Szyf is a professor of pharmacology and held a Glaxo Smith Kline and James McGill Chair in Pharmacology at McGill University in Montreal Canada and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. Szyf has pioneered research in DNA methylation for the last three decades and published more than 300 papers on the biological role of DNA methylation that span a broad spectrum from basic mechanisms to cancer diagnostics and therapeutics, as well as behavior, chronic pain and addiction. Szyf pioneered epigenetic pharmacology in cancer and as well as the field of behavioral epigenetics. Szyf studies provide a molecular link between environment and genes and between nurture and nature that had a wide impact on the social sciences and psychiatry. Szyf founded the first Pharma in the world dedicated to developing DNA methylation drugs Methylgene Inc. Last year Szyf founded HKG epitherapeutics at the HKG science park which develops a novel class of epigenetic diagnostic markers for early detection of cancer and other diseases aimed for routine “check up” in the general population to prevent disease and increase health and well-being.