The NanoMedicines Innovation Network (NMIN) is pleased to announce 36 new recipients of NMIN Advanced Training Certification (ATC), who were celebrated in an online ceremony on 18 June 2024.
NMIN’s Advanced Training Certification, or ATC, recognizes an individual’s engagement in diverse capacity-building activities offered by NMIN, its partners, and other recognized organizations, where the learning involved goes “above and beyond” the training typically provided in an academic program and contributes to the formation of a well-rounded professional.
NMIN’s ATC provides a competitive advantage by formally recognizing national-level network experience as well as training and experiential learning across a broad range of professional and interpersonal skills.
There are three levels of NMIN ATC: Silver, Gold, and Platinum.
The 36 new NMIN ATC recipients, the fifth group to be accredited, are listed below. All have qualified for certification as a result of their high level of engagement in NMIN HQP Program activities, having engaged in activities ranging from attendance at lectures and webinars, to participation in the HQP Research Presentations Series and serving on the NMIN HQP Network (NHN) Executive Committee.
Seven qualified for Platinum certification – the first and only recipients of the certification at this level: Ariadne Tuckmantel Bido, Miffy Chen, Nancy Dos Santos, Yulin Mo, Liza Silverman, Jennyfer Zapata-Farfan and Nashmia Zia.
Ten qualified for Gold certification: Noorjahan Aibani, Amélie Baron, Po-Han Chao, Sarthak Garg, Tavonga Mandava, Fariba Saadati, Sarah Thomson, Michael Valic, Abishek Wadhwa, and Kelsy Yuan.
The other 19 qualified for Silver certification: Morgan Alford, Abdulaziz Alhussan, Nuthan Vikas Bathula, Alexandra Birkenshaw, Alberto Cevallos, Norman Chow, Nick Dragojlovic, Devon Heroux, Pardis Kazemian, Scott MacKay, Parnian Mehinrad, Hadeel Mohammad, Masoud Norouzi, Madelaine Robertson, Nasim Sarrami , Kevin Sun , Anthony Tam, Ethan Watt, and Jiamin Wu.
Top left to right in photo above (Platinum-level ATC recipients):
- Ariadne Tuckmantel Bido, a Postdoctoral Fellow with Dr. Sabrina Leslie at The University of British Columbia. She is working as one of the leads of the lipid nanoparticle division for ScopeSys.
- Miffy Cheng, a Postdoctoral fellow with Dr. Pieter Cullis at The University of British Columbia. Her research interests include the formulation of lipid nanoparticles and optimization of lipid nanoparticles for in vitro and in vivo systems and assay development and physicochemical characterization of lipid nanoparticles lipid nanoparticles.
- Nancy Dos Santos, a Research Associate with Dr. Marcel Bally at BC Cancer and PharmaCore Operational Lead.
- Yulin Mo, a PhD candidate working with Dr. Gang Zheng at the University of Toronto. Yulin is working on an NMIN-funded project focused on customisable metallo-nanotexaphyrins for cancer imaging and therapy.
- Liza Silverman, who completed her PhD in Dr. Mathew Moffitt’s Lab at the University of Victoria. She specializes in nanoparticles for drug delivery, specifically cancer treatment.
- Jennyfer Zapata-Farfan, a PhD candidate in Biomedical Engineering at Polytechnique Montreal, where she is supervised by NMIN researcher Dr. Michel Meunier. Her research expertise includes electronic instrumentation, biophotonics, optics, and nanoplasmonics applied in ocular gene therapy.
Second row left to right in photo above:
Platinum-level ATC recipient:
- Nashmia Zia, a Postdoctoral Fellow working in the Gilbert Walker Lab at the University of Toronto. Nashmia is working on the development of SERS-tagged drug-loaded nanoparticles for targeted therapy of acute myeloid leukaemia.
Gold-level ATC recipients:
- Noorjahan Aibani, a Scientist at Cytiva.
- Amélie Baron, a PhD student in biomedical engineering at Polytechnique Montréal, under the supervision of NMIN researcher Dr. Michel Meunier. Her research focuses on drug delivery for cancer treatment using light-triggered delivery mechanisms.
- Po-Han Chao, a PhD candidate working with Dr. Shyh-Dar Li at the University of British Columbia. His research mainly focuses on developing immunotherapies for cancer treatments using nanomedicine and drug delivery.
- Sarthak Garg, a Master’s candidate supervised by Dr. Marcel Bally at The University of British Columbia. His research focuses on creating high-concentration liposomal formulations of otherwise poorly soluble anticancer drugs.
- Tavonga Mandava, a Master’s candidate with Dr. Ellen Wasan at the University of Saskatchewan. His current research focus is on the development and characterization of novel lipid-based adjuvanted vaccine formulations for infectious respiratory illnesses.
