Ethics Advisory Committee

Chairman
David J. Roy, Ph.D.
David J. Roy is the initiator of bioethics in Quebec and Canada. In 1976, he founded the Center for Biothics at the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal. He is a Research Professor in the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Montreal and, in 1993, he founded the Network for Research in Clinical Ethics of the FRSQ (Fonds de la recherche en santé du Québec), which he directed until 2002. Dr. Roy presently directs the Genetic-Ethics Observatory, which he founded in 2002. The Observatory consists of a network of observers who monitor and provide warning on ethical and social issues in the rapidly evolving fields of genetics and genomics. He is also Editor in Chief of the Journal of Palliative care, an international and multidisciplinary journal, which he founded in 1985. Dr. Roy was the official representative of the Prime Minister of Canada in two International Meetings on Bioethics, one presided by President François Mitterrand and the other by Chancellor Helmut Kohl. From 1990 to 1997, Dr. Roy was a member of the Steering Committee of the Canadian HIV Trials Network and chairperson of both its Safety and Efficacy Review Committee and National Ethics Review Committee.

Guy Bourgeault, L.Ph., Th. D.
Guy Bourgeault is a Full Professor at the University of Montreal, where he directs research and seminars on bioethics and education (ethical behavior: teachers, school principals, managing staff). He is also a Research Associate at the Centre d’études éthiques des universités montréalaises and at the Centre de recherche en éthique de l’Université de Montréal. Over the years, he has been an executive at the Ligue des droits de l'Homme du Québec, President of the Institut canadien d’éducation des adultes, President of the Canadian Commission for UNESCO and of the Quebec Press Council. He has served as President of the Comité d’éthique central of the Université de Montréal and on ethics boards of associated Research Centres. His publications include Éthiques / Dit et non-dit, contredit, interdit, published by Presses de l’Université du Québec, in 2004.

Jarred Chicoine, Ph.D.
Jarred Chicoine, Ph.D., is a research scientist in the Department of Human Genetics at McGill University and a member of the Genome Quebec–sponsored GRiD (Genetic Regulators in Disease) project, which studies the molecular mechanisms linking genetic variations to the development of several common diseases. Dr Chicoine has a Ph.D. in Biology from McGill University where he continues to work on the genetic causes of type 2 diabetes. During his doctoral training, Dr. Chicoine discovered novel forms of post-transcriptional gene regulation, which he described in several scientific publications.

Nathalie Fradet, BA, BDI
Mrs Fradet has served on the Board of Directors of the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of Canada of which she has been the chairperson and is still a volunteer worker. She has also been on many Boards of Directors and Committees. As a specialist in technical writing, her professional activities have led her to create her own company, primarily serving clients in the field of health sciences.

Yann Joly, Ph.D. (DCL), LLB, LLM
Yann Joly is a lawyer and assistant professor at the Centre of Genomics and Policy in the Department of Human Genetics of the Faculty of Medicine at McGill University. Mr. Joly completed a doctorate in civil law (D.C.L) at McGill University’s Faculty of Law in 2009. His thesis project addressed the use of open models of collaboration in the field of biotechnology. During the last few years, Mr. Joly sat as a legal representative on several of the research ethics committees of the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC). He is currently the North American coordinator of the Association for Research and Formation in Medical Law (ARFDM). Mr. Joly was also a member of the External Working Group on the Registration and Disclosure of Clinical Trial Information (EWG-CT) formed by Health Canada in 2006. He has authored some fifty articles and book chapters on ethical, legal and social questions associated with recent developments in the field of biotechnology.

Raymond Massé, Ph.D.
Raymond Massé is a Full Professor in the Department of Medical Anthropology of Laval University, Quebec and was Chair of that Department from 2001 to 2007. During his anthropological studies at the University of Montreal and Laval University, Mr. Massé carried out field research in the French West Indies and in the Haïtian community of Quebec. For many years, he was part of multidisciplinary research teams for the Quebec Public Health System. He presently teaches medical anthropology, qualitative methods, Caribbean anthropology and ethics at Laval University. For 10 years now, Mr. Massé has been mainly concerned with ethical issues facing the public health system. More precisely, in Quebec, his research projects focus on ethical issues regarding public involvement and community consultation on public health policies. During the past thirty years, Mr. Massé has authored over 90 publications (books, book chapters and articles) relating to medical anthropology, ethics and mental health.

Daniel Sinnett, Ph.D.
Daniel Sinnett, Ph.D., is Professor of Pediatrics, Adjunct Professor of Biochemistry, and Associate Member of the Faculty of Law at Université de Montréal. He is also a scientist in the Division of Hematology-Oncology of the Research Centre of CHU at Hôpital Sainte-Justine. Dr Sinnett is an Associate Member of the Canadian Genetic Diseases Network (Centres of Excellence) and a co-founder and member of the Robert-Cedergen Centre in Bioinformatics and Genomics. Dr Sinnett is very active in the field of Pediatric oncogenomics and his group was one of the first to perform genetic epidemiology studies to assess the roles of genetic determinants on the susceptibility to acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Over the course of several years, he developed a Génome Québec/Genome Canada funded research program to study genetic variations that affect gene regulation. The establishment of an exhaustive integrated database containing genetic, demographic and clinico-pathological information was a major contribution that led to an ongoing partnership with IBM. Dr Sinnett is the first recipient of the François-Karl Viau Research Chair in Pediatric Oncogenomics.