Celebrating your recent achievements
Congratulations to faculty, staff and trainees on your recent accomplishments and successes.
Frank Beier, PhD, Ian Villamagna, PhD Candidate, and Matthew Teeter, PhD, were among those named to the Arthritis Society’s Top 10 Research Advances of 2019 list. Beier and Villamagna were acknowledged for their work in developing a new delivery method for an anti-inflammatory drug. Teeter was honoured for his research into wearable technology used as a pre- and post-operative assessment tool for knee replacement surgery.
Rachel Eddy, PhD Candidate with the Department of Medical Biophysics, received the inaugural Brian Keith Reid Scholarship Award. The Award is made possible by a donation from David Jaffray, PhD’94, and Stasia Jaffray, in memory of a friend and classmate, Brian Keith Reid.
Dr. Elizabeth Finger received the PSI-50 Mid-Career Clinical Research Award from PSI Foundation for her project "Treating apathy and empathy deficits in Frontotemporal Dementia."
Members of Western’s iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machine Foundation) team – Luana Langlois, MSc Candidate, Meet Panchal, BMSc Candidate, and Shea Touch, BSc’19 – received a bronze medal at the iGEM 2019 competition for their work on new and emerging contaminants found in bodies of water.
Dr. Robert Hegele was named the 2019 George Lyman Duff Memorial Lecturer at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions. He was acknowledged for more than three decades of work examining DNA in clinical and lab settings.
Xiaoyun Ji completed her MSc in Pathology. Her thesis was titled “Junctophilin-2 Protects Cardiomyocytes against Palmitate-induced Injury” and she was supervised by Tianqing Peng, PhD, and Douglas Jones, PhD.
Yohan Kim completed his PhD in Pathology. His thesis is titled, “Discovery of Novel Mechanisms Regulating Cancer Extravasation in the Chorioallantoic Membrane Model” and he was co-supervised by Zia Khan, PhD, and Chandan Chakraborty, PhD.
Saman Maleki, PhD, received Catalyst Grants for Translational Cancer Research on two projects.
Gerald McKinley, PhD, was awarded $35,000 through the Canadian Research Initiative in Substance Misuse to study the impact of increased social inclusion and perceptions of belonging on individuals engaged in substance misuse within a local First Nations community.
Dr. David Palma received the Williams E. Rawls Prize as part of the Canadian Cancer Society’s Awards of Excellence in Cancer Research.
Research by Bekim Sadikovic, PhD, was recognized as part of the National Human Genome Research Institute’s 10 most significant advances in genomic medicine in 2019. His lab has created what is now the world’s largest database of epigenetic DNA ‘fingerprints’ of hereditary genetic conditions – called EpiSigns – that allow for more accurate diagnosis.
Cheryle Séguin, PhD, received two grants from the Arthritis Society to support her research into back pain and arthritis.
Parisa Shooshtari, PhD, received an Ontario Institute for Cancer Research Investigator I Award.
