Biomed Connect: An Academia-Industry Networking Event

Date & time

Thursday, May 17, 2018
4:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.

Cost

This event is free.

Where

Loyola Jesuit Hall and Conference Centre
7141 Sherbrooke W.

Accessible location

An event to bring together companies and academics working on biomedical research with the objective of creating solid and mutually beneficial research collaboration partnerships.

"Calla lilies from a chemical garden" by Alicia McTaggart, a master’s student in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry

This event is directed to companies and researchers working in the areas of:

Disease mechanisms
Biomarkers and diagnostics
Drug discovery
Drug delivery
Biomedical imaging
Biotechnology

Join us for presentations from funding agencies on partnerships funding programs, a showcase of biomedical researchers, and a networking cocktail.

RSVP

SCHEDULE

4:30 p.m. – Registration
5:00 p.m. – Welcome and opening remarks
5:30 p.m. – Presentation of partnerships funding programs and participant introductions
6:15 p.m. – Research showcase & networking cocktail
7:30 p.m. – Closure

Participating Concordia biomedical researchers

Aashiq Kachroo is an assistant professor in the Department of Biology. His research involves studying evolutionarily shared human genes along with many of their variants, by systematically humanizing yeast cells. He engineers entire human genetic processes in simplified cells to study evolution and human disease. His current research focuses on human proteasome complex and cholesterol biosynthesis pathway; systems directly relevant to abnormalities like cancer and cardiovascular disease in humans.

Areas of expertise: drug discovery, disease mechanisms, biotechnology

Alisa Piekny is an associate professor in the Department of Biology and co-director of the Centre for Microscopy at Concordia. Her research aims to gain a stronger understanding of how the cytoskeleton is regulated during cell division and migration, and how its regulation is altered in cancer cells. She also collaborates with Chemists to make novel anti-cancer drugs and to optimize their delivery.

Areas of expertise: drug discovery, disease mechanisms

Brandon Findlay is an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Working with environmental and pathogenic bacteria, his research focuses on the discovery of natural products with antibiotic activity and the evolution of antibiotic resistance. This work has applications in medicine, agriculture, and biotechnology.

Areas of expertise: drug discovery, disease mechanisms, biotechnology

Christine DeWolf is an associate professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. She is a biophysical surface chemist who studies interfacial interactions in biological systems. In particular, she used model membranes to understand the mechanisms of action of antimicrobial peptides on bacterial cells with the aim of designing new antibiotics and the impact of environmental pollutants (small molecule oxidants and airborne nanoparticulate) on the biophysical function of lung surfactant membranes. Finally, this knowledge of biological membranes is applied to functionalize nanoparticles for biocompatibility and surfaces for biosensing.

Areas of expertise: drug delivery, disease mechanisms

Christophe Grova is an associate professor in the Department of Physics, an active PERFORM researcher, where he chairs the Integration of PERFORM Platforms committee, and adjunct professor in the Biomedical Engineering department at McGill University. His research involves combining different neuroimaging modalities to characterize brain activity, from a bio-electrical point of view (electro-and magneto-encephalography) as well as from an hemodynamic perspective (functional magnetic resonance imaging, near infra-red spectroscopy). His research aims at studying neurovascular coupling processes and ongoing resting state activity to define new biomarkers of brain activity (e.g. epilepsy), while developing the next generation of portable neuroimaging devices to monitor brain activity in action in everyday life (physical exercise, sleep).

Areas of expertise: disease mechanisms, biomarkers and diagnostics, biomedical imaging

Dajana Vuckovic is an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, director of the Centre for Biological Applications of Mass Spectrometry (CBAMS), and the Concordia University Research Chair in Clinical Metabolomics, Biomarkers and Preventative Health. Her research includes the development of novel metabolomics workflows using mass spectrometry with the focus on improving metabolite coverage. Her current efforts in biomarker discovery and validation focus on inflammatory and cardiovascular diseases, bipolar disorder and preventive health. She also has extensive expertise in bioanalytical method validation and development of new analytical and diagnostic tools including new microscale extraction devices and new extraction materials.

