Management
Dr. David Thomas
Chief Executive Officer
Dr. David Y Thomas is CEO of Traffick Therapeutiques/thérapeutiques Inc, of Montréal, Canada, a company specializing in the development of therapies for protein trafficking diseases such as cystic fibrosis. The company collaborates with pharmaceutical and medicinal chemistry companies and has project specific investments.
Dr Thomas obtained his PhD at University College London and has made original contributions to understanding of basic biological the folding and quality control of secreted proteins through the discovery of the components and mechanism of the ‘Calnexin cycle’. He is the former Chair of the Department of Biochemistry, McGill University and holds the Canada Research Chair in Molecular Genetics at McGill University. He led the major initiative to obtain funding and to construct the McGill University Life Sciences Complex that houses multidisciplinary research groups.
He has co-founded the McGill University Cystic Fibrosis Translational Research centre (CFTRc) that brings together scientists and clinicians and provides resaerch infrastructure and resources for cystic fibrosis research. He has served on many national and international scientific committees and on the SAB of biopharmaceutical and venture capital companies in Montreal. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and has published 262 peer-reviewed publications with an h-index of 74. His present research interests are on the mechanism of protein quality control and its impact on protein trafficking diseases.
Dr. John Hanrahan
Chief Scientific Officer
Dr. Hanrahan obtained his PhD from the University of British Columbia. He has made original contributions in epithelial transport including identification of the defective chloride channel in cystic fibrosis and characterization of CFTR channel function expressed from the cloned CF gene. He has received Scholar, Scientist and Senior Scientist awards from CIHR and a Chercheur boursier – Senior award from the Fonds de la recherche en santé du Québec. He led the Quebec arm of the Cystic Fibrosis Canada Breathe Program and is currently director of the McGill University Cystic Fibrosis Translational Research centre (CFTRc).
He co-founded the McGill University Cystic Fibrosis Translational Research centre (CFTRc) that brings together scientists and clinicians and provides research infrastructure and resources for cystic fibrosis research. His laboratory houses the Primary Airway Cell Biobank, which supplies airway epithelial cells and other lung samples to researchers world-wide. He was a trustee of the Physiological Society (UK) and has chaired review panels for CIHR, CF Canada and NIH. He has served on editorial boards of the Am. J. Physiology and J. Physiol. and on many international scientific committees and advisory boards. His present research interests are on CFTR in membrane microdomains, alternative anion transporters as drug targets, the effects of smoke and other air pollutants and mechanisms of action of SARS-CoV-2 viroporins in airway epithelial cells.