2022 MRM Talks: Dr. Glen Tibbits and Cara Hawey
The MRM Network presents: the MRM Talks. Join us every fourth Thursday at noon to learn more about stem cells and regenerative medicine. The webinar series will feature leading scientists in the field, including MRM Principal Investigators and external guest speakers.
For each seminar, we will also highlight the work of one MRM Trainee, who will present alongside our guest speaker.
In this edition of the MRM Talks:
Dr. Glen Tibbits,
Professor and Chair, Biomedical Physiology and Kinesiology, Simon Fraser University
Co-director of the Cellular and Regenerative Medicine Centre (CRMC), BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute
“Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy: exploring the etiology using hiPSC-CM”
MRM TRAINEE:
Cara Hawey,
Master Candidate in Prof. Terry Hébert’s Lab
McGill University
“Using patient-derived iPSCs to characterize underlying features of dilated cardiomyopathy”
THURSDAY, May 26, 2022
12:00 – 1:00 PM
VIRTUAL
About the speakers:
Glen Tibbits completed his bachelor’s degree at McGill University and subsequently pursued graduate studies at UCLA. During these studies, he developed a profound curiosity about the electrical and contractile properties of the heart and completed his MSc and Ph.D. at the Brain Research Institute at UCLA. With an American Heart Association Post-Doctoral Fellowship (PDF), he studied cardiac pharmacology in Niigata, Japan in year one and cardiac biophysics at the UCLA School of Medicine in year two. He subsequently was appointed an Assistant Research Professor of Pediatric Cardiology at UCLA and then moved to Seattle, WA to become Assistant Professor at the University of Washington. When a faculty position opened at Simon Fraser University, he chose to return to Canada after an absence of 15 years. At SFU he was appointed as full Professor in 1992 and a Canada Research Chair in Molecular Cardiac Physiology from 2004 to 2018. The latter allowed him to start building a research program incorporating the use of human-induced pluripotent stem cells differentiated into cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CMs) to understand better inherited cardiac arrhythmias and cardiomyopathies over a decade ago. He is currently the Co-director of the Cellular and Regenerative Medicine Centre (CRMC) at the BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute which is a state-of-the-art facility for generating and phenotyping hiPSC-derived cardiomyocytes and pancreatic β cells.
Cara Hawey is a 2nd year master’s student in Dr. Terry Hébert’s lab. Her research focuses on characterizing features of dilated cardiomyopathy such as compromised calcium handling and contractility using patient-derived iPSC-cardiomyocytes.
We want to hear from you, and we welcome your suggestions for speakers!
If you are interested in hosting an invited speaker, please get in touch with us.