Dr. Philip Branton is remembered as a brilliant scientist and visionary leader who shaped cancer research in Canada. He was the founding scientific director of the Institute for Cancer Research of the Canadian Institutes for Health Research.photos courtesy of the Canadian Cancer Research Alliance
Philip Branton credited the Beatles for steering him toward a career in science. While an undergraduate at the University of Toronto in the mid-1960s, he played with his band, the Jazz Couriers, regularly at the Night Owl coffee house in Yorkville, then the focal point of the city’s bohemian arts and culture scene. U of T’s student newspaper, The Varsity, called the Jazz Couriers “the best modern group currently working in Toronto.”
“There was a big jazz scene in Toronto at that time, in the coffee houses. There were gigs everywhere. And Phil was really enjoying himself. He thought, ‘You know, I can make a career out of this,’ ” said Jose Teodoro, a biochemist at McGill University and former student of Dr. Branton’s, recalling how his mentor and colleague had told the tale. “He was studying microbiology, but he was getting abysmal grades because he was spending his nights playing jazz.”
Then the Beatles happened.
When the Fab Four took over North American airwaves, many of the bars and clubs switched to rock ‘n’ roll, and the jazz gigs began to dry up. So Philip hit the books with renewed focus, brought his average up to an A and convinced biochemist Dr. Rose Sheinin, working at U of T and at Princess Margaret Hospital, to take him on as her PhD student. He never looked back.
Dr. Branton, who died last week at the age of 81, is being remembered as a brilliant scientist and as a visionary leader who profoundly shaped cancer research across Canada.
He was the founding scientific director of the Institute for Cancer Research (ICR) of the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR). The Canadian Cancer Research Alliance (CCRA), a consortium of Canada’s major research funders, was his brainchild; that body now encompasses some 40 funding organizations at the regional and national level. He helped establish the Terry Fox Research Institute in 2007, and chaired its Scientific Advisory Committee. Dr. Branton was named an officer of the Order of Canada in 2014 “for his leadership in the development of a national cancer research framework, and for his contributions to our understanding of tumour viruses and cell division regulation.”
“He was a great leader, and he led by example,” said Dr. Alan Bernstein, director of global health at the University of Oxford, and former president of CIHR. Dr. Bernstein, who was friends with Dr. Branton since their days as grad students, recalled him being especially proud of his role in developing the CCRA. “He knew it would make a difference to cancer research and treatment. He wanted to contribute to cancer research in this country, and he did, immensely.”
Philip E. Branton was born in Toronto on June 8, 1943, to George Edward Branton and Muriel Isabel Branton (née Smith). It was a musical family: His father had been a singer and his mother played the piano. His older brother, Howard, introduced him to jazz at an early age, and he took music classes in high school, at Bloor Collegiate Institute. He learned the clarinet and then the saxophone and the piano. He spent hours spinning records by John Coltrane, Art Blakey and Oscar Peterson. He started jamming with musicians from across the city, including trombonist Russ Little, a regular with the Jazz Couriers who would go on to play with the rock orchestra Lighthouse. Meanwhile, the counterculture movement began to blossom. “For the record, we jazz musicians looked a bit down on hippies,” Dr. Branton wrote in an autobiography that he drafted for his children. “We were hip, but definitely not hippies.”
When the jazz scene began to wane, Phil Branton took the intensity and energy he had brought to music and applied it to science, with a focus on virology and molecular biology. He completed his PhD in 1972 and did a postdoctoral fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before taking his first academic post at the University of Sherbrooke in Quebec. In 1975 he moved to Hamilton to work with the Cancer Research Group at McMaster University, where he would spend the next 15 years.
He married Sharon Leah Herzog in 1966, when he was still an undergraduate, and they had a son, Jason, in 1977. However, the couple’s relationship deteriorated, and they separated in 1984. “Things were hard on all three of us, especially Jason,” Dr. Branton wrote.
In 1989, Dr. Branton reconnected with Johanne Landry, one of his former graduate students from the University of Sherbrooke. They had not dated while he was her supervisor, but now, 20 years later and with both of them single and each with a child, they became a couple. “We were both unattached and a bit wounded and so our relationship blossomed,” Dr. Branton wrote. Ms. Landry’s daughter, Vanessa Landry-Claverie, described it as “a great love affair.”
In 1990 Dr. Branton moved to Montreal, where he would chair the department of biochemistry at McGill University for the next decade. After stepping down as chair, he continued to serve as the Gilman Cheney Professor of Biochemistry at McGill. Ms. Landry, with a background in museum sciences, worked at the Biodôme and later as the director of the Montreal Insectarium. The couple could be found at baseball games, at Formula One races and of course at the Montreal International Jazz Festival.
Over a career spanning five decades, Dr. Branton studied the complex interplay between genes, viruses and cancer, investigating how normal cells turn into cancer cells. He was a pioneer in the field known as viral oncogenesis – an oncogenic virus is a virus that can cause cancer – and was among the first to study the mechanism by which viruses attack a cell’s tumour-suppressing mechanism, potentially leading to cancer.
“This was pioneering work – and he was one of the key people doing this kind of research,” said Dr. André Veillette, a professor in the department of medicine at McGill. Dr. Branton also did groundbreaking work on adenoviruses, which can trigger an array of illnesses, and which can interfere with cellular processes.
In 1997, Dr. Branton and a colleague, Dr. Gordon Shore, started a company called Gemin X Biotechnologies (now Gemin X Pharmaceuticals) to pursue drug development. Later in his career, Dr. Branton spearheaded an effort to promote palliative care in Canada. At the time, little research on palliative care was being done in the country, said Dr. Victor Ling, founding president and scientific director of the Terry Fox Research Institute, who knew Dr. Branton since they were undergraduates at U of T.
“Nobody was paying much attention to it, but he said that this is really important for cancer patients, so he took the initiative and promoted it – and that put palliative-care research on the map. Canada is now a leader in that field.” Dr. Ling added: “Every major cancer-research initiative during the time when he was active has his fingerprint on it.”
Those who worked with Dr. Branton remember him as a natural leader who had a knack for bringing the right people together, listening to their ideas and building on them. “He had this capacity to bring people together in a very positive manner,” said Dr. Morag Park, director of the Rosalind and Morris Goodman Cancer Institute (GCI) at McGill. “He was a builder. He had a vision. And recognized the importance of fundamental research.”
“We always think of scientists toiling alone late at night in the lab,” Dr. Teodoro said. “But science is a very social activity that needs a lot of interaction, and bringing people together, and that was what [Dr. Branton] did best.”
Dr. Branton received many awards over the course of his career, including the R.M. Taylor Medal from the Canadian Cancer Society, McGill University’s Medal for Exceptional Academic Achievement and the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal. In 2002 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
Friends and colleagues remember Dr. Branton as a charismatic bon vivant who loved life and made those around him feel at home.
“He was the kind of guy you wanted to be friends with, and wanted to invite to your parties, and you could also trust him to help you when things are a little bit difficult,” Dr. Veillette said.
Dr. Branton retired in 2016. That same year, Ms. Landry was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS); she died two years later. Her illness and death were difficult for him.
Dr. Branton died on Sept. 16 in Saint-Lambert, Que., after a series of medical complications. He leaves his son, Jason; stepdaughter, Vanessa; and grandchildren, Harrison Branton and Mina and Edwin Leclerc.
You can find more obituaries from The Globe and Mail here.
To submit a memory about someone we have recently profiled on the Obituaries page, e-mail us at obit@globeandmail.com.