Coming up: the 2025 MRM Symposium

OUR SPEAKERS

Keynote speaker

Dr. Sara Nunes Vasconcelos, PhD is a Senior Scientist at the University Health Network in the Toronto General Hospital Research Institute and holds the John Kitson McIvor Endowed Chair in Diabetes Research. Her translational research program aims to develop regenerative medicine strategies to treat cardiovascular diseases and diabetes and to use bioengineering approaches to study these diseases. Her lab has developed new vascularization techniques to support functional tissues for organ regeneration and is pioneering the work to create mature, long-lasting, functional blood vessels. Her work on human cardiac tissues-on-a-chip has opened a new avenue of research in stem cell-derived cardiomyocyte maturation and drug testing. Her laboratory’s ground-breaking research contributions have been recognized by several awards, including the Outstanding Young Investigator Award from the Microcirculatory Society and the Young Innovators in Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering Award, USA. She holds funding from CIHR, NSERC, JDRF, SCN and the NFRF and serves as a reviewer for CIHR, NIH, and NASA.

Principal Investigators

Joseph C. Wu, MD, PhD, is Director of the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute and the Simon H. Stertzer, MD, Professor of Medicine and Radiology. Dr. Wu received his medical degree from Yale. He completed his medicine internship, residency, and cardiology fellowship (STAR program) at UCLA. He obtained his PhD in the Department of Molecular & Medical Pharmacology with the late Dr. Sam Sanjiv Gambhir. His clinical interests include adult congenital heart disease and cardiovascular imaging. His lab works on biological mechanisms of patient-specific and disease-specific induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). The main goals are to (i) understand cardiovascular disease mechanisms, (ii) accelerate drug discovery, (iii) develop “clinical trial in a dish” concept, and (iv) implement precision medicine for prevention and treatment of cardiovascular patients. His lab uses a combination of genomics, stem cells, cellular & molecular biology, physiological testing, and molecular imaging technologies to better understand molecular and pathological processes. Dr. Wu has published >650 manuscripts with H-index of 140 on Google scholar and recognition as top 0.1% of highly cited researchers in Web of Science for past 5 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023). Among his trainees, 54 of them are principal investigators in the US or abroad.

Maryam Tabrizian is a Full Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Faculty of Dental Medicine and Oral Health Sciences at McGill University and a Canada Research Chair Tier I holder in Regenerative Medicine and Nanomedicine. Throughout her career, she has received numerous awards and fellowships, including the FRQS-Chercheur National, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Royal Society of Canada’s Academy of Sciences, the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, and the Canadian Academy of Engineering Fellowship. Dr. Tabrizian has authored over 280 peer-reviewed publications, accumulating more than 20,000 citations. Since 2011, she has served as Editor-in-Chief of Materialsand is the founding Editor-in-Chief of Exploration of Biomat-X, a free, peer-reviewed journal launched in 2022 to promote global accessibility in health sciences research.

Dr. Irah King is a Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. Dr. King holds a Fonds de Recherche du Québec Scholar Award and his laboratory is located within the Meakins-Christie Laboratories at the McGill University Health Centre – Research Institute. A major interest of Dr. King’s research program is to unravel mechanisms of host defense against intestinal helminths, with a particular interest in immune-epithelial-parasite interactions. In addition, he has recently expanded his program to discover how the gut microbiota has local and systemic effects on the immune system in the setting of bacterial and parasitic infections. Dr. King supports his research with funds from federal and international funding agencies including the Canadian Institute of Health Research, NSERC and the Kenneth Rainin Foundation. He currently serves as the Microbiome Theme Leader for the McGill Interdisciplinary Initiative in Infection and Immunity and Director of the McGill Centre for Microbiome Research. He is also a Board Member of the Society for Mucosal Immunology.

Trainees

Charlotte Sénéchal earned her B.Sc. in Anatomy and Cell Biology at McGill University in 2019. After graduating, she worked in an orthopedic clinic, helping track patient outcomes following joint replacement surgeries. This spurred her interest in regenerative medicine and stem cell-based therapies. Charlotte then joined the Crist Laboratory at McGill University where she is now pursuing her doctoral studies in the Department of Human Genetics. Her research project in the Crist Laboratory aims to determine how G protein coupled receptors (GPCRs), which are the pharmacological target of an estimated one third of all known drugs, regulate the activity of MuSCs. Through her research, Charlotte hopes to contribute to future therapeutic strategies that target muscle stem cell activity in order to treat muscle disease.

