Featured Presenters

Lori Berard

RN CDE, Nurse Consultant, Diabetes Management and Clinical Trial Operations, Winnipeg, MB

Lori Berard is Diabetes Educator with an expertise in diabetes education, management and clinical research.   She has over 30 years’ experience primarily as the Nurse Manager for the Health Sciences Centre Diabetes Research Program and a Faculty Member at the University of Manitoba Department of Medicine Section of Endocrinology.  Currently she is working as a consultant in diabetes management and clinical research operations. Lori has been a professional member and major volunteer of Diabetes Canada for more than 25 years and has extensive experience with the Clinical Practice Guidelines.  She has received many honors and awards related to her work in diabetes.

Tom Blydt-Hansen

MD, FRCPC, Director, Multi Organ Transplant Program, BC Children’s Hospital; Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC

Dr. Tom Blydt-Hansen completed his MD at McGill University, and his Pediatric and Nephrology specialization at the Montreal Children’s Hospital, followed by further specialization in transplantation at the University of California, Los Angeles. He began his Nephrology career at the University of Manitoba in 2001, where he was Division Head of Nephrology from 2005-2014. He then moved to BC Children’s Hospital in 2014, where he is Director of the Multi Organ Transplant Program and Senior Scientist at the BCCH Research Institute. He is a past-President of the Canadian Society of Transplantation, and is a Board member of the NAPRTCS Registry. His research program is focused on identification and development of relevant non-invasive urine biomarkers of allograft injury in pediatric kidney transplant recipients using metabolomic and proteomic methods. He is also engaged in collaborations to identify urinary biomarkers (metabolomics) associated with chronic kidney disease, acute kidney injury, cisplatin toxicity, type 2 diabetes and cisplatin nephrotoxicity; and is co-investigator on several nationally funded transplant research studies including VIRTUUS, TAKE-IT TOO, CKiD, iCARE, CAN-RESTORE and CNTRP.

Debate: Growth Hormone Therapy in Russell – Silver Syndrome (Pro Side)

Dr. Rose Girgis is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

Dr. Girgis first came to Canada from Egypt in 1987, an MD credential in hand; she completed a Master of Sciences in Biochemical Genetics in the Department of Pediatrics, University of Alberta. Then she went on to do residency training in General Pediatrics and Endocrinology.  She completed a research fellowship in “The Immuno-pathogenesis of Type 1 Diabetes” at the University of Alberta and a clinical fellowship year at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston Texas.

In 1998 she joined Dr. Bob Couch on staff at the University of Alberta. She was the Pediatric Endocrinology Residency Program Director from 2003 – 2012. She is currently the Divisional Director of Pediatric Endocrinology at the University of Alberta. She is involved in Medical Education and in 2016 was appointed the Director of Fellowships, Postgraduate Medical Education, Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, University of Alberta. She is proud to be one of the founding members of CPEG since its inception.

In the late nineties early 2000s, Dr. Girgis participated in the monumental Canadian randomized controlled trial looking at the impact of growth hormone supplementation on adult height in Turner syndrome. Over the years, she has also been involved in multiple growth hormone clinical trials.

Adda Grimberg

MD, Scientific Director, Diagnostic and Research Growth Center, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia; Professor, Dept. of Pediatrics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA

Growth Hormone Stimulation Testing: A Standard of Care that is Anything But Standard

Adda Grimberg, MD, is professor of pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine and senior fellow of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, both at the University of Pennsylvania, and Scientific Director of the Diagnostic and Research Growth Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

She received her undergraduate and medical education at Cornell University, and completed both her residency in pediatrics and fellowship in pediatric endocrinology at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. She was subsequently appointed to the faculty at the same institution in the division of Pediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes.

Trained as a translational physician scientist, Dr. Grimberg’s research focuses on the growth hormone (GH)/insulin-like growth factor (IGF) axis and clinical issues related to child growth. She has published over 100 scientific articles, reviews, and textbook chapters, and in 2018 was the Chief Guest Editor of a special issue of Pediatric Endocrinology Reviews commemorating 60 years of human growth hormone treatment. Her research has been recognized with numerous awards, including the Pediatric Endocrine Society Genentech Clinical Scholar Award, and with coverage in multiple media venues in the United States and abroad, including The New York Times.

