead to publications in The Journal of Neurotrauma and The Journal of Neuroscience.
Casey holds Bachelor's degrees in Cell Physiology and Genetics, as well as Computer Science, from the University of British Columbia.
Job Titles:
- Chairman of the Board
- Member of the Board of Directors
Mr. Frank Holler brings a wide-ranging experience to his role as PROOF Centre's Chairman of the Board. An active investor and successful entrepreneur, Mr. Holler is currently the CEO and partner of Lions Capital Corp., and the fund manager for BC Advantage Funds and the Lions Funds. He previously served as President & CEO of Xenon Pharmaceuticals Inc., a private genomics-based drug development company from 1999 to 2003; as President & CEO of ID Biomedical Corporation, a vaccine development company sold to GlaxoSmithKline plc in 2005 from 1991 to 1998; and as the founding director of Angiotech Pharmaceuticals, a TSX/ NASDAQ listed medical device company from 1992 to 1997.
Prior to working in biotechnology and healthcare, Mr. Holler was an Investment Banker with Merrill Lynch Canada and Wood Gundy Inc. (now CIBC World Markets).
Mr. Holler presently serves on the board of directors of Protox Therapeutics Inc. (Chairman), Allon Therapeutics Inc., Aquinox Pharmaceuticals Inc., Genome British Columbia, Providence Healthcare and Xenon Pharmaceuticals Inc. He was previously Director of the British Columbia Biotechnology Association from 1992 to 1998. In 2003, Mr. Holler received the BC Biotech Award for Vision and Leadership.
Mr. Holler holds a Masters of Business Administration degree and Bachelor of Arts (Economics) degree from the University of British Columbia.
Job Titles:
- Finance Manager
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Finance Manager for the Centre of Excellence
Ms. Jo-Lynn Mervyn is currently the Finance Manager for the Centre of Excellence for the Prevention of Organ Failure (PROOF Centre). Ms. Mervyn also holds the position of Finance Manager for the Providence Health Care Research Institute. She is responsible for managing a high volume of accounts for multiple different projects from various funding agencies. Ms. Mervyn has worked in the finance sector of the research setting for 9 years and currently leads a team of 5 finance personnel. Her role as Finance Manager includes many functions but most notably she is responsible for budgeting, reporting, policy development and auditing for the multiple different projects.
For her role with PROOF she will be working very closely with the Audit and Finance Committee. Jo-Lynn completed her Bachelors in Business Administration and is studying to write her accounting designation exam.
Job Titles:
- Clinical Research Coordinator at PROOF
- Clinical Research Manager
Ms. Paloma Stanar is currently the Clinical Research Coordinator at PROOF. She is responsible for organizing and directing the day-to-day aspects of clinical research projects, including overseeing participant enrollment and sample collection, maintaining anonymized databases, and preparing and implementing documents for ethics approval, standard operating procedures, study protocols, and informed patient consent.
Paloma graduated from the University of British Columbia in 2018 with a Master of Science in Neuroscience, where she studied cell death pathways underlying human disease using the gene editing tool CRISPR/Cas9 in animal models. She also completed a Bachelor of Science in Integrated Science at the University of British Columbia in 2015.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Director, Clinical Research
Sara Assadian provides leadership for all PROOF Centre biomarker programs from a clinical research perspective. She is accountable for planning, executing, managing, and monitoring research projects. She provides guidance and direction and ensures successful achievement of study goals within the allocated budget, personnel, resources and timelines. Sara manages projects from initiation to close and implements research strategies and procedures to ensure adherence to research practices and successful research operations. She is responsible for contributing to the development of biomarker program budgets, patient enrolment protocols, and project goals, objectives, and schedules.
Sara worked for BC Transplant as a Clinical Research Coordinator for 3.5 years prior to joining the PROOF Centre. She coordinated several Industry funded studies examining the effects of immunosuppressive medications on solid organ transplant patients. At the PROOF Center, she facilitated and managed Canadian and International trial sites in her Clinical Research Manager role. Sara obtained her Bachelor's of Clinical Psychology from the University of British Columbia in 2006 and her Master's in Health Studies from Athabasca University in 2016.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Clinical Research Manager
Shanay is a graduate student working under the supervision of Dr. Scott Tebbutt at St. Paul's Hospital. She earned her Medical Doctorate degree (M.D.) from Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Shanay has worked as a clinician physician and researcher.
Shanay's current research focuses on the role of regulatory T cells in blood during acute heart transplant rejection. As a PROOF Centre trainee, she hopes to improve her understanding of statistical methodologies and computational biology and and their applications in biomarker discoveries.