Dr. Michael Rudnicki is a Senior Scientist and Director of the Sprott Centre for Stem Cell Research at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute. He is Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Ottawa. Dr. Rudnicki’s achievements have been recognized by numerous honours including being named a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair, an International Research Scholar of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute for two consecutive terms, a Fellow of the Royal Society, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Dr. Rudnicki is an internationally recognized thought leader in molecular genetics and regenerative medicine whose research has transformed our understanding of muscle development and regeneration, and fueled the development of novel molecular and stem cell based approaches to the treatment of muscular dystrophy and other neuromuscular disorders. Dr. Rudnicki’s key discovery was the identification and characterization of muscle stem cells. This work pivoted the field towards the study of adult regenerative myogenesis and set the stage for novel molecular and stem cell based approaches to the treatment of muscular dystrophy and other neuromuscular disorders. Dr. Rudnicki is a member of the editorial boards of Cell Stem Cell, Journal of Cell Biology, and Stem Cells. He is a founding Co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal Skeletal Muscle. Dr. Rudnicki has also organized many international research conferences and was a founding director of the Society for Muscle Biology.

As Scientific Director for SCN, Dr. Rudnicki provides direction and leadership for the Network’s Research program and serves as the Chair of SCN’s Research Management Committee and is a member of the Board of Directors.

Sven has more than 15 years of experience in biopharmaceutical R&D and has led research teams in both academic and industrial/GMP manufacturing environments. He holds a PhD in Chemical Engineering from l’École Polytechnique de Montréal and specializes in bioprocessing for the production of viral vectors, vaccines, recombinant proteins, and cell therapy products.

Together with collaborators and colleagues, Sven has published more than 20 peer-reviewed manuscripts. Since 2019, he is also an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Bioengineering at McGill University.

As Director of Technical Training and Site Manager at CASTL’s state-of-the-art training facility in Montreal, Sven ensures that trainees receive technical training of the highest quality and relevant to their roles in the biomanufacturing industry.

Dr. Maura Campbell is the President and CEO of the Ontario Bioscience Innovation Organization (OBIO®), a not-for-profit, membership-based organization dedicated to advancing health technology innovation and commercialization. Dr. Campbell has more than 30 years of experience in all key areas of biotech, including private and public companies, universities and research institutes, and government-funded public sector research organizations.

With expertise in technology transfer and commercialization of intellectual property, Dr. Campbell has held various roles in senior management, most recently as the Vice-President of Intellectual Property and Contracts for Turnstone Biologics, which recently went public on the NASDAQ. Previously, Dr. Campbell served as: Director, Intellectual Property at VBI Vaccines; Research Program Manager, and Manager of Technology Transfer & Commercialization at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute; Director of Intellectual Property for PainCeptor Pharma Corporation; and Manager of Technology Transfer at the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Systems National Centre of Excellence. Dr. Campbell has also served as an IP consultant to a number of Canadian start-ups including Neurochem, Conjuchem, Aonix, AMRIC and Sussex Research Labs.

Dr. Campbell received a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Ottawa, and an M.Sc. and a B.Sc. in biochemistry from Queen’s University in Kingston.

Dr. Samer Hussein is an associate professor and researcher at Université Laval and its affiliated Cancer Research Center. Dr. Hussein completed his Ph.D. in Neurological Sciences at McGill University, Montréal, Canada, and his post-doctoral training at the University of Helsinki, Finland, and later at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute in Toronto, Canada. He has published seminal work in the field of reprogramming demonstrating several key findings on how reprogramming to induced pluripotent stem cells affects the chromatin state, genetic stability, and gene expression of cells undergoing this process of induced cell fate change. His team now focuses on understanding the molecular underpinnings governing stem cell fate decision during development and in cancer. They use several bioinformatics and sequencing approaches, such as long read RNA sequencing, and stem cell differentiation models, such as human cerebral organoids and glioma stem cell invasion models, to understand the molecular mechanisms and functional interactions of long non-coding RNAs during development and cancer.

Dr. Nika Shakiba is an Assistant Professor in the School of Biomedical Engineering (SBME) at the University of British Columbia. Nika received her B.A.Sc. from the Engineering Science program and subsequently completed a Ph.D. under the supervision of Dr. Peter Zandstra, both at the University of Toronto. She conducted her postdoctoral training under the co-supervision of Dr. Ron Weiss and Dr. Domitilla Del Vecchio in the Synthetic Biology Center at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Through these experiences, she has bridged experiment-to-theory by using genetic technologies to track single cell behaviors, using mathematical models to deconvolve complex datasets, and generating novel predictions. Her training trajectory has instilled in her a scientific philosophy that is rooted in interdisciplinary thinking and collaborations.

