Drew Lyall Award of Excellence

Drew Lyall Award of Excellence

Drew Lyall Award of Excellence

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Drew Lyall

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Drew Lyall was the inaugural executive director of the Stem Cell Network and, over 12 years, helped build it into an internationally respected research and development powerhouse. He died in January 2016, in Ottawa, a few days shy of his 50th birthday after an eight-year battle with melanoma.

Dr. Michael Rudnicki believes Mr. Lyall’s professional legacy is the community of stem cell scientists spread across Canada who agreed to work together collaboratively under the Stem Cell Network banner. “The nature of the community reflected who he was and how he dealt with people.”

Dr. Janet Rossant describes Drew as “a true stem cell hero”. “He was the glue that brought the Network together, whether driving the science, advocating on the Hill for a cord blood stem cell bank, or leading the party at the annual Network pub night.”

To honour Drew’s memory, and to recognize his legacy, in 2016 the Stem Cell Network inaugurated the Drew Lyall Award of Excellence. This award is presented annually at the Till & McCulloch Meetings to the lead author of the highest ranked abstract in the abstract competition, and is accompanied by the delivery of the Drew Lyall Award of Excellence talk.

2025 Drew Lyall Award of Excellence Winner

Brandon Murareanu was the recipient of the 2025 Drew Lyall Award of Excellence for his work as lead author on Breaking through ENGRAFTment barriers with cell therapy functional genomics.

Born in Toronto and raised in the small town of Alliston, Ontario, Brandon has been an active researcher close to home in one of Canada’s premier science hubs for the last eight years. He completed his BSc in Molecular Genetics and Microbiology at the University of Toronto in 2021. As an undergraduate supervised by Dr. Aaron Reinke, Brandon studied host-pathogen interactions and pathogen evolution, developing an appreciation for the discovery power of high-throughput screens. Motivated by this experience, Brandon decided to pursue his Ph.D. supervised by Dr. Stephanie Protze at the McEwen Stem Cell Institute. Applying familiar concepts to an entirely new field, his Ph.D. aims to harness high-throughput functional genomics to shed new light on some of cell therapy’s most pressing problems, including barriers to engraftment.

Brandon accepted his award and presented the Drew Lyall Award of Excellence talk on November 4 at the 2025 Till & McCulloch Meetings in Ottawa.

Past Recipients of the Drew Lyall Award of Excellence

  • 2025: Brandon Murareanu, Ph.D. student, under the supervision of Dr. Stephanie Protze.
  • 2024: Shenghui Liang, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of British Columbia, under the supervision of Dr. Timothy Kieffer.
  • 2023: Murtaza Nagree, Postdoctoral Fellow, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, under the supervision of Dr. John Dick.
  • 2022: Tyson Ruetz, Postdoctoral Fellow, Stanford University, under the supervision of Dr. Anne Brunet.
  • 2021: Darren Blackburn, Ph.D. student, Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research, McGill University, under the supervision of Dr. Vahab Soleimani.
  • 2020: Sabiha Hacibekiroglu, Postdoctoral Fellow, Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Sinai Health, under the supervision of Dr. Andras Nagy.
  • 2019: Neemat Mahmud, Ph.D. student, University of Toronto, under the supervision of Dr. Freda Miller.
  • 2018: Zakaria Orfi, Postdoctoral Fellow, CHU Sainte-Justine Research Centre, Université de Montréal, under the supervision of Dr. Nicolas Dumont.
  • 2017: Siraj Zahr, Ph.D. student, University of Toronto, under the supervision of Dr. Freda Miller.
  • 2016: Huijuan Yang, Ph.D. student, Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute in Toronto, under the supervision of Dr. Andras Nagy.