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Robert Batey, PhD
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Dr. Batey is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Toronto. Dr. Batey received his Ph.D. and D.I.C. diploma at the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine in 1991. Dr. Batey did post-doctoral research at the University of Pennsylvania and at the Upjohn Company.
Dr. Batey’s research is in the areas of organic synthesis and combinatorial chemistry. His laboratory is developing new chemical reactions and strategies for the synthesis of biologically active natural products and pharmaceuticals containing nitrogen heterocycles. Of particular interest is the development of methods for application to combinatorial chemistry and the total synthesis of natural products, using air- and water-stable reagents and catalysts. Some ongoing projects include: organoboron chemistry, transition metal and lanthanide catalysis, cycloadditions, reactive intermediates and heterocycles and guanidines, and combinatorial chemistry methods.
David Kaplan, PhD
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Dr. Kaplan received his PhD from Harvard in 1987, for work he did at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute to identify and characterize the regulatory subunit of the signal transducing protein, PI-3 kinase. At UCSF, Dr. Kaplan did post-doctoral work identifying novel substrates that interact with growth factor receptors (1988-1990). In 1990, Dr. Kaplan established a laboratory at the National Cancer Institute in Frederick, MD where, in collaboration with Luis Parada's laboratory, he identified Trk as the receptor for nerve growth factor. In 1996, Dr. Kaplan relocated his laboratory to the Montreal Neurological Institute at McGill where he was a Professor in the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Research Head of the Brain Tumour Research Centre, and William Feindel Chair in Neuro-oncology. In 2002, he became a Senior Scientist and Head of Cancer Research at The Hospital for Sick Children and Professor, Department of Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto. He holds a Canada Research Chair in Cancer and Neuroscience. His laboratory focuses on examining signal transduction processes in neurons, neural tumour cells, and stem cells, and on drug discovery using stem cells and tumour-initiating cells.
Lakshmi Kotra, B. Pharm. (Hons), PhD
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Dr. Kotra joined the University of Toronto as an Assistant Professor at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy. Dr. Kotra is an affiliate scientist at Toronto General Research Institute in the Division of Cell and Molecular Biology/University Health Network. Dr. Kotra is the current and founding Director of Molecular Design and Information Technology Center (MDIT). Dr. Kotra received his Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry in 1997 from the University of Georgia and was a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Chemistry at Wayne State University.
Dr. Kotra’s research is in the areas of synthetic medicinal chemistry, computer modeling, and drug discovery. His group has proposed and developed a novel strategy called fluoropeptidomimetics for protease inhibition (J. Org. Chem. 2003, 68, 1043; Bioorg. Med. Chem. 2005, 13, 2943); developed novel inhibitors of orotidine monophosphate decarboxylase (J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2005, 127, 15048; two patents pending) in collaboration with Pai group; developed novel strategies to design insulin mimetics (Bioorg. Med. Chem. Lett., 2004, 14, 1407). Kotra group is actively developing novel anti-malarial compounds in collaboration with Kain/Pai/Hui groups, and is actively pursuing development of insulin mimetics, anticancer compounds and interferon mimetics. There is particular interest in the research group in structure-based drug design and protein-protein interactions. His research group leverages the biological and structural discoveries to develop pre-clinical compounds using unique, unconventional drug design strategies.
Jane McGlade, PhD
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Dr. McGlade is a Professor in the Department of Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto, a Senior Scientist at the Hospital for Sick Children Research Institute, and a Principal Investigator at the Hospital for Sick Children’s Brain Tumor Research Centre.
Dr. McGlade’s research aims to understand the regulation of the signal transduction pathways that control normal embryonic development and cellular function. Mutations are often the underlying cause of human diseases such as cancer. Following activation of a cell surface receptor, complex networks of interacting proteins are formed to coordinate the activation of specific pathways. Formation of these protein-protein complexes is critical for signaling from the cell surface to the nucleus, for regulating events such as protein trafficking, cell adhesion and architecture, and immune responses.
Recently Dr. McGlade’s laboratory has focused on a family of intracellular adapter molecules that function to assemble signaling protein networks and thus regulate the integration, localization, and down regulation of signal transduction cascades and the cellular response to that signal. Her laboratory has identified a number of new adapters, that function in T cell receptor signaling and that regulate transmembrane receptors that determine cell fate during development. Other focuses are the functional characterization of these adaptor proteins, in addition to the discovery of new signaling proteins important in human disease.
Tony Pawson, PhD
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Dr. Pawson is a Senior Investigator and Director of Research at the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute, and Professor, Department of Medical Genetics and Microbiology, University of Toronto. Recently Dr. Pawson was one of two recipients of the CIHR Distinguished Investigator Awards.
