PRiME Fellows represent the next generation of scientific leaders, poised to tackle some of the biggest challenges in health and disease. The 2021 cohort of awardees are exceptional trainees working on projects that combine expertise across the four PRiME Faculties, applying molecular biology, genomics, computational biology, and bioengineering towards diagnostic and therapeutic solutions. This year, PRiME Fellows are spearheading projects in screening for drugs against cancers and pathogens, building preclinical tools to model tissue dynamics, and designing nanotechnology and diagnostics for disease.
The annual PRiME Fellowship competition provides funding to PhD students or postdoctoral fellows with bold ideas that enable high-risk, high-reward research. Projects are collaborative, with co-supervision by PRiME investigators across the Faculties of Arts & Science, Applied Science & Engineering, Medicine, and Pharmacy. Fellows will be provided stipend support by PRiME for one year and assisted in leveraging their scientific progress to obtain further funding for the next stage of research activity in the lab.
The 2021 awardees are listed below, in alphabetical order:
Dustin Duncan, Postdoctoral Fellow
Supervisors: Drs. Leah Cowen (Medicine) & Rob Batey (Arts & Science)
Title: Optimization of Tri-substituted Indazoles as Inhibitors of Fungal Respiration
Emily Gilbert, Postdoctoral Fellow
Supervisors: Drs. Cindi Morshead (Medicine) & Molly Shoichet (Engineering)
Title: Novel approaches to manipulate neuroinflammation in a pre-clinical model of Multiple Sclerosis
Ingrid Grozavu, PhD Candidate
Supervisors: Drs. Igor Stagljar (Medicine) & Michael Ohh (Medicine)
Title: Using the MaMTH-DS and SIMPL-DS assays to screen AI-derived inhibitors targeting the oncogene KRAS G12D
Yechen Hu, Postdoctoral Fellow
Supervisors: Drs. Aaron Wheeler (Arts & Science) & Penney Gilbert (Engineering)
Title: Multi-Omics Analysis of Muscle Stem Cell Induced Muscle Disease
Shahrzad Jahanshahi, Postdoctoral Fellow
Supervisors: Drs. Walid Houry (Medicine) & Alan Cochrane (Medicine)
Title: Discovery of Broad-Spectrum Anti-Coronovirus Therapeutics
Rick Lu, PhD Candidate
Supervisors: Drs. Milica Radisic (Engineering) & Michael Sefton (Engineering)
Title: Peptide therapeutics for SARS-CoV-2 induced heart failure testing in vascularized perfusable heart-on-a-chip system
Zhen Qin, PhD Candidate
Supervisors: Drs. Xinyu Liu (Engineering) & Keith Pardee (Pharmacy)
Title: Miniaturized RT-LAMP Paper-based device for Point-of-Care COVID Viral RNA Detection
Tudor Radu, PhD Candidate
Supervisors: Drs. Patrick Gunning (Arts & Science) & Scott Prosser (Arts & Science)
Title: Discovery of a Novel Allosteric Selective Fusion Kinase Inhibitor for the Treatment of a Rare Liver Cancer
Wendy Wang, Postdoctoral Fellow
Supervisors: Drs. Leo Chou (Engineering) & Christine Allen (Pharmacy)
Title: DNA nanodevices for enhanced immune targeting of the tumor microenvironment
Nila Wu, PhD Candidate
Supervisors: Drs. Alison McGuigan (Engineering) & Cheryl Arrowsmith (Medicine)
Title: Targeting Macrophage-Driven Tumour Cell Regrowth after Chemotherapy Treatment in a 3D Engineered Tumour