Recognizing our achievements

We would like to congratulate graduate trainees and postdoctoral fellows from several Schulich Medicine & Dentistry departments on their recent awards and publications.

Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology

Congratulations to Mauricio Rodriguez-Torres, PhD candidate, on his recent study, entitled Aldehyde dehydrogenase as a marker and functional mediator of metastasis in solid tumors, published in Clinical & Experimental Metastasis.

Sonya Van Nuland, PhD Candidate, was recently published in Anatomical Sciences Education for her study entitled E-learning, dual-task, and cognitive load: The anatomy of a failed experiment.

Celine Young, Clinical Anatomy MSc Candidate, recently has her study, entitled Regional Variations in Cartilage Thickness of the Radial Head: Implications for Prosthesis Design, published in The Journal of Hand Surgery.

Department of Biochemistry

Congratulations to Stephanie Dorman, Michelle Gabriel and Kevin Leung for recently defending their PhD theses, and to Alexander Roy for successfully defending his MSc.

Congratulations to Stephanie Dorman on receiving the 2015 Dr. Bishnu D. Sanwal Graduate Performance Award, and to Bart Kolendowski, Xuguang Liu and Tahereh Vakili who received Translational Breast Cancer Research Studentships.

Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics

Congratulations to Sera Thomas, MSc, on having her thesis work entitled, The Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of Teleglaucoma Screening Device, published in PLoS ONE.

Department of Medical Biophysics

Congratulations to Tom Hrinivich and Patricia Johnson who were both awarded the A.C. Groom Award for best PhD and MSc candidate presentations in the 2014-2015 academic year. They were both awarded $1,000 that is part of a living legacy from the Department and the Groom family in honour of Dr. A.C. Groom, a past chair of the Department of Medical Biophysics.

Department of Microbiology and Immunology

Congratulations to Stephen Li, who was awarded the 2014 Poland Award, which is presented to the outstanding graduating Microbiology and Immunology doctoral student in any given academic year. Congratulations also go to Jessica Sheldon, who was awarded the 2014 John A. Thomas Award, intended for a PhD student during the last stages of the program in the areas of bacteriology, virology, immunology and genetics.

The Journal of Biological Chemistry has accepted a paper by Holly Laakso, PhD Candidate, a trainee with the Heinrichs Laboratory, entitled A heme-responsive regulator controls synthesis of staphyloferrin B in Staphylococcus aureus. Her paper will be featured as “Paper of the Week” and the journal will publish a profile of Laakso as a graduate student first author.

Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine

The following two papers have recently been published by alumni of our program, and the research was completed while they were still trainees. Congratulations to Wahab Khan, PhD, for having his paper, entitled Reversing chromatin accessibility differences that distinguish homologous mitotic metaphase chromosomes, published in Molecular Cytogenetics. Congratulations also go to Awatif Abuzgaia for having her study, Regulation of postnatal pancreatic Pdx1 and downstream target genes after gestational exposure to protein restriction in rats, published in Reproduction.

After graduating from our program, Khan has been accepted as a Postdoctoral Fellow of Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital, New York, in the American Board of Medical Genetics and Genomics fellowship program in Clinical Cytogenetics and Molecular Genetics program.

Department of Physiology and Pharmacology

At the Charles W. Gowdey Lecture and Research Day, the following awards were presented.

  • Murray Fraser Award in Pharmacology: Bradley Jackson (Supervisor: Lina Dagnino, PhD)
  • Bill Bottom Award in Physiology: Michael Wong (Supervisor: Dan Hardy, PhD)
  • Margaret Moffat Award in Pharmacology: Samar Sayedyahossein (Supervisor: Lina Dagnino, PhD)
  • Esme Walker Award in Physiology: Matt McCann (Supervisor: Cheryle Seguin, PhD)
  • Sharma Award in Pharmacology: Eddie Chan (Supervisor: John Di Guglielmo, PhD)
  • Mogenson Award in Physiology: Anusha Ratneswaran (Supervisor: Frank Beier, PhD)
  • Stavraky Award for Teaching (for contributions as teaching assistant): Randeep Singh (Supervisor: Lina Dagnino, PhD)
  • Physiology and Pharmacology Graduate Student Council (PPGSC) Award: For leadership and contributions: Eddie Chan (Supervisor: John Di Guglielmo, PhD)