Scientific Advisory Committee

Current SAC Members
Past SAC Members

Current SAC Members

Erwin Schurr, SAC Chair

Man in a paisley shirt, smiling Erwin Schurr is a Distinguished James McGill Professor of Human Genetics and Medicine at McGill University. He is the past Leader of the Program of Infectious Diseases and Immunity in Global Health (IDIGH) at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre. He obtained a PhD in Cell Biology from the Albert Ludwigs Universitaet in Freiburg/Br in Germany. This was followed by postdoctoral training with Philippe Gros and Emil Skamene at McGill University. Dr. Schurr is studying the biological factors that affect the risk of tuberculosis or leprosy using genetic epidemiology and systems biology approaches. A special focus of his work is how mycobacterial pathogens modulate the risk of common, non-infectious, immune-mediated diseases. Dr Schurr has an extensive track record of serving as adjudicator for funding agencies in Europe and North America. The work of Dr Schurr is supported by national and international funding agencies.

David Eidelman

Man in suit smiling David Eidelman is a Professor of Medicine and a member of the Respiratory Medicine Division in the Department of Medicine at McGill University. He previously served as Chair of the Department of Medicine and Physician-in-Chief at the McGill University Health Centre and held the position of Vice-Principal (Health Affairs) and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences from 2012 to 2023. Dr. Eidelman’s research focuses on pulmonary toxicology and the application of artificial intelligence to the analysis of complex biological data, including single-cell RNA sequencing. As a clinician-scientist, he is actively involved in the teaching and supervision of medical students, residents, and graduate trainees. In addition to his academic and clinical roles, Dr. Eidelman currently serves as Interim Director of the Office for Respectful Environments, where he supports the promotion of healthy, inclusive, and respectful working and learning environments for clinical trainees across the McGill health network.

Dao Nguyen

Dao Nguyen dressed in black and grey, smiling Dr. Dao Nguyen is a clinician scientist at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre and Associate professor of Medicine at McGill University. She is the founding director of the McGill AMR Centre, an initiative to promote collaborative and interdisciplinary research, training and outreach that address the challenges of AMR. She is a member of the executive of Can-AMR-Net and coordinates its activities in Quebec. With her expertise in microbiology and respiratory infections, her research seeks to understand mechanisms of antibiotic resistance, infection pathogenesis and persistence. She is also involved in numerous collaborative projects to discover solutions to fight AMR, from new therapeutics to antimicrobial materials and AMR diagnostics. She has been a recipient of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award for Medical Scientist, Canadian Institutes of Health Research Clinician Scientist award, Fonds en Recherche Santé Québec Chercheur de Mérite award, Vertex Cystic Fibrosis Research Innovation Award among others.

Marie Hudson

Dr. Hudson in a doctor's white coat, smiling Dr. Hudson is Director of rheumatology in the Department of Medicine at McGill University, Chief of the Division of rheumatology at the Jewish General Hospital and Senior investigator at the Lady Davis Institute. She is a founding member of the multi-centered Canadian Scleroderma Research Group (CSRG) and has worked on a broad range of projects. She is now exploring the therapeutic potential of cellular therapies for scleroderma. Modeled on the CSRG, Dr Hudson launched the Canadian Inflammatory Myopathy Study (CIMS), a multi-centered cohort of patients with autoimmune myositis. CSRG and CIMS have become internationally recognized research programs. Dr Hudson also pursues research in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and is leading an inter-disciplinary study on precision care for RA. Finally, she has an interest in immune-related adverse events (irAE) secondary to immune checkpoint inhibitors. Locally, she established the Montreal Immune-Related Adverse Event (MIRAE) Biobank. Nationally, she is co-leading a multi-centered cohort study of cancer patients who develop rheumatic irAE, the Canadian Research Group of Rheumatology in Immuno-Oncology (CanRIO) study. Dr Hudson also pursues a number of other scholarly activities, including serving as co-director of the McGill Interdisciplinary Initiative in Infection and Immunity (MI4) from 2019-2024.

Mathieu Bourgey

Mathieu Bourgey wearing a suit, smiling Mathieu Bourgey is a prominent expert in bioinformatics and computational genomics, currently serving as the Data Science director for the D2R initiative and the Health Data Science (HreDS) platform at McGill University. From 2022 to 2024, he was the Scientific Manager at Mila – Quebec AI Institute, leading a team in AI academic research and collaborations. Previously, he managed bioinformatics projects at the Canadian Centre for Computational Genomics (C3G) and developed GenPipes. With a Ph.D. in Statistical Genetics from Paris Sud University, he has made significant contributions to scientific publications in genomics and to training programs.

Thavy Long

Dr. Thavy Long, smiling Dr. Thavy Long is an Assistant Professor at McGill University’s Institute of Parasitology. She earned her MSc in Genetics and Microbiology and PhD in Cell Biology from the University of Lille, France, where she developed a strong interest in the molecular biology of helminths, particularly Schistosoma mansoni. Her research has spanned developmental biology, signaling pathways, and drug discovery for schistosomes and filarial parasites, including Dirofilaria immitis. Currently, her lab investigates immune evasion, development, metabolism, and drug resistance in helminths, aiming to identify novel therapeutic targets and tools to monitor resistance spread.