Husam Abdel-Qadir is a cardiologist at Women’s College Hospital and the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre, University Health Network. He graduated from the University of Toronto’s medical school with the Silver Medal and completed residencies in Internal Medicine and Cardiology at the University of Toronto, followed by a PhD in Clinical Epidemiology and Health Care Research at the Institute for Health Policy, Management, and Evaluation. His primary clinical and research focus is the cardiovascular health of people with cancer, particularly breast cancer. This research is supported by an early career Chair in Heart and Brain Health and a National New Investigator Award from the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada. He also leads a research program on the management and outcomes of people with atrial fibrillation. His work has been recognized by the Canadian Cardiovascular Society Young Investigator Award and Atrial Fibrillation Research Award, European Society of Cardiology Young Investigator Award, and the Polanyi prize in Medicine/ Physiology. Dr. Abdel-Qadir is a board member of the Black Physicians’ Association of Ontario and serves as its Director of Continuing Professional Development. He is also a member of the Advisory Board to the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario.

Dr. Yolanda Augustin is a Malaysian oncologist with a special interest in sarcoma and global oncology. She did her undergraduate, medical and palliative care training at Guy’s, King’s and St Thomas School of Medicine before undertaking clinical oncology training at the Royal Marsden, London. Upon completion of her oncology training, she undertook a research fellowship with the Royal Marsden Sarcoma Unit focused on clinical trial design and delivery of systemic anticancer therapies and radiotherapy trials. She is currently working on sarcoma service development, research and training in Malaysia including establishing a national prospective sarcoma database and sarcoma patient advocacy group.

She also co-leads a global oncology programme at St George’s, University of London focused on developing affordable therapeutics and diagnostics for cancer and infectious disease in Low and Middle Income Countries (LMICs). The programme brings together interdisciplinary experts from academia, global health and industry, with research collaborations in Malaysia, Vietnam, India and Senegal. Current projects include drug repurposing/repositioning for cancer, affordable point-of-care diagnostics for HPV DNA screening for cervical cancer and development pipelines for affordable cancer therapeutics. Her team also runs advocacy programmes with community health care champions and local stakeholders in rural communities in Sarawak, Malaysia aimed at removing barriers to equitable healthcare access and cancer service delivery.

Carmen Bergom, M.D., Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in Radiation Oncology at Washington University in St. Louis. She treats patients with breast cancer one day per week, and she also leads an R01-funded translational research laboratory focusing on identifying targets to enhance tumor radio sensitivity and minimize cardiotoxicity from cancer treatments. She also utilizes knowledge of heart radiation biology to use explore the use of radiotherapy to treat the heart. Dr. Bergom obtained undergraduate degrees in Chemical Engineering and Biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a Master’s degree in Epidemiology at Cambridge University, and she received her M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the Medical College of Wisconsin.

Dr. Braik is a Clinical and Research Fellow in Sarcoma, Division of Medical Oncology and Hematology at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre – Mount Sinai Hospital.

Dr. Chen is an Assistant Radiation Oncologist at Radiation Oncology, Massachusetts General Hospital.

She is a co-chair of NRG Oncology trial on neoadjuvant radiation and pazopanib in soft tissue sarcoma, a former co-chair of the Connective Tissue Oncology Society 2020-2021, and direct the adult sarcoma radiation oncology research at MGH.

Dr Robert James “RJ” Cusimano is a cardiac surgeon at the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre at the Toronto General Hospital and is a Professor of Surgery at the University of Toronto. He is the inaugural holder of the Cynamon Professorship in Cardiovascular Innovation and Education at the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre. In addition to his clinical duties, he has been deeply interested in education. He was the programme director of Cardiac surgery at the University of Toronto and at the Royal Collage of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, helped in the development and implimentation of the Competency based curriculum now in existence in Canada. He has taught both within the University, Canada and internationally, having either taught or helped in programme development in China, Ethiopia, Sri Lanka, Brazil, Europe and the US. In 2016 he conceived and held the first Toronto Cardiac Tumour Conference, which brings the world’s experts in the field of cardiac tumours on a yearly basis. Recently, he conceived and has been working on the INTERACT project (INTernational Registry to Assess Cardiac Tumours), a global initiative to capture all cardiac tumours in the world. This is a multi-national, multidisciplinary endevour which will bring centres around the world together to try to improve care and outcome in these very rare tumours. Recently he was in Africa to help develop a plan to harmonize interaction on the continent. Eventually he would like to develop a subspecialty of cardiac surgery in the area of cardiac tumours.