Dr. Pawson’s laboratory is interested in the mechanisms by which cells convert an external signal into an intracellular response. In analysing the signalling properties of normal and oncogenic protein-tyrosine kinases, the group has identified a protein module, the SH2 domain, which is a common feature of many cytoplasmic signalling proteins, and acts through its ability to recognize specific phosphotyrosine-containing peptide motifs. SH2 domains function to physically couple activated cell surface receptors, which regulate cell growth, differentiation, and movement, to cytoplasmic biochemical pathways. SH2 domains serve as the prototype for a large family of protein modules that acts concertedly to control many aspects of cellular behaviour.
Brian Raught, PhD
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Dr. Brian Raught joined the Division of Cancer Genomics and Proteomics of the Ontario Cancer Institute, and the Department of Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto in 2006. He holds the Canada Research Chair in Proteomics and Molecular Medicine.
Dr. Raught received his Ph.D. in Cell Biology from Baylor College of Medicine in 1996. Selected for a Medical Research Council of Canada Fellowship, Dr. Raught pursued his post-doctoral studies with Nahum Sonenberg at McGill University from 1997-2002. Here, Dr. Raught made important contributions to the field of translational control by characterizing the intracellular signaling pathways that modulate the activity of several translation initiation factors. Dr. Raught then journeyed back to his home city of Seattle, where he worked with Ruedi Aebersold from 2002-2005 as a Senior Scientist at the Institute for Systems Biology. Using mass spectrometry and cutting-edge quantitative proteomics techniques, here he developed the first automated method for identifying the protein targets of ubiquitin and ubiquitin-like modifiers. Dr. Raught continues to study these critical, yet poorly understood, signaling molecules, with the goal of determining their roles in normal cellular function and pathological states.
Aaron Schimmer,MD, PhD, FRCPC
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Dr. Schimmer’s lab performs research on translational aspects of apoptosis. His group’s efforts are aimed on translating fundamental knowledge of the apoptosis pathway in to novel prognostic markers and lead therapeutic compounds for the treatment of malignancy. The group is exploring whether defects in caspase activation can predict a patient’s response to chemotherapy. It is anticipated that these results will guide the identification of molecular causes for defects in caspase activation in individual patients.
In order to identify potential lead therapeutic compounds for the treatment of malignancy, the group utilizes robotic and automated equipment to perform high throughput screens of small molecule libraries for compounds that modulate the molecular target of interest. For example, this approach has been used to identify small molecule inhibitors of XIAP and FLIP. These molecules are now being used as biological tools to investigate mechanisms of drug resistance and the preclinical investigation of these agents is underway. Screens for molecules that modulate other apoptotic targets are also under development.
Suzanne Trudel, MD
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Dr. Trudel is an Assistant Professor of Medicine, Division of Hematology at the University of Toronto, and a Clinician/Research Scientist in the Department of Medical Oncology and Hematology at Princess Margaret Hospital. Dr. Trudel received her MD from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto in 1994. She then completed training in General Internal Medicine and subspecialty training in Hematology at the University of Toronto affiliated hospitals, followed by research training in malignant hematology at Weill Medical College of Cornell.
Dr. Trudel’s research focuses on novel drug development for the molecular target-based treatment of mature B cell malignancies. This research encompasses drug discovery and pharmacological profiling of candidate compounds, pre-clinical studies to validate the target, the establishment of appropriate animal models for drug testing, and the development of Phase I/II clinical trials. As a result of Dr. Trudel’s work, the first ever clinical trial of FGFR3 inhibition in myeloma has been launched and research efforts are now focused on the development and implementation of relevant biological endpoints for this novel class of anti-tumor drug. Validation of additional molecular targets in myeloma such as MMSET and the maf and cyclin family of genes is also underway.
Jeff Wrana, PhD
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Dr. Wrana is Senior Scientist of Molecular Biology and Cancer at the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute, Mount Sinai Hospital, and Associate Professor in the Department of Medical Genetics and Microbiology at the University of Toronto. He received a PhD in biochemistry in 1991 from the University of Toronto, and did postdoctoral work at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. In 1998, he was awarded the William E. Rawls Prize from the National Cancer Institute of Canada, in 1999, the Premier's Research Excellence Award from the Canadian Government, and in 2000, the CIHR Investigator Award.
Dr. Wrana's lab is primarily interested in defining the signal transduction pathways for a superfamily of proteins known as TGF-beta. Dr. Wrana's lab has defined some of the key steps in this pathway and determined that Smad2 is mutated in some colorectal cancers. Recently, the lab identified SARA (Smad Anchor for Receptor Activation), whose biological function is being elucidated using a SARA knockout mouse.
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