Julia Messina-Pacheco is a PhD candidate in Pathology at McGill University, conducting research at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre under the supervision of Dr. Alex Gregorieff. Her work focuses on the role of the Hippo signaling pathway in pancreatic injury, regeneration, and tissue homeostasis, particularly in the context of inflammation and early cancer development. Beyond the lab, Julia serves on the Board of Directors of the nonprofit Science & Policy Exchange and is a member of the Chief Science Advisor of Canada’s Youth Council, where she contributes to national conversations at the intersection of science and public policy.

Ahmed Mahmoud is a Master’s candidate in Chemical Engineering at McGill University, based in Montreal. He holds a Bachelor of Engineering (B.Eng. ’22) in Chemical Engineering from McGill, with academic interests spanning materials engineering, plasma engineering, stem cell therapy, and sustainability. Ahmed brings a multidisciplinary background with hands-on experience in cybersecurity and AI for healthcare, nanomaterials engineering, water and wastewater treatment, and biomedical device development. He founded the Speak2Lead Club at McGill and has served as President of the McGill Energy Association, along with other clubs. Currently, he is part of an industrial collaborative research project with a global industry leader as part of his graduate studies.

Jules Granet is a Ph.D. student in Dr. Natasha Chang’s lab in the Department of Biochemistry at McGill University. He completed a Bachelor’s degree and a Master’s in Molecular and Cell Biology in France before joining McGill for his Ph.D. His research focuses on understanding how muscle stem cells contribute to the development and progression of Duchenne muscular dystrophy, intending to uncover mechanisms that regulate their regenerative capacity in disease contexts.

Shiqi Diao is a PhD candidate at McGill University in the Division of Clinical and Translational Research, within the Graduate Programs of the Department of Medicine. He conducts her research in the Koromilas lab, where she focuses on the role of the integrated stress response in the evolution of mutant KRAS-driven lung cancer.

Dr. Mo Chen is now a postdoctoral researcher in Dr. Guojun Chen’s lab at McGill University. Dr. Chen received his bachelor’s and degree in Chinese Pharmaceutical University in 2014 and obtained his doctoral degree from the same institution in 2022. His research program focuses on developing biomaterials and drug delivery systems for various applications, including immunotherapy, cell therapy, and gene therapy. He has published over 10 peer-reviewed research papers and filed 2 patents.

Xuanning Chen is a Master’s student in Dr. Ana Nijnik’s lab at McGill University. She completed Honours undergraduate degree at McGill in Anatomy and Cell Biology. Her current research focuses on investigating the role of deubiquitinase USP16 in the regulation of B lymphocyte development and antibody-mediated immune responses.

Gilberto Duran Bishop is a fourth-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine at the University of Montreal. Originally from Mexico, he holds a degree in Genomic Sciences and has completed several international internships in bioinformatics, epigenetics, and stem cell biology. In 2023, he joined Dr. Mohan Malleshaiah’s laboratory at the Institut de Recherches Cliniques de Montréal (IRCM). His current research focuses on unraveling the gene regulatory networks that control early developmental processes. By using cellular reprogramming models that mimic early embryonic stages, combined with genome-wide assays, he aims to uncover the molecular mechanisms that govern cell fate decisions during mammalian development.

Ajay David is currently a PhD candidate in the Integrated Program in Neuroscience (IPN) at McGill University, under the supervision of Dr. Michel Cayouette at the Montreal Clinical Research Institute (IRCM), Montreal, Canada. The goal of his PhD research is to work on biomedical questions pertaining to regeneration in the retina, a nervous tissue outgrowth of the brain, and to understand how molecular programs enables retinal cells to regenerate. His long-term objective is to use the retina as a model system to unravel the mystery of why mammalian cells in the central nervous system do not readily regenerate, so that we may reverse this process and contribute to future medical innovations.