Areas of expertise: biotechnology, drug discovery, biomarkers and diagnostics

David Kwan is an assistant professor in the Department of Biology. His research is focused on exploring the function and engineering of proteins—studying how they act as molecular machines and how they can be used in biotechnology or synthetic biology, and also how they can be targeted for new medicines and therapeutics where they are involved in health and disease. Among other projects, his lab is developing novel methods for discovering drugs that block the enzymes involved in pathogenesis of infectious bacteria, and those involved in metastasis within cancer cells.

Areas of interest: drug discovery, biotechnology, biomarkers and diagnostics

John Capobianco is a professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and the Concordia University Research Chair in Nanoscience. His area of research involves the synthesis, characterization and spectroscopy of lanthanide doped nanoparticles. Of particular interest are upconverting nanoparticles that are capable of converting near-infrared into visible light. These materials have attracted considerable attention due to their potential application as biolabels, biological assays, bioimaging, drug delivery, photodynamic therapy, and temperature sensing of cells.

Areas of expertise: drug delivery, biomarkers and diagnostics, biomedical imaging

John Oh is an associate professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and holds a Canada Research Chair in Nanoscience. His research focuses on the design and processing of multifunctional polymer-based biomaterials to address important problems in the areas of drug delivery and bioimaging. These nanoscale bioconjugates and organic-inorganic hybrid nanomaterials hold great promise for cancer diagnosis and treatment.

Areas of expertise: drug delivery, biomarkers and diagnostics, biomedical imaging

Malcolm Whiteway is a professor in the Department of Biology and holds a Canada Research Chair in Microbial Genomics. His research investigates the medically important fungal pathogen Candida albicans, with the ultimate goal of identifying new treatment options for patients suffering from Candida infections. He uses an array of genetic and genomic approaches to investigate pathways involved in various C. albicans functions.

Areas of expertise: disease mechanisms, biotechnology

Michael Hallett is a full professor in the Department of Biology. He is a computational biologist who primarily uses machine learning and probabilistic modelling to develop multivariate signatures for both clinical and basic research endpoints. He is interested in transcriptional regulation in fungi, optimization in synthetic biology and marker development in cancer.

Areas of expertise: biomarkers and diagnostics, disease mechanisms, drug discovery

Michael Sacher is an associate professor in the Department of Biology and the program director of the Diploma in Biotechnology and Genomics. His research focusses on a protein complex called TRAPP and is actively studying the functions of the components of this complex, several of which have been implicated in human neurodevelopmental disorders and muscular dystrophy.

Area of expertise: disease mechanisms

Pat Forgione is an associate professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. His research focuses on developing new methods for the formation of carbon-carbon bonds. This plays an important role in the synthesis of a widerange of chemical structures, including drugs that are used to treat a variety of diseases. He is a co-inventor on Faldaprivir, an orally bioavailable drug for the treatment of hepatitis C virus and is currently developing a new anti-cancer drug with a novel mechanism of action.

Area of expertise: drug discovery

Rafik Naccache is an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. His research interests revolve around the use of metallic and luminescent nanoparticles for the development of novel sensors, imaging probes and drug delivery vehicles. His research examines the synergistic effects between different types of nanomaterials in efforts to develop multi-functional hybrid nanoprobes.

Areas of expertise: drug delivery, biomarkers and diagnostics

Steve Shih is an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. His research uses microfluidics (i.e. 'lab-on-chip') technology for applications in health and in energy. By harnessing the advantages of microfluidics, this method can transform the field of automation and synthetic biology enabling to expedite the engineering of biological organisms and circuits which can be used for producing novel therapeutics for a variety of diseases like cancer.

Areas of expertise: biotechnology, disease mechanisms, drug discovery

Photos by David Ward