Dr. Jason Acker is a Senior Research Scientist at Canadian Blood Services and a Professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at the University of Alberta, where he also serves as the Associate Vice President for Research Integrity Support. His research focuses on understanding cell and tissue responses to ex vivo storage, preservation methods, and their use as therapeutic products. With a Master of Business Administration and experience in working with university startups, Dr. Acker has actively consulted and advised companies and organizations developing biobanking and cell therapy programs. He has successfully established a number of companies including PanTHERA CryoSolutions, which was acquired by Biolife Solutions in April 2025

Cancer is a complex and dynamic disease that poses significant challenges in understanding its progression and treatment. At the Rosalind and Morris Goodman Cancer Institute (GCI) at McGill University, we employ metabolomics including stable isotope tracer analysis to delve into the metabolic intricacies of cancer cells and their microenvironment. Dr. Daina Avizonis, Associate Director of the Metabolomics Innovation Resource (MIR) at GCI, leads a team of experts that work to unravel the metabolic changes occurring in cancer cells and their surroundings. With a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from UC San Diego and postdoctoral fellowships at UC San Francisco and UC Berkeley as well as industrial experience, Dr. Avizonis brings a multifaceted scientific background to her role. Her passion for hands-on teaching and the detection of metabolites was ignited while working as an NMR applications chemist at Varian Instruments. This journey led her to GCI, where she and the MIR team provide training and services in metabolic profiling to the research community, contributing to our collective understanding health and disease.

Christoph Borchers, PhD, Director of the SCPC. Dr. Borchers is a Professor in the Gerald Bronfman Department of Oncology at the Lady Davis Institute at the Jewish general Hospital at McGill University, and holds the Segal McGill Chair in Molecular Oncology. He became a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences in 2013 and the Life Sciences BC Award/Genome BC Award for Scientific Excellence in 2016. His research encompasses structural and quantitative proteomics as well as quantitative metabolomics, with a clear focus on clinical applications and translation. Dr. Borchers’ lab has developed targeted mass spectrometry assays for the ‘absolute’ quantitation of thousands of proteins from cells, tissues, and biofluids, including members of the PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway and the PD-L1 signaling axis. He furthermore developed MS assays to determine mutation rates of known cancer drivers in tumor tissues on the protein level, and to determine the concentration of immune-therapeutics in patient blood, for therapeutic drug monitoring. The targeted MS assays developed in the Borchers lab are being used both for fundamental research and to complement existing genomic assays in precision oncology. Dr. Borchers has over 325 publications in mass-spectrometry based proteomics, with an H-index of 74 and more than 23,000 citations.

Sebastian Böcker holds the Chair for Bioinformatics at the Institute for Computer Science, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany. He studied mathematics and did his PhD in biomathematics at Bielefeld University, focusing on theoretical phylogenetics. He then went to industry for three years, developing computational methods for the interpretation of DNA/RNA mass spectrometry data. He returned to Bielefeld University as an independent research leader, before he took up his current position in Jena. His research interests are mainly method-driven and were originally focussed on combinatorics and algorithmics; later, stochastics and machine learning joined the methods of interest. On the application side, his research focuses on the annotation of small molecules from mass spectrometry data: SIRIUS, CSI:FingerID and CANOPUS from his group were named "methods to watch" by Nature Methods. Sebastian Böcker is a Emmy Noether fellow (Computer Science Action Program) of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and also a fellow of the Alexander-von-Humboldt Society. In 2022, he and his group won the Thuringian Research prize. In 2025, he was awarded an ERC advanced grant for transforming small molecule tandem mass spectra into bioactivity predictions.

Rafael (Rafa) Montenegro Burke earned his PhD in chemistry at Vanderbilt University under the guidance of Dr. John A. McLean, focusing on the analysis of complex biological samples using ion mobility-mass spectrometry. From 2016–2020, he was a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Gary Siuzdak at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA, where he focused on solving current challenges in the identification of unknown metabolites and their corresponding biological function/activity in disease. He joined the faculty of the Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research at the University of Toronto as an assistant professor in the Fall of 2020 and is a Canada Research Chair in Functional Metabolomics and Lipidomics. The Montenegro Burke laboratory focuses on the development and application of mass spectrometry and bioinformatics approaches to functionally characterize the metabolome and discover novel metabolic vulnerabilities and therapeutic opportunities for disease.

Philip Britz-McKibbin received his PhD in analytical chemistry (2000) from the University of British Columbia under the supervision of David D. Y. Chen, followed by a Japan Society for Promotion of Sciencepost-doctoral research fellowship in the renowned group of Shigeru Terabe at Himeji Institute of Technology (2001-2003). Philip started his independent career in 2003 at McMaster University, and is currently a Cystic Fibrosis Canada Researcher and Professor at the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, and an affiliate member of the Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine. He is also an affiliate member of the Metabolomics Innovation Centre (TMIC) – Canada’s national laboratory for metabolomics research and innovative analytical services. His work has been funded by NSERC, CIHR, CFI, Genome Canada and Cystic Fibrosis Canada, and involves innovative collaborative research projects that have strong translational potential in clinical medicine and public health.