Nika’s independent research program is interested in the “social lives” of stem cells: how these cells interact to influence one another’s survival and cell fate decisions, both in culture and embryonic development. Her lab uses systems and synthetic biology to understand the genetic rules that encode cooperative and competitive interactions between stem cells. Leveraging genetic engineering, her lab seeks to program these interactions to drive predictable growth and differentiation outcomes and enable robust bioprocesses for manufacturing stem cell-derived cell therapies.

Nika is committed to training the next generation of biomedical researchers with core expertise that span life sciences and engineering. These scientific leaders will have the know-how to develop cutting-edge technologies, serve as nodes for interdisciplinary collaboration, and tackle fundamental scientific questions. She has co-developed a national workshop bringing synthetic biology to stem cell trainees in the Stem Cell Network. Beyond her research and teaching, Nika has been actively involved in outreach, bringing the science and ethics of stem cell research to the general public and youth. As a former national leader for the StemCellTalks symposium for high school students, she co-led a committee that saw the expansion of the event to eight cities across Canada. Nika is also passionate about providing equity in mentorship and multi-directional advice-sharing through her latest project, Advice to a Scientist.

Dr. Sara Nunes Vasconcelos, PhD is a Senior Scientist at the University Health Network in the Toronto General Hospital Research Institute and holds the John Kitson McIvor Endowed Chair in Diabetes Research​.  Her translational research program aims to develop regenerative medicine strategies to treat cardiovascular diseases and diabetes and to use bioengineering approaches to study these diseases. Her lab has developed new vascularization techniques to support functional tissues for organ regeneration and is pioneering the work to create mature, long-lasting, functional blood vessels. Her laboratory’s ground-breaking research contributions have been recognized by several awards, including the Richard G. Hegele Award for excellence in Research and Innovation, Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, UofT and the Outstanding Young Investigator Award from the Microcirculatory Society, USA. She holds funding from CIHR, NSERC, BT1D, and the NFRF and serves as a reviewer for CIHR, NIH, and NASA. 

Lab Website: www.vasconceloslab.com 

Professor Darcy Wagner joined McGill in January 2024 as the Canadian Excellence Research Chair in Lung Regenerative Medicine with a co-appointment in Medicine and Biomedical Engineering. Dr. Wagner started her independent laboratory at Lund University in Sweden in 2017 as a Wallenberg Molecular Medicine Fellow and European Research Council Starting Grant recipient. Her laboratory has been funded by the Swedish Research Council and Swedish Innovation Agency among other funding agencies. Since arriving in Canada, she has also received funding from a European Joint Program on Neurodegenerative Diseases with teams in Sweden, Germany and Poland. She has also received funding from the CFI-John Evans Leaders Fund.  

The broad interest of her laboratory is the development of bioengineering strategies to generate lung tissue ex vivo as well as to develop new therapies to regenerate tissue in vivo. Her laboratory combines novel biomaterials with advanced manufacturing approaches to generate this tissue including the use of microfluidics and 3D bioprinting. Her laboratory was the first to 3D bioprint human airways containing regionally specified primary cells using tissue-specific bioinks. The long-term goal of the lab is to develop transplantable tissue to meet the unmet clinical need for solid organ transplantation but also to use these bioengineering advances to develop new ex vivo humanized models of disease, including organoids, to further our understanding of disease and to screen new therapies. In order to build these models, her laboratory uses primary lung epithelial progenitor cells and more recently induced pluripotent stem cells to derive distinct lung and airway cell types. The laboratory’s focus is on identifying environmental cues within the extracellular matrix which drive differentiation and support tissue regeneration.  

Lab Website: https://lbr-lab.com/ 

Dr. E. Ann Yeh is currently a Professor of Paediatrics (Neurology) at the University of Toronto in Ontario, Canada, where she is the director of the MS and Neuroinflammatory Disorders Program and Fellowship Program at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), and Senior Scientist and co-director of Clinical Trials at The SickKids Research Institute. Her research program focuses on visual outcomes in paediatric demyelinating/neuroinflammatory conditions, rehabilitative interventions for this population, especially in relation to physical activity, as well as therapies for paediatric MS and other neuroinflammatory conditions. She has led interventional trials in these areas and multiple multi-institutional observational studies focused on neuroinflammatory disorders. She is the winner of multiple awards, including the Pediatric Chairs of Canada Academic Leadership Clinician Practitioner award. She sits on the editorial boards of Neurology and Multiple Sclerosis Journal and is co-editor in chief of MSARD. She has authored over 255 publications.