Dr. Grimberg chaired the taskforce charged with drafting the new guidelines for GH and IGF-I use in children and adolescents for the Pediatric Endocrine Society. She has been elected to the Council of the Growth Hormone Research Society, and serves on the editorial board of Pediatric Endocrinology Reviews

Jennifer Harrington

MD, FRCPC, Pediatric Endocrinologist, Department of Pediatrics, Royal University Hospital; Clinical Assistant Professor, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada

GnRH Stimulation Tests in the Diagnosis and Management of Precious Puberty: One Stimulus Too Many?

Dr. Jenny Harrington received her medical degree at the University of Adelaide and undertook her pediatric residency, endocrine fellowship training and PhD through the Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Adelaide, Australia. Following a clinical and research pediatric endocrine fellowship at SickKids she joined the Endocrine faculty in December of 2015. Jenny’s clinical and research interests include the management of children with disorders of calcium homeostasis and bone metabolism. In addition she has co-authored several papers and chapters on the diagnostic utility of tests in children with disorders of pubertal timing.

Danièle Pacaud

MD, FRCPC, Professor, Pediatrics, University of Calgary; Pediatric Endocrinologist, Alberta Children’s Hospital, Calgary, AB

Debate: Growth Hormone Therapy in Russell – Silver Syndrome (Con Side)

Dr Danièle Pacaud, MD, FRCPC is a Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Calgary and Pediatric Endocrinologist working at Alberta Children’s Hospital Diabetes and Endocrine Clinics for more than 20 years. She trained in Montreal at the Hôpital Ste-Justine, Université de Montréal and at McGill University. She is a founding member of CPEG and has served as an executive member in various role including as president years. She has ongoing involvement in clinical research in pediatric endocrinology with a focus in pediatric diabetes.

Mark Palmert

MD, PhD, Associate Chair of Pediatrics (Ambulatory Care), The Hospital for Sick Children; Professor, Pediatrics and Physiology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON

Constitutional Delay of Growth and Puberty and Isolated Hypogonadotropic Hypogonadism: Two Sides of the Same Coin? Can We Tell Heads from Tails?

Mark Palmert is a Professor of Pediatrics and Physiology at the University of Toronto. Mark graduated from the Medical Scientist Training Program at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, with a MD and PhD in 1992 and then completed his pediatrics and pediatric endocrinology training at Children’s Hospital, Boston. After training, Mark held faculty appointments in Boston and at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital in Cleveland before he moved to Toronto in 2007 to become Head of the Division of Endocrinology at SickKids. In 2017 Mark began a new role at SickKids as Associate Chair of Pediatrics (Ambulatory Care). Mark has a long-standing clinical and research interest in the regulation and disorders of pubertal timing. He has conducted clinical studies of precocious and delayed puberty and has directed a laboratory-based program designed to identify and understand genetic factors that regulate the onset of puberty.

Marie-Eve Robinson

MD, CM, MSc(epi), FAAP, FRCPC, Pediatric Endocrinologist, Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, University of Ottawa, Clinician Researcher in Pediatric Bone Health, CHEO Research Institute, Ottawa, ON

What a General Endocrinologist Needs to Know about Bone Health

Dr. Robinson is a pediatric endocrinologist specialized in pediatric bone health and assistant professor at the University of Ottawa. She completed her pediatric endocrinology training at the Montreal Children’s Hospital, McGill University. She then completed a two-year pediatric bone fellowship, during which she spent one year at the Shriners Hospital for Children’s – Canada and one year at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, University of Ottawa. Dr. Robinson has a master’s degree in epidemiology and biostatistics from McGill University. She is a clinician researcher affiliated with the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute, her main research interest being in genetic and metabolic pediatric bone diseases.