Prof. Oliver Fiehn has pioneered developments and applications in metabolomics with over 480 publications to date, starting in 1998 as postdoctoral scholar and from 2000 onwards as group leader at the Max-Planck Institute for Molecular Plant Physiology in Potsdam, Germany. Since 2004 he is Professor at the UC Davis Genome Center, overseeing his research laboratory and the satellite core service laboratory in metabolomics research. Since 2012, he is Director of the UC Davis West Coast Metabolomics Center, supervising 30 staff operating 15 mass spectrometers. To focus on large cohort studies and translational metabolomics, he has added the ThermoFisher Center of Excellence in Clinical Metabolomics at the UC Davis Genome Center.

Dave is currently Professor of Biochemistry and Microbiology at the University of Victoria where he is also Director of the Genome BC Proteome Centre (https://www.proteincentre.com/). He is also a Mentor for the Chemical Biology group at the University of Gdansk’s International Centre for Cancer Vaccine Science (https://iccvs.ug.edu.pl/). Previously he was a Professor at the University of Maryland in Baltimore, MD (2013-2020). From 2012-2016 he was a Finland Distinguished Professor (FiDiPro) at the University of Turku in Turku, Finland. From 2013 to 2016 Dave was the Isaac E. Emerson Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy and from 2013-2015 he was Director of the UMB School of Pharmacy MS Center. From 2004-2012 he was Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Washington in Seattle, WA where he was also Director of the School of Pharmacy mass spectrometry facility.

Dr. Rachel Gregor is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry and the BioZone Centre for Applied Bioscience and Bioengineering, at the University of Toronto. Dr. Gregor leads the MicroChemEco Lab, with the goal of understanding and engineering microbiomes through their chemistry, for biomedical, environmental, and industrial applications. Previously, Dr. Gregor was a postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with fellowships from the Simons Foundation and the Center for Chemical Currencies of a Microbial Planet. She received her PhD in Chemistry from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel.

Dr. Harynuk is a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Alberta. He received his Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Waterloo in 2004, and then moved to Melbourne, Australia to continue the study of multidimensional separations. He joined the University of Alberta in 2007 where he has built a vibrant research group with interests in fundamentals and applications of multidimensional gas chromatography, in a variety of fields, including metabolomics, environmental analysis, and forensics, as well as chemometrics and the development of new tools for data processing. His laboratory is one of the nodes of The Metabolomics Innovation Centre (TMIC), where he has been a node lead and co-PI since 2013.

Dr. Tao Huan received his Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Alberta under the supervision of Dr. Liang Li on developing chemical isotope labelling liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry-based metabolomics. After graduation, Dr. Huan did postdoctoral work with Dr. Gary Siuzdak at the Scripps Research (La Jolla, CA) to create metabolomics-guided systems biology for an in-depth understanding of disease mechanisms. In July 2018, he came back to Canada with the Assistant Professor position at the University of British Columbia.

Dr. Mohit Kapoor is the Co-Director of the Schroeder Arthritis Institute in Toronto, the largest multidisciplinary Arthritis Institute in Canada. He is the Tony and Shari Fell Platinum Chair in Arthritis Research. He is also the Canada Research Chair, Professor of Orthopedic Surgery and Director of the Collaborative Program in Musculoskeletal Sciences at the University of Toronto. Dr. Kapoor’s translational research program utilizes multi-omic approaches to understand the complex cellular and molecular mechanisms associated with joint destruction during osteoarthritis.

His research program is funded by various organizations including the Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR), Canada Research Chairs Program, Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI), Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), The Krembil Foundation, The Arthritis Society, Stem Cell Network, etc.

He sits on the scientific panels & boards of various research and funding organizations across the globe. He is the President-Elect and member of the Executive Board of Directors for the Osteoarthritis Research Society International (OARSI). He is the recipient of multiple research awards and honors including the 2023 Robin Poole Investigator Award for Excellence in Arthritis Research. He has over 150 research publications in respectable scientific journals including Nature Medicine, Science Translational Medicine, Journal of Clinical Investigation, Nature Reviews Rheumatology, Annals of The Rheumatic Diseases, etc.

