Dr. Anne-Marie Mes-Masson is a molecular oncologist who obtained her Ph.D. degree in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology of McGill University in 1984. From 1984 to 1986, she pursued her post-doctoral studies at UCLA's Molecular Biology Institute, researching the BCR-ABL gene implicated in chronic myelogenous leukemia. She was then appointed as a research associate at the Biotechnology Research Institute in Montreal. In 1989, Dr. Mes-Masson joined the Montreal Cancer Institute, and the University of Montreal's Department of Medicine, where she became a full professor in 2001.

From 2001-2017, Dr. Mes-Masson was the Scientific Director of the Montreal Cancer Institute and head of the Cancer axis at the Centre de recherche du Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal (CRCHUM). Presently, Dr. Mes-Masson is the Associate Scientific Director, Basic and Translational Research at the CRCHUM. In 2003, Dr. Mes-Masson was nominated as director of the Cancer Research Network (Réseau de recherche sur le cancer RRCancer) for the Fonds de la recherche Québec - Santé (FRQS) where she has championed biobanking and accompanying standards for cancer biobanks in Quebec. Dr. Mes-Masson's research focuses on the development of cancer models and on the identification of molecular events implicated in ovarian and prostate cancer, and their translation into clinical tools for patient management. With her clinical collaborators, she has been instrumental in oncology biobanking at the CRCHUM.

Dr Mes-Masson has co-led several large translational research programs that include biobanking components. This includes the Terry Fox Research Institute COEUR program, a pan-Canadian program for the study of ovarian cancer. In addition, she has pioneered multiple novel ovarian cancer models to study cancer, including the development of novel cell lines, the description of 3D spheroid cultures for oncology, and more recently the combination of live ex vivo tissue with microfluidics for empirical drug testing.

Dr. Peter Watson is Director of the Biobanking and Biospecimen Research Services program at BC Cancer, an agency of the Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA) in British Columbia. He also holds appointments as Senior Scientist and as Professor of Pathology, University of British Columbia, and as adjunct faculty at the University of Victoria.

He completed his medical training at the University of Cambridge and St Thomas's Hospital London, UK in 1983 and specialist training in Anatomic Pathology at the University of Manitoba in 1988. After fellowship training he established a career as a clinician scientist in 1993 at the University of Manitoba, and since 2005 has been at BC Cancer.

He currently combines a clinical practice as a breast pathologist with research interests in the molecular pathology of breast and ovarian cancer, and in biospecimen and biobanking resources. His research program focuses on biomarkers of breast tumour progression and response to therapies. This work has included the discovery, validation, elucidation of the mechanism of action, and exploration of the therapeutic potential of the S100A7 gene in breast cancer. This research has led to publication of over 175 scientific research papers.

He has also led provincial and national biobanking initiatives to advance translational cancer research. In addition, Dr. Watson serves as co-lead of the Canadian Tissue Repository Network (CTRNet) and he is currently the director of the University of British Columbia, Department of Pathology Office of Biobank Education and Research, serves on the executive of the Marble Arch International Working Group for Biobanking, and is Deputy Editor for the journal Biopreservation and Biobanking.