Dr. Brenda L. Gallie is President of the International Retinoblastoma Consortium,
Director of the Retinoblastoma Program at the Hospital for Sick Children, Paediatric
Ocular Oncologist at Calgary Children’s Hospital, Professor at the University of Toronto,
and Adjunct Scientist and Lead of Health Informatics Research in the University Health
Network TECHNA Institute. Dr. Gallie completed a MD at Queen’s University, residency
at the University of Toronto and post-graduate research training beginning her research
on retinoblastoma 1974-6 at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Dr. Gallie was
appointed to the Order of Ontario 2006 and Order of Canada 2014 in recognition of her
research in retinoblastoma that led to the first evidence of tumor suppressor genes,
advancing understanding of cancer genetics through study of retinoblastoma.
After Dr. Ted Dryja and team identified the retinoblastoma tumor suppressor gene
(RB1), Dr. Gallie developed high sensitivity RB1 mutation detection for families to
improve diagnosis and treatment of retinoblastoma. With an unprecedented global
network of retinoblastoma experts, Dr. Gallie is now launching a novel point-of-care
retinoblastoma-specific database

to enhance communication across the health care
team, including patients. “We have a Dream”: indexing every child diagnosed with
retinoblastoma – globally – will support a Learning Health System and make
retinoblastoma a “Zero Death” cancer