[Ottawa Chapter] Spotlight on Health Canada

S2BN Ottawa is hosting a panel event focused on careers at Health Canada! You will have an opportunity to interact with Health Canada professionals with a wide range of backgrounds and skillsets. Our objectives are to help you better understand the diverse career paths available at Health Canada.  This will be a 1 hour panel discussion, with time for Q&A!

See below for more information about panelists for the evening!

Katherine Baxter, PhD - Senior Scientific Evaluator in the In Vitro  Diagnostic Division (IVDD) of Medical Devices Directorate, Health  Canada

I  completed my Bachelor of Science and my PhD in Microbiology and  Immunology at the University of Ottawa, the latter at the  Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (OHRI).  For  three years during my graduate program, I helped to organize an outreach program for high school students interested in cancer  research called Let’s Talk Cancer Ottawa. After  completing my PhD, I moved to Montreal to work for CellCarta (formerly  Caprion BioSciences) - a contract research organization. There I was a  research scientist working in the data analysis unit where we performed  immunological analysis for clinical trials.  I subsequently moved to Health Canada in the Medical Devices  Directorate following some contract work with the IVDD team.

Casey Lansdell - Senior Research Technician in the Biologic and Radiopharmaceutical Drugs Directorate

She is currently a Senior Research Technician in a nanomedicine laboratory as part of the Biologic and Radiopharmaceutical Drugs Directorate (BRDD) within the Health Products and Food Branch (HPFB) at Health Canada in Ottawa, ON. She completed her Bachelor of Science in Forensic Science (Honours) at Trent University in 2011 with an Honours thesis project in landscape genetics for her. She then went on to obtain her Master’s of Science in Biochemistry at the University of Ottawa in 2015 where she worked in Cancer Therapeutics at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute investigating the role of the immune system following cancer surgery. Immediately following graduation, she accepted a job offer as a Research Technician and Lab Manager in a stem cell laboratory investigating the therapeutic potential of adult-derived stem cells in animal models of sepsis and acute lung injury. She also had the pleasure of helping to organize a National Preclinical Sepsis Platform involving researchers from across Canada to improve several areas of sepsis research including the bench-to-bedside translation of promising therapeutics. Only recently has she taken on her current role at Health Canada starting in 2021. Fun fact, Casey worked as a bartender/ server at Red Lobster while completing her studies from 2008- 2020.

Andrew Nguyen -  Manager, Compliance and Risk Management Unit, Medical Devices Compliance Program

Andrew Nguyen joins us from Health Canada  where he works within the Medical Devices Compliance Program of the  Regulatory Operations and Enforcement Branch as manager of the  Compliance and Risk Management Unit  where he oversees medical device risk management, incident management  and strategic projects for the program.    Prior to this, over the course of his 10+ years in the public service,  he’s been a jack-of-all-trades, having worked in an assortment of areas  such as Drug Establishment Licensing & GMPs, Blood and CTO  Compliance and Licensing, IM/IT, Cost Recovery, Post-market  Surveillance of NHPs and biologics, and much more. Although not a field  expert or specialist in any given area, Andrew is most proud of his  strong ability to work with people, putting their needs first and caring  for them even through the most challenging  of times.    During his spare time, he loves to keep busy by working on his 6-acre  hobby farm (ducks, geese, vegetables, making forest trails, landscaping  and construction), training to become a certified rock-climbing coach,  learning guitar, hosting chef competitions with  his friends, and playing/designing board games.

Moderated/Hosted by Dr. Joey Sheff

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