Prof. Lasko received his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1986 and joined McGill in 1990 after a postdoctoral period at the University of Cambridge. Using the Drosophila system, Dr. Lasko’s research concerns regulatory processes that control gene expression at the levels of mRNA stability or translation, and that underlie germ cell or early embryonic development. He received the Award of Excellence from the Canadian Society of Genetics in 2004. At McGill he served as Chair of the Department of Biology from 2000 -2010. He assumed his position at CIHR in May 2010 but maintains his research lab at McGill.

Dr. Lasko has been highly active in research grant adjudication and served on CIHR or Canadian Cancer Society grant panels continuously since 1995. He has also worked extensively for the Human Frontiers of Science Program Organization (HFSPO) over the past ten years, serving on its program grant panel from 2001-2005, and then as one of two Canadian representatives on the Council of Scientists. He chaired the HFSP Council of Scientists since 2007-2010. Dr. Lasko also served as President of the Genetics Society of Canada from 2007-2010. As Scientific Director, Dr. Lasko oversees the Institute’s strategic research funding initiatives, many of which involve fostering international partnerships.

Dr Eric Marcotte is Associate Director for the Institute of Genetics (IG) and the Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction (INMHA) of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) - Canada's major funding agency for health research. Dr. Marcotte holds a PhD in Medical Sciences from McMaster University (1998). Following post-doctoral work at McGill University, Dr. Marcotte served for several years as a biotechnology analyst in the investment sector. Dr Marcotte was recruited to CIHR in 2003 to establish the Regenerative Medicine and Nanomedicine Initiative, one of the agency's inaugural Major Strategic Initiatives. Since 2010, Dr Marcotte has been the strategic lead for the Canadian Epigenetics, Environment and Health Research Consortium (CEEHRC), one of the current Signature Initiatives of CIHR. Dr Marcotte serves as the CIHR representative on the International Mouse Phenotyping Consortium (IMPC) and the International Human Epigenome Consortium (IHEC). He is currently the Chair of the IHEC Executive Committee.

Christopher Yip is the Director of the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Toronto, and a Full Professor in the Departments of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry, IBBME, and Biochemistry. He is a member of the faculty of the Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research at the University of Toronto. He is on the Institute Advisory Board for the Institute of Genetics at CIHR, section co-chair for the Materials and Chemical Engineering Evaluation Group at NSERC, and a standing member on the Biophysics of Neural Systems Study Section at NIH. His research focus is on the development and application of novel combinatorial microscopies and spectroscopies to characterize biomolecular interactions, dynamics, and structures. Current efforts in his group include the application of super-resolution combinatorial microscopies to examine receptor self-association and protein-membrane interactions, and light sheet microscopy for tracking developmental processes in real-time.