Hal Gunn, MD
CEO

Hal Gunn, MD, founder and CEO of Qu Biologics, is a physician-entrepreneur who has dedicated his professional life to understanding how to optimally support the body’s innate immune capacity to heal. Dr. Gunn is recognized both nationally and internationally as a leader in the field of supportive oncology, and in 2009 was awarded the $250,000 Dr. Roger’s Prize for vision, leadership and integrity in the field of Integrative Medicine.

In 1997, Dr. Gunn co-founded InspireHealth, Canada’s foremost supportive cancer care centre, to support the health, healing and immune system function of people undergoing cancer treatment and their families. Under Dr. Gunn’s leadership, InspireHealth grew to become a world leader in supportive cancer care, with three centres treating 2,500 new patients per year, funded by the provincial government.

In 2007, Dr. Gunn founded Qu Biologics to develop his discovery of potentially transformative platform that restores innate immunity, and all the important cells and roles of innate immunity, in a targeted organ. Dr. Gunn obtained his Doctorate of Medicine from the University of British Columbia (UBC) and remains a Clinical Assistant Professor at UBC’s School of Medicine.

Simon Sutcliffe, MD, FRCP, FRCPC, FRCR
Chief Medical Officer – Oncology

Dr. Sutcliffe is a distinguished clinician, scientist and leading visionary in cancer control in Canada and internationally. A graduate of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, England, Dr. Sutcliffe’s training encompassed internal medicine, scientific research, medical and radiation oncology in the UK, South Africa, US and Canada. He has published extensively in the areas of radiation and medical oncology as applied to the treatment of lymphoma, leukemia and cellular immuno-deficiency and immuno-modulation in cancer.

Dr. Sutcliffe has been President and CEO of the Ontario Cancer Institute and Princess Margaret Hospital (1994-96) and the BC Cancer Agency (2000-09). Dr. Sutcliffe was the inaugural Chair of the Governing Council of the Canadian Strategy for Cancer Control, a past member of the NCIC Board of Directors, and past chair of the Canadian Partnership against Cancer, the Canadian Cancer Society/National Cancer Institute of Canada Joint Advisory Committee on Cancer Control and the National Medical Advisory Committee. He has also served on the boards of the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research and Genome BC.

Dr. Sutcliffe is currently the President of the International Cancer Control Congress Association, President of Two Worlds Cancer Collaboration (the Canadian Branch of the International Network for Cancer Treatment and Research) and the CEO of Premier Diagnostic Centre. He serves on the boards of Premier Diversified Holdings, Premier Diagnostic Centre and InspireHealth, and is Past Chair of the Canadian Partnership against Cancer and the Institute for Health Systems Transformation & Sustainability. He is a past senior advisor to the Terry Fox Research Institute. Dr. Sutcliffe was awarded the Queen Elizabeth 50th Jubilee Gold Medal in 2003 and the Terry Fox Award (of the B.C. Medical Association) in 2009 for his lifetime services to cancer control.

Ted Steiner, MD, FRCPC
Chief Medical Officer – Infectious Diseases

Dr. Steiner is a physician-scientist in Infectious Diseases. He is Professor of Medicine and Division Head in Infectious Diseases at the University of British Columbia. He is also an Associate Member of the UBC Department of Microbiology & Immunology. He works as an Infectious Disease physician at Vancouver General Hospital, and is a research scientist at BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute. He has a longstanding basic science research program studying innate immunity, particularly as it relates to intestinal immunology, enteric infections, and Inflammatory Bowel Disease. He also studies adaptive immune responses to pathogens, including SARS-CoV2, CMV, and Clostridioides difficile. His research projects are funded by CIHR, Crohn’s & Colitis Canada, Merck Canada, Inc., and the Canadian COVID-19 Immunity Task Force.

In addition to his basic laboratory research, Dr. Steiner runs a clinical research program with investigator-initiated and industry-sponsored studies on C. difficile infection, COVID-19, and multidrug-resistant infections. He is the Medical Director of the Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute Clinical Research Unit, and co-chair of the UBC COVID-19 Clinical Research Coordination Initiative Working Group, helping to oversee COVID-19 research projects in BC.

Matt Cahill, MBA, JD, PhD
Chief Operating Officer

Matt joins Qu Biologics with 15 years experience in the life sciences and biotechnology. He brings broad domain expertise paired with hands-on experience building, financing, and operating platform biotechnology companies.

Matt was a founding employee of Deep Genomics – a biotechnology company focused on the application of artificial intelligence in drug development. He played a central role in crafting and operationalizing the company’s strategy, helped build the executive team, and led a variety of functions including finance, legal, HR, and business development. During his tenure the company formed its first partnerships and raised more than USD$200M through multiple rounds of financing.

Previously, Matt spent several years as a microbiologist and worked briefly in intellectual property law. He received his JD and MBA from the University of Toronto with an emphasis on biotechnology, entrepreneurship, and strategy. He received his PhD from the University of Cambridge, where he studied the genomes of soil bacteria using novel sequencing technologies.

Shirin Kalyan, PhD
Vice President, Scientific Innovation

Dr. Shirin Kalyan is a translational immunologist who holds an Adjunct Professorship in Medicine (University of British Columbia). She earned her PhD in Experimental Medicine investigating the pivotal immune mediators of inflammation in toxic shock syndrome. Dr. Kalyan was awarded a fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany to conduct research at the Institute of Immunology in Kiel (Cluster for Excellence in Inflammation at Interfaces), where she advanced understanding on the healing potential of the innate immune system for cancer immunotherapy and uncovered how certain drugs commonly used to treat chronic and degenerative diseases adversely impact immune integrity. Dr. Kalyan’s primary interest and expertise are in improving the efficacy and safety of therapies targeting immune dysfunction, particularly in the context of chronic inflammatory disorders and cancer, and determining how to best harness the ability of the innate immune system to support recovery from disease.