Dr. Christine Williams is an immunologist and currently serving as Acting President at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR) and is the Executive Director at the Canadian Pediatric Cancer Consortium.
As part of OICR’s executive team, she develops and implements strategic priorities across the Institute’s translational cancer research programs. She leads engagement and communications strategies with a broad range of provincial, national and international partners. Through the Implementation Science program, she promotes the uptake of evidence-based practice and research into use by policymakers and healthcare providers.
As the Executive Director of the new Canadian Pediatric Cancer Consortium, she is establishing a multi-stakeholder network to support pediatric cancer research and promote health system change leading to better outcomes and quality of life for all Canadian children with cancer.
She received a degree in Life Sciences from Queen’s University and a PhD in Immunology from the University of Toronto. She received postdoctoral training at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard University where she studied the molecular pathways involved in the development of leukemia and lymphoma in children. Prior to her role at OICR, she held leadership positions at the National Cancer Institute of Canada and the Canadian Cancer Society.
She is currently a member of a number of boards and advisory committees, including the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, North York General Hospital, The Canadian Cancer Trials Group and various other research, healthcare and community organizations.
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Each year, more than 14 million people worldwide are diagnosed with cancer and more than eight million people die from the disease. New tools are urgently needed to better prevent, detect, diagnose and treat cancer so that people can live longer and healthier lives.
The Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR) is a collaborative research institute that conducts and enables high-impact translational cancer research. We help to accelerate the development of discoveries for patients around the world while maximizing the economic benefit of this research for the people of Ontario.
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OICR strives to turn insights in cancer research into precision medicine innovations that are implemented into Ontario’s health system to transform patient outcomes for the better.
In collaboration with our partners in healthcare, research, government and the private sector, we:
Conduct cross-disciplinary cancer research in fields such as genomics, immuno-oncology, informatics, drug discovery and molecular pathology
Enable research in Ontario and worldwide by building collaborative networks, securely sharing data, and making tools and resources available to the research community
Translate our research findings to the clinic by developing clinical guidelines, supporting clinical trials and working with our strategic partner FACIT to advance the commercialization of our innovations and IP.
All our funded research goes through independent peer review and is overseen by external scientific advisory committees.
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What is translational research at OICR?
At OICR, translational research is about facilitating real-world impact. This means ensuring promising cancer research discoveries are developed into new diagnostics, treatments and practices that can help people in Ontario and beyond.