Oswald Theodore Avery was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1877. He moved to the United States at age 10 when his father, a Baptist Minister, became a pastor at a New York City church. He received his education in New York, and entered general medical practice following his graduation from Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons.

“Canada’s Public Health Visionary” was born in Drayton, Ontario, the eldest son of a pharmacist of Irish lineage. At age 16 he left home for the University of Toronto Medical School, graduating in 1903 as the youngest in his class.

As the Minister of National Health & Welfare (1972-1977), Marc Lalonde received international renown as the co-author of A New Perspective on the Health of Canadians. Considered a masterpiece in Health Care Policy, A New Perspective challenged traditional views about health and urged policy makers to consider the environmental and behavioural risks threatening the health of Canadians.

Following a three year Fellowship at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minnesota, Maurice LeClair returned to Canada to practice Internal Medicine and was active in numerous professional offices and medical, scientific and business directorships. Interested in Medical Education he was Vice Dean of Medicine at the University of Montreal and Dean of Medicine at the Sherbrooke Medical School.

Ernest McCulloch received his MD in 1948 from the University of Toronto. Upon graduation, he began his education in research at the Lister Institute in London, England. In 1957 he joined the newly formed Ontario Cancer Institute where the majority of his research focused on normal blood-formation and leukemia.

Upon completing his Ph.D. at Yale University in 1957, James Till relocated to Toronto and focused his studies on cell biology and the radiation sensitivity of mammalian cells. Resulting from this research was a 1961 original paper published in Radiation Research on the radiation sensitivity of normal mouse bone marrow cells.