Dr. Li obtained his BSc in Chemistry from Zhejiang University in 1983 and his PhD from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan. He joined the University of Alberta in July 1989, where he is Professor of Chemistry and Adjunct Professor of Biochemistry. He is the Co-Director of the Metabolomics Innovation Centre (TMIC) of Canada. He is an elected fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (Academy of Science). Dr. Li was Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Analytical Chemistry from 2005 to 2019. He served as Director, Alberta Cancer Board Proteomics Resource Laboratory, from 2000 to 2005. He was Chair of Analytical Chemistry Division at the University of Alberta from 2007 to 2019. He was a Co-PI of the Human Metabolome Database (HMDB) Project; his laboratory generated the HMDB MS/MS spectral library of the endogenous human metabolites which has been widely used by the metabolomics community. His laboratory is a pioneer in developing the high-performance chemical isotope labeling liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (HP-CIL LC-MS) platform for quantitative and comprehensive metabolome profiling of bio-systems. Dr. Li has received a number of national and international awards and honors. He has been an editor of Analytica Chimica Acta, an international journal on analytical chemistry, since 2005.

Dr. Thomas Velenosi PhD, is an assistant professor in the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences. He received his PhD in pharmacology and toxicology from Western University where he studied drug metabolism and metabolic biomarkers using metabolomics analysis. He then joined the Laboratory of Metabolism at the National Cancer Institute (National Institutes of Health) as a postdoctoral fellow. There, he began his research vision at the intersection of cancer therapy and metabolic biomarker discovery, in the emerging field of pharmacometabolomics. His lab aims to advance the field of precision medicine for cancer patients by identifying and characterizing metabolite profiles that can predict drug response or determine effective treatment.

Dajana Vuckovic received PhD in Chemistry from the University of Waterloo, and completed postdoctoral training in quantitative proteomics at the University of Toronto. Her group at Concordia University specializes in developing new analytical methods and devices to improve metabolite coverage and data quality in metabolomics, with the overarching goal of discovering and validating personalized biomarkers in cardiovascular health and nutrition. She is a leading researcher in sample preparation for metabolomics, and has introduced in vivo solid-phase microextraction sampling for metabolomics and lipidomics including in vivo sampling of oxylipins in the brain to study neuroinflammation. Her research has been recognized by the 2023 Fred Beamish Award and the 2024 Metabolomics Medal. She is also the co-chair of LC-MS Best Practices and Living Guidance Working Group within the mQACC international consortium (Metabolomics QA & QC Consortium).

Derek Wilson is a research chair in bioanalytical chemistry who’s group develops new mass spectrometry-based technologies for exploring protein function through the lens of structure and dynamics. Wilson leads the “Technology Enhanced Biopharmaceuticals Development and Manufacturing Initiative” which is a large-scale industry-academic effort to translate new bioanalytical technologies for drug development and manufacturing in the real world. He has authored or co-authored more than 100 publications, managed over 15M in funding from Tri-council and other sources and was a co-winner of the 2024 NSERC synergy award.

Dr. David Wishart (PhD Yale, 1991) is a Distinguished University Professor in the Departments of Biological Sciences and Computing Science at the University of Alberta. He also holds adjunct appointments with the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences and with the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. He has been with the University of Alberta since 1995. Dr. Wishart’s research interests are very wide ranging, covering metabolomics, analytical chemistry, drug chemistry, natural product chemistry, molecular biology, protein chemistry and neuroscience. He has developed a number of widely techniques based on NMR spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, liquid chromatography and gas chromatography to characterize the structures of both small and large molecules. As part of this effort, Dr. Wishart has led the “Human Metabolome Project” (HMP), a multi-university, multi-investigator project that is cataloguing all the known chemicals in human tissues and biofluids. Using a variety of analytical chemistry techniques along with text mining and machine learning, Dr. Wishart and his colleagues have identified or found evidence for more than 250,000 metabolites in the human body. This information has been archived on a freely accessible web-resource called the Human Metabolome Database (HMDB). Dr. Wishart has also been using machine learning and artificial intelligence to help create other useful chemistry databases, such as DrugBank, FooDB and ContaminantDB and software tools (such as MetaboAnalyst, CFM-ID and BioTransformer) to help with the characterization and identification of metabolites, drugs, pesticides and natural products. Over the course of his career Dr. Wishart has published more than 500 research papers in high profile journals on a wide variety of subject areas. These papers have been cited >100,000 times.

Dr. Xia obtained his Medicine degree from Peking University Health Science Center (Beijing, China). His MSc (University of Alberta) thesis was on characterization of immune genes from expressed sequence tags. This project led him to discover his passion and strengths in combining big data, cloud computing, statistics, machine learning and visualization to understand biology and disease. His PhD thesis (University of Alberta) was on bioinformatics and statistics for metabolomics. His postdoctoral research (University of British Columbia) was on integrating next-generation sequencing data and biological networks for systems biology. Dr. Xia joined McGill as an Assistant Professor in 2015. His current research focuses on integrating big data analytics and high-throughput 'omics technologies to understand gene-environment interactions, with applications to metabolomics, microbiomics, and exposomics.