Connie Eaves's Biography

Connie Eaves, Director, British Columbia Cancer Agency

Dr. Eaves is a Distinguished Scientist at the BC Cancer Agency and a Professor in the Department of Medical Genetics of the University of British Columbia. She was a co-founder of the Terry Fox Laboratory in 1981 and became its Deputy Director in 1986 and Director from 2007-2010. She has received numerous scholarships and awards, including election as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1993, receipt of the NCI (Canada) Robert L. Noble Prize for Excellence in Cancer Research in 2003, and the American Soc. of Hematology Henry Stratton Medal for Lifetime Achievement in 2009.

During her PhD studies, she discovered that 2 cell populations contribute to the generation of antibody responses heralding the subsequent recognition of B and T cells. She has contributed many seminal advances to our understanding of blood-forming stem cells and their regulation in both normal and perturbed states, with a particular emphasis on chronic myeloid leukemia. Over the last decade, she has also become an expert in breast stem cells and human embryonic stem cells.

She has published more than 400 papers and continues to direct a dynamic research group. She is a major protagonist of excellence in training having personally supervised 80 graduate students and post-doctoral (MD and PhD) fellows. She has also served in many senior leadership positions (including President of NCI (Canada) from 1997-8, President of the Int. Soc. for Experimental Hematology from 2002-3 and Associate Scientific Director of the Canadian Stem Cell Network from 2000-4). She continues to review grants and papers for both national and international agencies and journals and is active promoting and advising several collaborative translational and interdisciplinary research programs and networks.