Saad Zafar Usmani received his medical education at Allama Iqbal Medical College in Lahore, Pakistan. He completed a residency in internal medicine at Sinai-Grace Hospital/Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan and a fellowship in hematology and oncology at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington, Connecticut.

Dr. Usmani joined the faculty of the Levine Cancer Institute in July 2013; he also currently holds an academic appointment as Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill School of Medicine. Previously, Dr. Usmani served as an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, Arkansas and Director of Developmental Therapeutics at the Myeloma Institute for Research & Therapy.

Dr. Usmani is board certified in internal medicine, medical oncology, and hematology, and he is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians. He holds membership in several professional societies, including the International Myeloma Working Group, the SWOG Myeloma Committee, the American Society of Hematology (ASH), the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), and the American Society of Bone Marrow Transplantation.

Dr. Usmani has served as the Track Leader on the ASCO Scientific Committee on Lymphoma and Plasma Cell Disorders, and he is a member of the ASH Committee on Plasma Cell Neoplasia and the National Cancer Institute Myeloma Steering Committee. Dr. Usmani is on the editorial review board of numerous medical journals, has authored/co-authored more than 130 peer-reviewed research manuscripts and 190 abstracts at national and international meetings. Active in clinical and translational research, Dr. Usmani has research interests focus on plasma cell disorders—in particular, high-risk multiple myeloma.

Dr. Rotstein is Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Toronto and Attending Physician at the University Health Network, Toronto, Ontario. He received a Bachelor of Science at the University of Toronto and earned his medical degree from the University of Calgary in 1976. Dr. Rotstein completed his specialty training in Internal Medicine at the University of Toronto and pursued further subspecialty training in Infectious Diseases & Immunology at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, South Carolina from 1980 to 1983 [ABIM (1980), FRCPC (Internal Medicine 1981), Infectious Diseases ABIM (1982)].

Dr. Rotstein is currently the Director of Oncologic Infectious Diseases of the Immunocompromised Host Infectious Diseases Service at the University Health Network. He serves on the Board of the Canadian Foundation for Infectious Diseases and is the Past Chair of the Awards Committee of the Foundation. Dr. Rotstein is also a member of the National Advisory Committee on Immunization of the Public Health Agency of Canada. In addition, he has been elected a fellow of the American College of Physicians and the Infectious Diseases Society of America. He is also a fellow of the European Confederation of Medical Mycology. He functions as a reviewer for several international journals.

Dr. Rotstein has published over 190 peer-reviewed papers. His research interests have focused mainly on infections in cancer patients and other immunocompromised hosts as well as fungal infections caused by Candida organisms. He maintains active research interests in immunocompromised hosts.

Dr. Sita Bhella completed her medical school training at University of Western Ontario. She completed internal medicine and hematology residency at the University of Toronto, and then went on to do a Leukemia and Allogeneic Bone Marrow Transplant Fellowship at Princess Margaret Cancer Center in Toronto.

She completed a Master’s in Education, with a focus in Health Professionals Education, at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Dr. Bhella has a strong interest in quality improvement and innovation and has completed several courses in the area such as the Excellence in Quality Improvement Certificate Program (EQUIP), Advancing Safety for Patients in Residency Education (ASPIRE) and the IDEAS Foundations of Quality Improvement Certificate.

From 2015-2019, Dr. Bhella was an assistant professor at Queen’s University, where she was the Autologous Stem Cell Transplant Medical Director. She was engaged and involved in medical education as well as quality improvement in the complex malignant hematology program. During her time there, she developed a Day +100 transfer program for Allogeneic stem cell transplantation and a Day+1 transfer program for autologous stem cell transplantation with Lakeridge Hospital.

Dr. Bhella joined Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in 2019, as an assistant professor and a clinician in quality improvement and innovation. Dr. Bhella has an interest in malignant hematology, particularly lymphoma, myeloma, autologous stem cell transplantation and cellular therapy. She is Quality Lead of the Autologous Stem Cell Transplant Program at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre and is engaged and involved in the development of CAR T-cell therapy program, particularly the long term survivorship program.

Dr. Christine Chen is the Medical Director of the Autologous Stem Cell Transplant Program and the Clinical Cell Therapy Program at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network (UHN), in Toronto, Canada. She is appointed as an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto (U of T) and is a member of the clinical research group for multiple myeloma and related mature B-cell disorders, including chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and Waldenstrom’s macroglobulinemia (WM). Princess Margaret Cancer Centre is the largest tertiary care center for cancer in Canada, performing over 300 autologous stem cell transplants and seeing over 400 new referrals for myeloma, CLL and WM per year. As Medical Director for the Clinical Cell Therapy Program, Dr. Chen has led the implementation of standard of care CAR T-cell therapy at PM, one of only a handful of centres in Canada certified to perform this complex, innovative therapy. As a clinical investigator, Dr. Chen’s research interests are in the development of novel approaches for myeloma and CLL, focusing on cell-based therapy. Dr. Chen also holds the role of Quality Director for the Princess Margaret BMT-IEC (Immune Effector Cell) Quality Program providing oversight for both standard of care and research cell therapy processes and maintaining FACT (Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy) accreditation.

