Francis Lynn, BSc, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, University of British Columbia
Investigator, BC Children’s Hospital
Francis obtained his Ph.D. in Physiology from the University of British Columbia in 2003. Following this he moved to San Francisco supported by JDRF Postdoctoral and Advanced Postdoctoral Fellowships with Michael German.
Francis was recruited to the BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute in 2009 where he is head of the Canucks for Kids Fund Childhood Diabetes Research Laboratories, an Associate Professor in the UBC Department of Surgery and a Founding Member of the UBC School of Biomedical Engineering. Francis has been supported by the Goepel Family/ Diabetes Canada Young Investigator Award in Islet Cell Development; the JDRF Alan Permutt Career Development Award and a Michael Smith Foundation for Health Sciences Scholar Award. In 2021, he was awarded the Diabetes Canada/CIHR INMD Early Career Researcher Partnership Award.
Francis’ work has led to publication of 79 highly-cited articles in top journals including Diabetes, Diabetologia Developmental Cell, PNAS, Nature Communications, Nature and Nature Medicine. The Lynn Lab currently has 12 members and is funded by grants from the Breakthrough T1D, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Stem Cell Network, Diabetes Canada, and the BC Children’s Hospital Foundation. Research is focused on understanding how we can improve the in vitro development of cell-based therapies for diabetes by taking cues from embryonic development.