Celebrating our achievements

Congratulations to Dr. Mark Awuku on receiving the Danielle Grenier Member Recognition Award from the Canadian Paediatric Association for 2016. The University of Windsor will also bestow an Honorary Doctor of Law Degree (LLD) on Dr. Awuku as part of its Faculty of Nursing Convocation on June 17, 2016.

Congratulations to Jennifer Parraga, Director, Communications and Marketing, and the Schulich Medicine & Dentistry Communications and Marketing Team on receiving two Virtuoso Awards from the International Association of Business Communicators - London. Awards of Excellence were given in the Internal Communication category for the “UME Accreditation Communications Strategy” entry, and in the Special Events category for the “See the Line” entry.

Congratulations to Dr. Harold Merskey for receiving his honorary degree from Schulich Medicine & Dentistry. Dr. Merskey is a champion of patient care, civil rights and psychological pain research. He has devoted his professional career to scientific excellence and is one of the world’s leading pain specialists. Read the full article.

Congratulations to Alexei Ouriadov, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, who was awarded the Alpha One Foundation's Fellowship for 2016-2018 at the annual American Thoracic Society Meeting. He was the sole recipient of this award in 2016.

Congratulations to the following Bernier Award recipients:
Suzanne Bernier Memorial Award in Skeletal Biology
Anusha Ratneswaran, PhD Candidate
Supervised by Frank Beier, PhD
Presentation: PPARdelta as a therapeutic target for knee osteoarthritis
The Suzanne Bernier Memorial Award in Skeletal Biology was established by the family, friends and colleagues of Dr. Suzanne M. Bernier through Foundation Western. This award is given annually to a graduate student conducting research in the field of Skeletal Biology, and recognizes excellence in academics and research.

Anatomy and Cell Biology Suzanne M. Bernier Publication Award
Elena Tutunea-Fatan, MSc
Supervised by Dr. P.K. Lala
Publication: Tutunea-Fatan E, Majumder M, Xin X, Lala PK. The role of CCL21/CCR7 chemokine axis in breast cancer-induced lymphangiogenesis. Mol Cancer. 2015 Feb 10; 14:35. doi: 10.1186/s12943-015-0306-4.
This award is given to a graduate student within the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, judged by the Graduate Affairs Committee to have published the 'best' paper in 2015.

Congratulations to Jessica Esseltine, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, and John Kelly, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology. Their study “A Germline Variant in PANX1 has Reduced Channel Function and is Associated with Multisystem Dysfunction” was published in The Journal of Biological Chemistry. It was also featured as the publication’s article of the week.

At the recent Experimental Biology Meeting in San Diego, the following Clinical Anatomy trainees took two first place prizes and one second place prize for their poster presentations: Kate Dillon – First Place; Victoria Roach – First Place for PhD/Postdoctoral Fellow; Maddie Norris – Second Place.

Congratulations to Amy Burke, PhD Candidate, Department of Biochemistry, on recently winning the Junior Investigator Award for Women for 2016 at the Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology (ATVB) meeting in Nashville. This award, sponsored by the ATVB council of the American Heart Association, is to recognize excellent research being conducted by women. Amy was selected as the winner out of 22 who were nominated. The title of her presentation was “Naringenin Supplementation of a Low Fat Diet Enhances the Reversal of Metabolic Dysfunction, Promotes Atherosclerosis Regression and Improves Lesion Pathology in Ldlr-/- Mice”.

Congratulations to alumnus Eric van der Veer, PhD'07, on receiving the Irvine H. Page Young Investigator Research Award from the Council on Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology of the American Heart Association. Eric is an alumnus and former trainee in Dr. Geoff Pickering's lab at Robarts Research Institute. He is currently an Assistant Professor at Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands.

Congratulations to Ciara Pendrith, MSc Candidate, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, for her paper recently published in Current Oncology entitled, "Costs of Cervical Cancer Treatment: Population-Based Estimates from Ontario".

Congratulations to the following Robarts trainees for their recent success at the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM) Annual Meeting in Singapore:
Jeff Gaudet, PhD Candidate, was awarded the Summa Cum Laude Merit Award for his oral presentation titled, "Translation of high-field fluorine-19 cell tracking techniques into the clinical realm". The award recognizes the top five per cent of presentations at the Meeting. Jeff's abstract was also selected for a power pitch presentation. Out of more than 5,900 abstracts submitted, only 165 were hand-selected for this format.

Ashley Makela, PhD Candidate, was awarded the Magna Cum Laude Merit Award for her oral presentation titled, "Quantitative Evaluation of Tumour Associated Macrophages in Breast Cancer: Fluorine-19 versus Iron Oxide Nanoparticles". The award recognizes the top 15 per cent of presentations.

Congratulations to Paula Foster, PhD, who was elected to the Molecular and Cellular Imaging Study Group Governing Committee for the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.

Congratulations to members of the Koschinsky lab at Robarts Research Institute for their recognition from the National Lipid Association. Their abstract was top-rated among more than 100 submissions at the group's Scientific Sessions Meeting in New Orleans this month. Marlys Koschinsky, PhD, executive and scientific director at Robarts, was invited to give a presentation of the work in recognition of this achievement.