Thomas J. Hudson is president and scientific director of the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research. He is implementing the institute’s strategic plan, working with cancer research institutions across Ontario to leverage existing strengths. The plan focuses on prevention, early diagnosis, cancer targets and new therapeutics. Its innovation platforms include imaging and interventions, bio-repositories and pathology, genomics and high-throughput screening, and informatics and biocomputing. Dr. Hudson is recruiting more than 50 internationally recognized principal investigators.
Hudson was the founder and Director of the McGill University and Genome Quebec Innovation Centre and Assistant-Director of the Whitehead/MIT Center for Genome Research. Hudson is internationally renowned for his work in genomics. At the Whitehead Institute, Dr. Hudson led the effort to generate dense physical and gene maps of the human and mouse genomes. He is a leader in the development and applications of robotic systems and DNA-chip based methodologies for genome research. In June 1996, he founded the Montreal Genome Centre based at the McGill University Health Centre Research Institute. In 2003, this group expanded to become the McGill University and Genome Quebec Innovation Centre. Dr. Hudson and his team were founding members of the International Haplotype Map Consortium. Dr. Hudson’s interests in human genetic diseases focus on the dissection of complex genetic diseases. Disease projects in Dr. Hudson’s laboratory included the search for genes predisposing to lupus, inflammatory bowel disease, coronary artery disease, asthma, diabetes and colon cancer. The laboratory also used the DNA-chip technology to characterize breast and ovarian cancer.
In 2007, Hudson was appointed to the rank of professor (status-only) in the Department of Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto. He taught in the departments of Human Genetics and Medicine at McGill University and practiced medicine at the McGill University Health Centre – Montreal General Hospital.
Hudson is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He was one of the co-founding members of P3G and is currently serving as its scientific director. He is editor-in-chief of the journal Human Genetics.
The recipient of numerous awards, Hudson has received the 2005 Achievement of the Year in Healthcare from Maclean’s magazine, the 2005 Award for Research in Immunology by the Canadian Society for Allergy and Clinical Immunology, the André-Dupont 2002 Young Investigator Award given by Quebec’s Clinical Research Club, an Investigator Award from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, a Burroughs-Wellcome Clinician-Scientist Award, The 2002 Prix de la Santé from the Armand-Frappier Foundation, the 2001 Young Scientist Award by the Genetics Society of Canada, the 2000 Scientist of the Year by Radio-Canada, and the 1999 Canada’s Top 40 Under 40.
President and Scientific Director
Ontario Institute for Cancer Research Scientific Director, P3G