CGEn CEO Announcement
The Board of Directors and Executive Committee of CGEn, Canada’s national platform for genome sequencing and analysis, is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Naveed Aziz as Chief Executive Officer effective June 1, 2021.
Dr. Aziz has served as CGEn’s Chief Administrative & Chief Scientific Officer, since 2017. Under his stewardship, CGEn has grown into a multi-million-dollar genomics enterprise that supports genome sequencing studies across many human diseases and genome analysis of all other species. As one of the largest data producers in the world, CGEn has also built the underlying informatics infrastructure to house and decode complex genomic data. Most recently, CGEn leads the $20M “Host-Seq” project funded by the Government of Canada, sequencing the genomes of 10,000 people affected with COVID-19 to search for the genetic factors influencing the wide-range of response to infection.
Dr. Aziz holds a PhD in Gene Targeting from University of Dundee, UK, MPhil in Biotechnology and Executive MBA from Bradford School of Management, UK. His previous roles include serving as the Director of Technology programs at Genome Canada, Head of Genomics at University of York, UK and as Research Fellow at the Noble Research Institute, USA.
About CGEn
CGEn is a federally funded national platform for genome sequencing and analysis. Established in 2014, CGEn employs over 200 staff, funded by the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) through its Major Science Initiatives Fund, leveraging investments from Genome Canada and other stakeholders. CGEn operates as an integrated national platform with nodes in Toronto (The Centre for Applied Genomics at The Hospital for Sick Children), Montréal, (McGill Genome Centre at McGill University) and Vancouver (Canada’s Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre), providing genomic services, including genome sequencing and analysis, that enable research in agriculture, forestry, fishery, the environment, health sciences, and many other disciplines of interest to Canadians.