Biography — Roderick R. McInnes

Dr. Roderick R. McInnes is the Director of the Lady Davis Institute of the Jewish General Hospital, a Canada Research Chair in Neurogenetics and professor of genetics and biochemistry at McGill University, where he is the Alva Chair in Human Genetics. Prior to moving to McGill, Dr. McInnes was a senior scientist at the Hospital for Sick Children and a professor at the University of Toronto where he also obtained the prestigious designation of University Professor in 2003. He was the head of the program in developmental biology at the Research Institute of the Hospital for Sick Children, an International Research Scholar of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and from 2000-10, he was the inaugural Scientific Director of the Institute of Genetics of Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).

Dr. McInnes has made important contributions to the understanding of the molecular basis of retinal and eye development, and to the identification of genes and processes associated with inherited retinal degenerations. He is a co-author of the 5th, 6th and 7th editions of Thompson & Thompson’s Genetics in Medicine, and of the CIHR Guidebook for New Principal Investigators. Among other honours, Dr. McInnes is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, and he received an honorary Doctor of Law from Dalhousie University in 2007. He was appointed to the Order of Ontario in 2008, and became a member of the Order of Canada in 2009. In 2010, he served as President of the American Society of Human Genetics. Dr. McInnes received his undergraduate and medical degrees from Dalhousie University, and his Ph.D. from McGill.