Short Bio

Dr. Inanc Birol is a distinguished scientist at Canada’s Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre, a professor at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Department of Medical Genetics, an associate member of the Departments of Computer Science, and Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at UBC, and an adjunct scientist at BC Centre for Disease Control. Previously, he held research faculty and associate positions at Simon Fraser University, Illinois Institute of Technology and CERN – the latter, a knowledge centre for understanding the universe and home to the largest particle physics laboratory in the world.

To date, Dr. Birol’s team has accelerated research with over 140 publications, which have practical applications in both ecosystems and human biology, including medical genomics. As of 2018, he is listed among the top 1% cited scientist in the world by Clarivate Analytics in the Cross-Field category.

Short Bio

Dr. Kwon is a surgeon-scientist with advanced training in spine surgery and also a PhD in neuroscience. He is a Professor in the UBC Department of Orthopaedics. As an attending orthopaedic spine surgeon at Vancouver General Hospital his practice is focused on the management of adult spine trauma, spinal cord injuries, and non-traumatic conditions such as spine infection, deformity, and degeneration. As a neuroscientist and Principal Investigator at ICORD, Dr. Kwon runs an active basic/translational research laboratory. Dr. Kwon is currently also serving as the Associate Director, Clinical Research, for ICORD and is the Director of Research for the Vancouver Spine Research Program.

Dr. Kwon’s primary research interest is in spinal cord injury. During his residency, he met many young patients on the spinal cord unit whose lives had been devastated by SCI; this motivated him to pursue a career in spine surgery and a PhD in neuroscience. Now, as a surgeon-scientist, his research interests in SCI span the translational continuum from basic bench research all the way to clinical trials. His research program is best characterized by “bedside back to bench” and “bench to bedside” bi-directional translation.
Currently, Dr. Kwon is leading a North American clinical trial in acute SCI to improve guidelines for the management of patients in the early stages of their injury and also to establish biomarkers of injury by providing a more complete picture of the pathophysiology of acute human SCI. His interest in the human pathophysiology of SCI has led him to establish the International Spinal Cord Injury Biobank (ISCIB). In the laboratory, he has developed new models to facilitate the preclinical evaluation of novel therapeutic strategies and to also better understand clinical observations from acute SCI patients.

Dr. Kwon loves working with ICORD because of the multidisciplinary interface between science and medicine. He enjoys the ease with which his research can translate from “bench-to-bedside” and “bedside back to bench” with ICORD situated right on the campus of Vancouver General Hospital, the provincial referral centre for all acute spinal cord injuries in British Columbia.

Short Bio

Dr. James Lan is an assistant professor jointly appointed to the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and the Division of Nephrology at University of British Columbia (UBC). He is the medical director of the Vancouver Immunology Laboratory and an active transplant nephrologist at Vancouver General Hospital. He holds leadership positions as the BC Transplant Immunology Consultant and sits on the CBS Willing to Cross Working Group, CBS National HLA Advisory committee, CBS HLA Educational Committee, CBS Kidney Policy Implementation Committee and CST Awards and Grants Committee. He is a valued member of the Genome Canada Transplant Consortium and the UBC Research Excellence Cluster for Precision Medicine in Transplantation.

Dr. Lan is the recipient of a VCHRI Mentored Clinician Scientist award and is a Michael Smith Foundation Health Scholar. He has received funding for his work from the Kidney Foundation of Canada, UBC Grants for Catalyzing Research Clusters, UBC Barbara Opperman Grant, VCHRI and the Transplant Research Foundation of BC to support the development and application of new technologies to improve donor-recipient immune compatibility. A major focus of his research aims to innovate new solutions for highly sensitized patients on the kidney waiting list.

Dr. Lan contributes to the education of future clinicians and scientists by lecturing in the Georgetown series, the American Foundation for Donation and Transplantation and the CST Fellows Symposium. He also presents regularly as an invited speaker both nationally and internationally.