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Spring Meeting 2025 - Maria Ricci Memorial Lectureship in Oncology

The Marathon of Hope Cancer Centres Network - past, present and future
Spring Meeting 2025 - Maria Ricci Memorial Lectureship in Oncology

During the CCTG Annual Spring Meeting of Participants be sure to make time to attend the Maria Ricci Memorial Lectureship in Oncology. This year the lecturer is Dr. Jim Woodgete who will be speaking about the The Marathon of Hope Cancer Centres Network - Past, Present and Future. The lecture takes place on Saturday April 26th from 5-6pm in the Mountbatten Room at the conference. 

Objectives

  • Convey the nature, composition and operational status of the MOHCCN, the main challenges faced and approaches employed;
  • Identify where the Network is heading, its evolved objectives, deliverables and results;
  • Describe how to participate and what the Network isn’t (hint, it’s not a research grant); and,
  • Describe the Network's approach to data sharing and sustainability

Dr Woodgett is President and Scientific Director of the Terry Fox Research Institute, Canada, Senior Scientist at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute (LTRI) and Professor in the Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto. After completing his PhD in biochemistry from the University of Dundee with Professor Philip Cohen in 1984, he pursued postdoctoral studies at the Salk Institute under Professor Tony Hunter and in 1987 returned to the UK to establish an independent research group at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, London, UK where he isolated and characterized genes for several regulators of key signaling pathways including the stress-activated proteins kinases, PKB/Akt and GSK3. In 1992 he moved to the Ontario Cancer Institute in Toronto where his lab focused on signalling mechanisms underscoring malignant growth, degenerative diseases and diabetes. He was then appointed to the LTRI at Mount Sinai Hospital in 2005 where he served as Director of Research for 15 years. A significant fraction of his 300+ publications concern the biology and functions of a protein termed GSK3, which was a topic of the last chapter of his PhD thesis, highlighting the long time-lines often associated with pursuit of science
 

Maria Ricci Lectureship in Oncology

The Maria Ricci Memorial Lectureship in Oncology was established in 2007 with funding provided by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in memory of Maria Ricci who was GSK Scientific Development Manager in oncology when her life ended tragically in January 2007 while traveling on GSK-related business. She was committed to making a difference for Canadian patients and instrumental in bridging relationships between global GSK and the Canadian medical community. Maria facilitated Canadian scientific and medical engagement in the development of GSK's oncology pipeline. She was a PhD candidate in Microbiology & Immunology at McGill University and received her MSc in pharmacology and toxicology from the University of Western Ontario. Maria was well respected by her colleagues and peers and remembered for her enthusiasm and passionate approach to work and life.

See the Schedule of Events for all meeting dates and times.