Dr. Rugheed Ghadban received his medical degree from Damascus University in Syria. He completed his internal medicine residency and subsequently served as a chief resident at St Louis University in St Louis, MO. He completed his training in cardiovascular disease at the University of Missouri during which he was chosen as a chief fellow and subsequently joined the faculty as an Assistant Professor in Clinical Medicine and Associate Program Director of the cardiovascular fellowship training program. He started his training in cardiac electrophysiology at Washington University in St Louis in 2019. Dr. Ghadban joined the faculty at Washington University as an Assistant Professor in 2021. His clinical interests are in the diagnosis and treatment of cardiac rhythm disorders which includes catheter ablation of complex cardiac arrhythmias, in addition to the implantation of cardiac implantable electrical devices. He has clinical and research interests particularly in the integration of advanced cardiac imaging modalities for optimization of safety and efficacy of complex ablation procedures of ventricular arrhythmias in patients with structural heart disease. He is a member of the clinical team of the Center for Noninvasive Cardiac Radiotherapy at Washington University.

David Kirsch, MD, PhD, is the Peter and Shelagh Godsoe Chair in Radiation Medicine, Head of the Radiation Medicine Program, and Head of the Department of Radiation Oncology at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network. He is also a Professor in the Departments of Radiation Oncology and Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto. Dr. Kirsch is an expert in the use of radiation therapy to care for patients with bone and soft tissue sarcomas. As a Senior Scientist at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, he leads a research lab utilizing sophisticated genetically engineered mouse models and human cancer cell lines to study mechanisms of tumor development and the response of cancer and normal tissues to radiation. After graduating from Duke with a BS in Biology, he completed the MD/PhD program at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, where he performed his thesis research with Dr. Michael Kastan. After an internship in Internal Medicine, Dr. Kirsch trained in radiation oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital. He completed a post-doc in the laboratory of Dr. Tyler Jacks at M.I.T. In 2007 Dr. Kirsch returned to Duke to care for patients with sarcomas and establish an independent laboratory. In 2023 he was recruited to Princess Margaret Cancer Centre. He has mentored over 60 trainees including undergraduate students, graduate students, medical students, post-doctoral fellows, and residents. In 2014, Dr. Kirsch received the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Mentoring from Duke University and in 2021 he received the Career Mentoring Award in Basic and Translational Science from the Duke School of Medicine. He has received a number of awards for his research including the 2010 Michael Fry Award and the 2017 J.W. Osborne Award from the Radiation Research Society. He is a recipient of an R35 Outstanding Investigator Award from the National Cancer Institute. Dr. Kirsch has been elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians, a Fellow of the American Society for Radiation Oncology, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Dr. Koch is a Clinical and Research Fellow in Sarcoma, Division of Medical Oncology and Hematology at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre- Mount Sinai Hospital.

Dr Aisha Miah is a Consultant Clinical Oncologist at the Sarcoma Unit, The Royal Marsden Hospital and is Honorary Faculty of the Division of Radiotherapy and Imaging at The Institute of Cancer Research.

She first joined the sarcoma community 2011 and quickly learnt the challenges in treating sarcoma, delivering systemic therapies and radiotherapy for the treatment of soft tissue sarcoma.

Aisha has also led on the delivery of education and training for Specialist Registrars in London and the South-East as Training Programme Director for Clinical Oncology.

In 2022 she was appointed as a Sarcoma UK Trustee.

Dr. Nyamande is a Clinical Cardiovascular Fellow at Toronto General Hospital.

Dr. Wagner received his MD degree from Harvard Medical School, and completed residency at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York and fellowship in medical oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Prior to joining Dana-Farber in 2023, he was a member of the faculty at the University of Washington and Fred Hutch Cancer Center, where he was also the Director of Sarcoma Clinical Research. His research interests include angiosarcoma and other vascular sarcomas, and immunotherapy and targeted agents for bone and soft tissue sarcomas.

Dr. Geoffrey Watson is a Staff Medical Oncologist at Mount Sinai Hospital and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto. He completed his basic and specialized training in medical oncology in Dublin, Ireland and has also received a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science as well as a Master’s degree in Pharmacological Bioinformatics at University College Dublin, Ireland.

Dr. Watson joined the Drug Development and Sarcoma Programs at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre as a clinical research fellow in 2019. During this time he served as the Chief Fellow of the Division of Medical Oncology and Hematology, and was awarded with a Hold’em for Life Oncology Clinician Scientist Award in 2019, an ASCO Merit Award in 2020 and 2021 as well as the Novartis Oncology Young Canadian Investigator Award in 2020 and 2021.

Dr. Watson’s clinical focus is on the treatment of sarcoma and breast cancer. His academic interest is in patient reported outcomes and quality of life, and he also has an interest in teaching and education, particularly the evolving role of virtual education.