Dr. Chen underwent her internal medicine training at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and hematology residency training at McMaster University in Hamilton. Upon completing a transplant clinical research fellowship at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, she subsequently joined the faculty of the Department of Medical Oncology and Hematology and obtained her Masters in Education from the Ontario Institute of Studies in Education (U of T). She therefore takes an active role in medical education and acted as the U of T Hematology Training Program Director from 2003-2008.

First Year Clinical Fellow in Multiple Myeloma at PMH, Toronto. Completed Hematology and Internal Medicine Residency training in Ottawa. Completed Medical School in Vancouver.

Dr. Vishal Kukreti is an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto within the Quality and Innovation stream. He is a Malignant Hematologist with a focus in Multiple Myeloma, Lymphoma and Autotrasplant in the Department of Medical Oncology and Hematology at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre. He has completed his medical degree at the University of Calgary and subsequently training in both Internal Medicine and Hematology. He has subsequently done a Masters from the Institute in Medical Sciences with a focus on Quality and Patient Safety. His research interests are in Quality, Patient Safety and Innovation within the fields of Hematology and Oncology with a focus on Implementation, health systems strategy and design, and use of technology. Currently, he is also working for the province at Ontario Health (Cancer Care Ontario) as the Clinical Lead, Health Technology and Information Management.

I have completed my medical degree at Laval University in Quebec City after which I completed my general internal medicine training as well as my hematology training within the same university. Following this, I also trained as a medical oncologist. I am currently completing my first year in the myeloma/lymphoma fellowship program at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre. I have a particular interest in managing the intensity of care in the frail and elderly population.

Dr. Anca Prica did her initial medical training in Toronto, and her clinical training in Internal Medicine and Hematology in the University of Toronto Program. She then did a 2 year fellowship in Malignant Hematology at the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and a Masters in Health Research Methodology at McMaster University, with interest in quality of life and economic evaluations. Her clinical work focuses in both plasma cell disorders and lymphoproliferative disorders at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre and Mount Sinai Hospital, having joined the group in January 2014.

Dr Reece is Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto and Director of the Program for Multiple Myeloma and Related Diseases in the Department of Medical Oncology and Hematology at Princess Margaret Hospital/University of Toronto. She holds the Molly and David Bloom Chair in Multiple Myeloma Research and is past Chair of the Multiple Myeloma Clinical Trials Group of the National Cancer Institute of Canada, Co-Chair of the Myeloma Working Committee at the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research and member of the Board of Directors of the International Myeloma Society. Dr. Reece also serves on the Canadian Myeloma Research Group (CMRG).

Dr. Tiedemann is a Clinician-Scientist at The Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto, and a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (FRACP) and of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia (FRCPA). He was a prize winner in the Australian Mathematics Competition in 1988 and a representative to the 29th International Mathematics Olympiad. He completed Medicine and Surgery degrees and a Ph.D. examining immune cell activation by superantigens at the University of Auckland. Following Internal Medicine and Hematology Fellowships he completed Post-Doctoral Fellowship training in Multiple Myeloma at Mayo Clinic. He won a Hematology Society of Australia and New Zealand (HSANZ) Young Investigator Award in 2006 and a Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation (MMRF) fellowship in 2007. He was appointed Staff Hematologist at Mayo Clinic in 2008 and Assistant Professor at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in 2009. After moving to Canada his laboratory research program has been funded by the CIHR, CCS and TFRI. For translational research in multiple myeloma he won an American Society of Hematology (ASH) Scholar Award in 2009, The Princess Margaret Cancer Centre’s Till and McCulloch Translational Paper of the Year in 2013 and the Canadian Cancer Society’s William E. Rawls Prize in 2018.

Completed training and attained Fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians in the subspecialty of Hematology and Hematopathology in 2019. I am currently completing my first year of fellowship at Princess Margaret in Lymphoma and Myeloma.

Dr. Trudel received her MD degree from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto and subsequently completed subspecialty training in Hematology at the University of Toronto affiliated hospitals. This was followed by a research fellowship at Weill Medical College of Cornell in New York City. Dr. Trudel returned to Toronto as a consultant in the department of Medical Oncology and Hematology at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre and is currently appointed as Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto. Dr. Trudel is also a Faculty Member of the Department of Medical Biophysics and Scientist at Ontario Cancer Institute.

Dr. Trudel is an active member of several professional organizations. For the Multiple Myeloma Research Consortium (MMRC), Dr. Trudel has previously served as a member of the Steering Committee. She is a member of the Myeloma Canada advisory board and the Subcommittee on Corrlative Sciences for National Cancer Institute of Canada Clinical Trials Group. For the American Society of Hematology, Dr Trudel has formerly served as a member of the Ad Hoc Scientific Committee on Plasma Cell Biology and has previously been the receiptant of an ASH Scolar Award.

An active researcher, Dr. Trudel has been a principal investigator on several industry sponsored and investigator initiated clinical trials for relapsed multiple myeloma. Her research focus has been in the areas of drug development and precision medicine for multiple myeloma.

Chloe Yang completed medical school at University of Toronto. Prior to pursuing fellowship at PMCC, I (Chloe Yang) completed hematology training at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario and internal medicine residency at University of Toronto.