Gerald Batist is the Minda de Gunzburg Professor and Chairman of Oncology at McGill University. He founded the McGill Centre for Translational Research in Cancer, based at the Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research, and expanded that into the highly innovative Segal Cancer Centre. He has led on many fronts that improved cancer therapy, including the study of cellular detoxification in therapeutic resistance to anti-cancer treatment, pre-clinical and early phase clinical trials of novel therapeutics. He has been the driving force behind major infrastructure and network projects that integrate large-scale clinical trials with state-of-the-art biological platforms and overcame logistical and ethics issues to launch biopsy-driven trials, a keystone for the emerging personalized medicine. He has developed leading-edge trans-disciplinary clinical and research teams, and championed clinician-scientists in Canada.