Name Allen Eaves Education Acadia University | ||
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Organizations founded Stemcell Technologies | ||
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Allen C. Eaves (born 1941) was the founding Director of the Terry Fox Laboratory for Hematology/Oncology Research, which over a 25 year period (1981–2006) he grew into an internationally recognized centre for the study of leukemia and stem cell research. His own research on chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) has led the way to a new understanding of the disease. As Head of Hematology at the British Columbia Cancer Agency and the University of British Columbia for 18 years (1985–2003) he engineered the building of one of the first and largest bone marrow transplant programs in Canada. In recognition of his research accomplishments and leadership in moving basic science discoveries in stem cell biology into the clinic, he was elected President of the International Society of Cellular Therapy (1995–1997), Treasurer of the Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy (1995–2002) and President of the American Society of Blood and Marrow Transplantation (1999–2000). In 2003 he was awarded the prestigious R. M. Taylor Medal by the Canadian Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute of Canada. In 2016 he was awarded the Order of British Columbia as well as named Ernst and Young's Entrepreneur Of The Year™ Pacific.
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In 2006 Eaves retired as required by provincial law at that time, becoming Professor Emeritus of Hematology and spending more time on several companies he founded to further the fields of cellular therapy and regenerative medicine - STEMCELL Technologies, STEMSOFT Software Inc. and Malachite Management Inc. These companies continue to grow under his leadership and by 2016, STEMCELL had over 900 employees making Canada's largest biotechnology company. In 2016, STEMCELL was awarded overall Exporter of the Year, as well as won in the Advancing Technology & Innovation category, while Dr. Eaves won in the Leadership category at the BC Export Awards.
Education
Allen Eaves is the son of Charles Eaves, a Canadian horticultural scientist who extended the storage of apples by controlling levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide, and Margot Vernon Smith, granddaughter of T. T. Vernon Smith, a civil engineer who managed the building of the Windsor and Annapolis Railway. Allen Eaves was born in Ottawa, but moved at an early age to Nova Scotia. Interested in science, he attended Acadia University and graduated with a BSc in Biology and Mathematics in 1962. He then went to Dalhousie University, completing his MSc in cell physiology under Dr. Gordon Kaplan on A Radiological Investigation of Two Cellular Enzyme Systems of Yeast (1964). The untimely cancer death of a family friend led him to switch to medicine, completing his MD and internship in 1969. During his medical training he was greatly influenced by Dr. Ross Langley, a research-oriented hematologist who suggested that Eaves do a PhD at the Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto where Dr. Robert Bruce was collaborating with Drs. James Till and Ernest McCulloch (Lasker Award) on how different types of cancer chemotherapeutic agents killed tumour stem cells while sparing normal stem cells.
Working under the supervision of Bruce (AACR Award), and in association with Till and McCulloch and a vibrant group of graduate students and post-doctoral fellows, Eaves completed his PhD in Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto with a thesis entitled Studies on the Control of Murine Bone Marrow Function (1974). Eaves then decided to complete his clinical specialist training in Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology in Canada so that he could be licensed to work in Canada and have access to human material for studying leukemia directly in humans, rather than in mice. He received this further clinical training in Toronto and Vancouver, becoming a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada in 1979 and a Fellow of the American College of Physicians (FACP) in 1980. He then joined the staff of the BC Cancer Agency, the Vancouver General Hospital and the University of British Columbia in 1979 as an assistant professor, becoming associate professor in 1984, professor in 1989 and Professor Emeritus of Hematology in 2006.
Career
In 1981, as one of the first Scholars of the BC Health Care Research Foundation, Eaves founded the Terry Fox Laboratory. As Director of the TFL over the next 25 years, he built the TFL into an internationally recognized research group with a staff of over 150 including 13 senior scientists, 35 graduate students and 40 post doctoral fellows (www.bccrc.ca/tfl). The TFL is a leader in understanding the regulation of hematopoietic (blood-forming) stem cell growth and differentiation. The TFL played a leadership role in obtaining the CFI grant that initiated funding for the new $100 million, 15 storey, BC Cancer Research Centre (opened on March 1, 2005), where the TFL occupies the top several floors of this cutting-edge facility. Eaves' personal research has focused on leukemia where he pioneered "culture purging" as a novel approach to doing autologous bone marrow transplantation for chronic myelogenous leukemia. He has over 200 papers in leading peer-review scientific journals. In 2003 he was awarded the prestigious R. M. Taylor Medal by the Canadian Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute of Canada.
In 1985 Eaves became Head of Hematology at UBC, the VGH and the BCCA where for the next 18 years he focused on building the world class Leukemia/Bone Marrow Transplant (BMT) Program of British Columbia. This was one of the first BMT programs in Canada and by the early 1990s over 1500 patients had been transplanted of which 300 were from other provinces (generating revenue for BC of over $30 million). The program also trained a significant number of BMT specialists, many of whom have played a role in starting BMT programs elsewhere in Canada and abroad. In recognition of his interests in BMT he was elected President of the International Society of Cell Therapy(1995–97), President of the American Society of Blood and Marrow Transplantation (1999-00) and Treasurer of the Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy (FACT) (1995–2002). He has also been a member of Health Canada's Expert Working Group on the Safety of Organs and Tissues for Transplantation, and the Canadian Standards Association's Task Force to develop standards and an accreditation process for cellular therapies and transplantation in Canada (1998–2006).
In the 1980s, to raise money to support running the Terry Fox Laboratory, Eaves sold urinary erythropoietin and tissue culture reagents to research colleagues around the world. By the early 1990s it became necessary to make the tissue culture media in a clean room. However, the BC Cancer Foundation did not have the $1 million needed to build such a facility and encouraged Eaves to buy the business from them and raise the money himself, which he did by fully mortgaging his home and obtaining a loan from Western Economic Diversification. Starting with 8 employees in 1993, STEMCELL Technologies Inc has grown at approximately 20% per annum and in by the spring of 2016 had over 800 employees worldwide. STEMCELL is one of Canada's largest biotechnology companies. It has more than 2000 products in its catalogue, the lead ones all made in its manufacturing facility in Vancouver. STEMCELL remains profitable with 2015 sales of approximately $100 million. An internationally competitive and export-orientated company, 95% of its customers are outside of Canada. In addition to its Vancouver facilities, STEMCELL has distribution and sales offices in the USA, Europe, Australia and Singapore plus distributors in all other major countries. A spin-off company, STEMSOFT Software Inc, makes software for managing data in BMT centres, cord blood banks, cellular therapy companies and tumour/tissue repositories. A second spin-off, Malachite Management Inc, does society and meeting management for such organizations as the Canadian Blood and Marrow Transplant Group, the International Society for Cell Therapy, the American Society for Apheresis and the Canadian Association of Oncology Nurses. In 2016 the STEMCELL Group had over 600 employees located in four facilities across the Lower Mainland. It should be noted that STEMCELL Technologies Inc supports Canada's Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE) Program, including: the Stem Cell Network where STEMCELL Technologies Inc is the major corporate supporter and Eaves is a member of the Board, and the Mathematics of Information Technology and Complex Systems, Mitacs Inc. where Eaves is Chairman of the Board of Directors. Eaves is passionate about helping British Columbia become a more science-oriented culture and economy that is knowledge-based, high tech and environmentally friendly.