• Integrated Learning Session

These sessions involve active discussion and articulation of ideas, which are broadened by the input of a variety of perspectives. Students are presented with “real-life” problems, explore and come to a conclusion to acquire new knowledge. Bringing various perspectives to each topic. Four ILS sessions are scheduled throughout the year. ILS sessions are typically two hours in length.

All sessions are scheduled on Thursdays from 10:00am-11:30 am (ATL) via videoconference.

Session dates for 2024-2025, subject to change, are as follows:

2025:

January 16
Theme – “Rare Cancers: Voices, Treatment and Research”

Facilitated by Dr. Chris McMaster
Scientific Director, CIHR Institute of Genetics and Professor, Department of Pharmacology, Dalhousie University

Presenters:

Dr. Jason Berman, CEO and Scientific Director, CHEO Research Institute and Vice President of Research, Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario
Professor, Department of Pediatrics, University of Ottawa
“Zebrafish avatars: A translational tool for therapeutic discovery in rare pediatric cancers”

– Dr. Jason Berman is the CEO and Scientific Director of the CHEO Research Institute and the Vice-President of Research at CHEO. He is also a Full Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Ottawa. Previously, he served as Associate Chair of research, Department of Pediatrics, and Professor of Pediatrics, Microbiology & Immunology and Pathology at Dalhousie University and interim Vice President of Research, Innovation, and Knowledge Translation for the IWK Health Centre in Halifax. He has overseen the pediatric leukemia program for the Maritimes since 2005 and chairs an international clinical trial for children with Down syndrome and myeloid leukemia. Dr. Berman is internationally recognized for pioneering research using zebrafish to study childhood cancers and rare inherited diseases. His laboratory has served as the Atlantic node of the Centre for Drug Research and Development and a national hub for zebrafish modeling of orphan diseases. He has been co-chair of the C17 Childhood Cancer Network Developmental Therapeutics Committee and Director of the Clinician Investigator Program and Medical Research Graduate Program at Dalhousie. He is president of the Canadian Society for Clinical Investigation, vice president of the Canadian Hematology Society and a founding member of the Canadian Rare Disease Models and Mechanisms Network. 

Dr. Daniel Gaston, Clinical Bioinformatician and Assistant Professor, Nova Scotia Health
“Genomics in Rare Cancers: A diagnostics perspective”

– Dr. Dan Gaston completed his PhD at Dalhousie University in the lab of Dr. Andrew Roger where he studied mechanisms of protein evolution and the genomics of single-celled eukaryotes. He then took on a Postdoctoral Fellowship with Dr. Karen Bedard as part of the Genome Canada funded IGNITE project, hunting for causal gene mutations in families with rare genetic diseases in Atlantic Canada, including a form of Familial Gastric Cancer thanks to funding through the BHCRI Cancer Research Training Program. Afterwards, Dr. Gaston was fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time when Nova Scotia Health started building capacity for Next-Generation Sequencing based cancer diagnostics in the Molecular Diagnostics Lab of the QEII in 2016. Dr. Gaston splits his time between Clinical Diagnostics and Academic duties and is the Bioinformatics Co-Lead with the Atlantic Cancer Consortium as part of the TFRI Marathon of Hope Cancer Centres Network. 

Ms. Cathy Smallwood, Person with Lived and Learned Experience
“The patient perspective”

– Cathy Smallwood is a registered counselling therapist (CCS) and writer interested in well-being and habit change. Originally from Ottawa, she now plays in boreal forests of Newfoundland. In January 2018, after nine months of mysterious symptoms and numerous biopsies and scans, she was diagnosed with Stage 4 Angioimmunoblastic T cell Lymphoma (AITL). Chemotherapy was risky because of her age (67) and the advanced stage of cancer, so vital organs were assessed and because she passed with flying colours, she was immediately started on the CHOP chemo regime. When remission was achieved, she received an autologous stem cell transplant (ASCT) in July 2018.  Cathy owes a debt of gratitude to the researchers who invented the therapy which successfully treated the blood cancer. She’s been in remission for over six years, and doctors attribute the good outcomes in part to her healthy lifestyle which includes exercise, meditation, sleep, and eating nutritious foods – even when hospitalized. She is on the Patient Advisory Committee of the Cancer Rehab & Survivorship Program (CRS). Part of their current pilot project involves creating an online platform for helping patients make healthy lifestyle choices during treatment and rehabilitation. She was also on the patient representative committee for Cell Therapy Transplant Canada (CTTC), and participated in CCRA’s Patient Involvement in Cancer Research Program (PIP) 2023. The positive emotional support she received from others during her cancer journey inspired her to volunteer her counselling expertise with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Canada (LLC) Be the Match program. 

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April 17
Theme – “TBA”

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June 19
Theme – “TBA”

Presenters: TBA

Further details will be posted on the events page as they become available.