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What's this Page all About?
As the Department grows, the faces change. This page is to help you to be able to put names and stories to those new faces. It is meant to help to bring us together, divided as we are between three campuses.
Dr. Laudelino Lopes
Laudelino Lopes was born in Belo Horizonte, Brazil and was the oldest of three children. As a result of his father's early death, he became the breadwinner for the family when he was only 
seventeen. He graduated from Medicine from the University of Valença, in Rio de Janeiro in 1977 and started his residency in Ob/Gyn there a year later. By 1981 he was hired at Rio de Janeiro University as an auxiliary professor. In 1988, under Dr. Syd Effer (a former member of our department) he started his fellowship training at UBC. While there he worked with a number of well known perinatal specialists in the fields of high-risk care, invasive procedures and level III ultrasound. This group published a Canadian Doppler curve which is still used to assess fetal status. It was around this time that he also logged 150 hours in the air as part of a team responsible for the the air-transfer of high-risk patients.
Upon completion of his PhD, he returned to the University of Rio de Janeiro where he was immediately involved in the creation of a new Perinatal Hospital. This centre, now a reality, thanks in large part to the work of Dr. Lopes, currently performs 5,000 deliveries, 3,000 gyn surgeries and sees 12,000 hospital out-patient visits per year. Its 56-bed, neonatal unit has spawned four other small units in Rio, a great success by all measures! As Chief Director, part of his mandate was to create a Study Centre where he developed a thriving continuing education program. Along the way he found time to earn an MBA and assumed numerous demanding administrative and teaching posts in Brazil.
Currently, Lau's main research interests are:
- how hypoxia disturbs fetal hemodynamics and growth-Dopler study
- stem cell and brain damage in perinatology
- prematurity
Dr. Lopes is married and his wife, Simone, is a Pediatrician with an MBA in Health Care Management. They have two daughters, both still in school.
Clearly we are very fortunate to have recruited him to our department and we welcome him and his family to our midst.
Dr. Trevor Shepherd
Trevor Shepherd obtained his undergraduate degree from the Honours Genetics 
program at the University of Western Ontario in 1995. Subsequently, he went to graduate school in the Department of Medical Sciences at McMaster University and trained in the field of the molecular and cellular biology of breast cancer transgenic and knockout mouse models of the disease. After successfully completing his PhD in 2002, he went to the Department of Pharmacology at Dalhousie University to initiate a new research direction into the poorly understood yet devastating cancer in women, ovarian cancer. As part of his post-doctoral research program, he developed techniques to isolate and culture normal human ovarian epithelial cells and ovarian cancer cells derived from patient ascites. He received additional technical training from laboratories at the Ottawa Regional Cancer Centre and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to develop new mouse models of ovarian cancer. Taken together, these technologies involving the direct analysis of primary cells and tissues from patients and generation of accurate animal models for ovarian cancer will form the foundation for the Translational Ovarian Cancer Research Program at the London Health Sciences Centre.
Trevor has just moved fro Halifax this winter with his wife, Christen (also an alum of UWO, BSc in Anthropology) and two boys, Michael ) and Dermott into a farmhouse just outside the town of St. Mary's.
Dr. Michel Prefontaine
Dr. Michel Prefontaine was born and raised in Montreal and its suburb, Laval. After high school at Ecole Secondaire Classique Ste-Therese, he collected a 
degree from College Lionel-Groulx in Quebec City. Then it was on to the University of Montreal for his MD and and a residency in Ob/Gyn at McGill. At this point he packed up and moved to Ontario where he completed his Gyn Onc fellowship at two sites, Toronto and McMaster.
From 1985 to 1992 he served on the faculty of Medicine at the University of Ottawa, and then from 1992 to 2007 he shifted south of border to Springfield Massachusetts where he was appointed at the Tufts University School of Medicine from 1992-1997
Fortunately for us, he knew Dr. Monique Bertrand and when a position opened up here he was keen to return to Canada and to begin work with our excellent Gyn Oncology team.
In what little spare time he has, Dr. Prefontaine is great ourdoors man, and loves hiking paddling and bicycling. Clearly he is serious about everything he takes on and talks about mountaineering in Alaska, South America and Europe. When he craves less physical pursuits, Michel loves to read and listen to classical and jazz music. HE even manages to work in his interest in photography.
The Dept is very fortunate to be able to welcome this "renaissance man" and internationally known Gyn Oncologist.
Dr Dan Hardy
Life has come "full circle" for Dan Hardy, who was born and raised in London. Since the beginning of his undergraduate cooperative training at the University of 
Waterloo, Dr. Hardy has had a great interest in endocrine-related research including diabetes, neuro-endocrine disorders, and pregnancy. In 2003, he obtained his PhD in the area of placental glucocorticoid metabolism within the Department of Physiology at UWO, under the supervision of Dr. Kaiping Yang. His research interests then led him to pursue a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Texas. There, Dr. Hardy joined the parturition research group, uncovering some of the mechanisms leading to both term and preterm birth in women. Later, Dr. Hardy made the novel discovery that the receptor (PR) may serve an important anti-inflammatory role in labour. This led him to explore the role of PR in breast cancer, resulting in a Fellowship Award from the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation and the inaugural Endocrine Scholar Award from the Endocrine Society. In Texas, Dr. Hardy also collaborated with members of the Department of Ob/Gyn on a translational research project in endometriosis. While proud of his new Texan roots, Dr. Hardy is delighted to have recently returned to Canada to our department to revisit his earlier PhD interests examining the role of nuclear receptors in normal and abnormal fetal development.
In addition to research, Dr. Hardy has previously represented Canada in the German-Canadian Young leaders Study Tour. He continues to participate in community organizations such as the Irish Benevolent Society and Hospice of London. This past year, in honour of the 50th Anniversary of the University of Waterloo, Dr. Hardy was recognized by the Faculty of Science with an Alumni of Honour Award. He continues to participate in Canadian running clubs and has lately revitalized his passion for playing hockey.
It is with great pleasure that we welcome him back to our department!
Also from this web page:
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THE BULLETIN BOARD
The Fertility Clinic
Allen Carey
Education Fund
MARK YOUR CALENDARS
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Research Awards Day
- LHSC-VH, B2-119, May 9
Abstract Deadline, Apr. 6
Get Abstract Guidelines -
HH Allen Day, Sept 28
