Dr. Henry Barnett, a native of Britain, obtained his Medical Degree from the University of Toronto in 1944. After obtaining specialty qualifications in Neurology at the Toronto General Hospital, he moved to Oxford to further his research training.

The son of a pioneer Manitoba surgeon (Dr. Henry H. Chown, 1859-1944), Dr. Bruce Chown was born in Winnipeg and received his MD from the University of Manitoba in 1922. He spent the next three years at Columbia, Cornell and Johns Hopkins Universities where he completed his specialty training in Pediatrics.

Dr. Herbert Jasper, an American born in La Grande, Oregon, received doctorates from the University of Iowa and the University of Paris before coming to Canada to join famous neurosurgeon Dr. Wilder Penfield at McGill University's Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI).

Dr. Charles (or C.P.) Leblond was born in Lille, France and began his career in medicine and science before coming to McGill University in 1941. Dr. Leblond holds doctorates from the University of Paris, the Sorbonne and the University of Montreal.

Dr. William Thornton Mustard was born in Clinton, Ontario and graduated in medicine from the University of Toronto in 1937. After a distinguished career in the Canadian Army Medical Corps where he was awarded the Member of the British Empire (M.B.E.), he received further training in surgery in New York before returning to Toronto and the Hospital for Sick Children in 1947.

Dr. Robert Bruce Salter was born in Stratford, Ontario in 1924 and graduated in medicine from the University of Toronto in 1947. Following two years spent at the Grenfell Medical Mission in Newfoundland and Labrador, Dr. Salter returned to Toronto and the Hospital for Sick Children where he came under the influence of pediatric cardiovascular surgeon Dr. William Mustard.

Dr. Michael Smith was born in Blackpool, England in 1932. Following completion of his Ph.D. at the University of Manchester, Dr. Smith immigrated to Canada as a research fellow and joined the Department of Biochemistry at the University of British Columbia in 1966.