Who is DERIVE?
DERIVE is a new team science-based initiative that brings together experts from multiple disciplines, including genetic and environmental epidemiology, computational biology, clinical research and practice, and basic science research. With diverse areas of expertise spanning reproductive and developmental biology, pediatrics, human genetics, and environmental health, our team dominates across academic, clinical and government settings.
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Dr. Ryan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Human Genetics and Pediatrics at McGill University and a Senior Scientist at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre in Montreal, Canada. Dr. Ryan's research program is dedicated to identifying and functionally validating the genetic and environmental factors that cause birth defects, with a particular focus on neural tube defects.
Developmental Biologist
Pediatrician-Scientist
Dr. Gupta is a Pediatric Nephrologist and Senior Scientist at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre and an Associate Professor in the Departments of Pediatrics and Human Genetics at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Dr. Gupta's research focuses on understanding the genetic and environmental factors that cause developmental disorders and disease in the kidneys and urinary tracts.
The Co-Investigators
Scientific Research Manager
Dr. Haverfield, together with Dr. Ryan and Dr. Gupta, leads the scientific, strategic and operational direction of DERIVE. Dr. Haverfield is a reproductive and developmental biologist and brings leadership experience working as Assistant Director of Science Strategy at the CIHR Institute of Gender and Health. Dr. Haverfield is establishing the 3D human organoid pipeline in the lab to test the impact of genetic variants and environmental exposures on organogenesis.
Genetic Epidemiologist
The Leadership
Dr. Mann is a Professor and Department Chair in the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics at McGill University and a Senior Investigator at the Lady Davis Institute at the Jewish General Hospital, in Montreal, Canada. Dr. Mann's laboratory researches the environmental health effects of metals, in particular, the toxic effects of arsenic and tungsten on the immune system and how this can lead to different pathologies.
Dr. Engert is an Associate Professor in the Department of Human Genetics at McGill University and a Senior Scientist at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre in Montreal, Canada. Dr. Engert's research focuses on uncovering the genetic etiology of a wide variety of cardiovascular diseases. His team uses several modern technologies and statistical methods to discover the genes and gene variants underlying these diseases.
SCOTT WEICHENTHAL, PhD
Air Pollution Epidemiologist
Dr. Weichenthal is an Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Occupational Health at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Dr. Weichenthal's research program is dedicated to identifying and evaluating environmental risk factors for chronic illnesses, including the development of novel approaches to examine how the urban built environment influences environmental exposures at both the individual and population-level.
ERIC LAVIGNE, PhD
Environmental Epidemiologist
Dr. Lavigne is a Research Scientist with the Environmental Health Science and Research Bureau of Health Canada and an Adjunct Professor in the School of Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Ottawa. Dr. Lavigne's research investigates how human health is affected by atmospheric systems, including air pollution and weather. Much of this work is based on epidemiology, biostatistics, and environmental sciences.
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PHILIP AWADALLA, PhD
Population Geneticist
MARIE-JULIE FAVÉ, PhD
Computational Geneticist
Dr. Favé is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biology at Concordia University. Dr. Favé completed a PhD at McGill University in population genetics and developmental biology, and Postdoctoral Fellowships at CHU St Justine and the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research in bioinformatics and statistical genetics. Dr. Favé currently applies bioinformatics, machine learning and deep learning approaches to multi-omics datasets from large population and cancer biobanks, and she is currently supporting DERIVE's gene-environment interaction analyses within the CanPath cohort.
Dr. Awadalla is a Professor of Population and Medical Genomics at the University of Toronto and National Scientific Director of CanPath - Canada's largest population health cohort. Dr. Awadalla leads a population and medical genomics laboratory, and his teams’ primary research interests include developing next-generation genomics and statistical approaches to study developmental and chronic diseases in large family and population cohorts, including many large collaborative programs such as the 1000 Genomes Project.
LAURENCE CHAPUY, MD, PhD
Pediatric Gastroenterologist
PAMELA LEIN, PhD
Air Pollution Toxicologist
Dr. Chapuy is a Clinician-Scientist at CHU Sainte-Justine Hospital and an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Departments of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Pediatric Nutrition, and Pediatrics at the Université de Montréal (Montreal, Quebec). Her laboratory studies the mechanisms underlying pediatric inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), including Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. She also leads the CHU Sainte-Justine Pediatric IBD Biobank, which provides biological samples from children with IBD in Montreal that DERIVE is using to identify novel genetic variants associated with disease risk.
Dr. Lein is Professor and Chair of the Department of Molecular Biosciences and a Professor in the Air Quality Research Center at UC Davis, California, USA. Dr. Lein leads a research program aimed at understanding how gene-environment interactions can lead to a variety of complex disorders, from asthma to autism and Alzheimer’s. Dr. Lein is part of a team that established a novel air-pollution exposure facility adjacent to a major freeway tunnel system, providing a platform for real-time studies of the long-term health impacts of traffic-related air pollution.
The Research Team
IRIS LIU, BSc
Computational Geneticist
Environmental Epidemiologist
RACHA LAKROUF, MScPH
Iris is a Doctoral student in the Department of Human Genetics at McGill University, Montreal, Canada and is co-supervised by Dr. Indra Gupta and Dr. Jamie Engert. Iris earned her Bachelor of Science from McGill University in Montreal Canada, majoring in psychology and minoring in biology. Iris brings skills in computational biology and genomic association studies, and is currently supporting DERVIE's genetic epidemiological investigations with the
UK Biobank.
Racha is a doctoral student in the Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health at McGill University, in Montreal, Canada and is supervised by Dr. Scott Weichenthal. Her thesis aims to examine the consequences of air pollution on child health. Racha holds two Bachelor of Science degrees from McGill University, majoring first in life sciences and second in ecological determinants of health. She also holds a Master of Science in Public Health degree from the same institution.
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YIRAN SHUO, BSc
Machine Learning Expert
Yiran is a doctoral student in the Awadalla Lab at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research and the Department of Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto. She earned her Bachelor of Science from Western University, double majoring in Biology and Computer Science. She supports the analysis of DERIVE's wet lab data, using computer vision and machine learning techniques to quantify and visualise the morphological changes in organoids induced by environmental chemical exposure during development.