Third row left to right in photo above:
Gold-level ATC recipients:
- Fariba Saadati, who was a Research Associate supervised by NMIN researcher Dr. Marco Ciufolini before joining NanoVation as a senior scientist to design and synthesize next-generation compounds for gene therapy
- Sarah Thomson, a Postdoctoral Fellow working with Dr. Blair Leavitt at The University of British Columbia. Her research interests include translational research and the clinically relevant and actionable aspects of genetic diseases
- Michael Valic, a PhD candidate supervised by NMIN researcher Dr. Gang Zheng. His research focuses on pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic modelling of theranostic nanomaterials
- Abishek Wadhwa, a PhD candidate with Dr. Kenneth Harder at The University of British Columbia. His research focus is on mRNA vaccines, cancer immunotherapy and proteogenomics
- Kelsy Yuan, PhD candidate with Dr. Gilbert Walker at the University of Toronto. Kelsy is working on synthesizing the phospholipid-encapsulated silver nanoparticles and studying the conformations of different types of membrane-bound proteins by using Raman Spectroscopy and Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy
Silver-level ATC recipient:
- Morgan Alford, who was a PhD candidate with Dr. Robert Hancock at The University of British Columbia and is now a Postdoctoral fellow cross-appointed to Aspen Medical Holdings. Her interests include areas of infectious disease, therapeutic innovation, and model development in vitro or in vivo
Fourth row left to right in photo above:
Silver-level ATC recipients:
- Abdulaziz Alhussan, who was a medical physics PhD candidate under the supervision of Dr. Devika Chithrani at the University of Victoria and is now a Postdoctoral Fellow working with Dr. Pieter Cullis at The University of British Columbia.
- Nuthan Vikas Bathula, a PhD candidate supervised by Dr. Anna Blakney at The University of British Columbia. His research focus is on designing and optimizing novel self-amplifying RNA constructs that encode therapeutic bispecific antibodies
- Alexandra Birkenshaw, a PhD candidate working with Dr. Colin Ross at The University of British Columbia. Her research interests include base editor and sgRNA selection and design; Developing and working with mouse models; and cell culture, including flow cytometry, improving transfection with lipid and polymer-based nanoparticles.
- Alberto Cevallos, a Research Technician working with Dr. Gang Zheng at the University Health Network. His job entails assisting with study design, in vivo molecular imaging studies, and radiopharmaceutical synthesis.
- Norman Chow, a Project Manager of the Investigational Drug Program at BC Cancer under the supervision of Dr. Marcel Bally
- Nick Dragojlovic, a Research Associate working with Dr. Larry Lynd at The University of British Columbia. His work is focused primarily on genomic medicine and rare diseases, but current projects also include the use of early health technology assessment (eHTA) to inform medical product development and the use of natural language processing to facilitate research on patient experiences and preferences. He is also the Technical Lead for the NMIN eHTA Platform
Fifth row left to right in photo above:
Silver-level ATC recipients:
- Devon Heroux, a PhD Candidate in interdisciplinary Oncology under the supervision of Dr. Marcel Bally at The University of British Columbia. He has experience in drug development using nanomedicines and is particularly interested in repurposing drugs for oncology
- Pardis Kazemian, a PhD candidate with Dr. Blair Leavitt at The University of British Columbia. Her research focus is on developing CRISPR-mediated gene therapy delivered by lipid nanoparticles to the brain, for targeted therapeutics of neurological disorders
- Scott MacKay, a Research Associate with Dr. David Wishart at the University of Alberta. His research interests include the development of portable and inexpensive sensing devices for metabolomic and other biosensing applications, and engineering devices and methods for making laboratory-based research more accessible and user-friendly
- Parnian Mehinrad, who was a Master’s candidate with Dr. Afsaneh Lavasanifar at the University of Alberta. She comes with over five years of experience in the pharmaceutical science field, specialising in nanoparticles for drug delivery, specifically cancer treatment
- Hadeel Mohammad, who was a PhD candidate working in the field of wireless nanonetworks under the supervision of Professor Raviraj Adve at the University of Toronto and is now a Postdoctoral fellow at Northeastern University under the supervision of Dr. Joseph Jornet.
- Masoud Norouzi, a Postdoctoral fellow with the Matrix Dynamics group at the University of Toronto
Sixth row left to right in photo above:
Silver-level ATC recipients:
- Madelaine Robertson, a PhD candidate under the co-supervision of Drs. Pieter Cullis and Christian Kastrup at The University of British Columbia. Her research is focused on optimizing and employing lipid nanoparticles as a delivery system for mRNA and other proteins into platelets
- Nasim Sarrami, a PhD candidate under the supervision of Dr. Afsaneh Lavasanifar at the University of Alberta. Her research focuses on the Development of nano-theranostics for targeted sensitization of solid tumors to DNA-damaging therapeutics
- Kevin Sun, a PhD candidate working with Dr. Marcel Bally at The University of British Columbia. He is skilled in Research and Development (R&D), Spectroscopy, Data Analysis, Organic Chemistry, and Biochemistry
- Anthony Tam, a Preclinical Research Scientist with NanoVation Therapeutics. His research focuses on biological testing in LNP technologies to characterize pharmacokinetics/ biodistribution and efficacy in in-vitro and in-vivo systems
- Ethan Watt, an MSc candidate supervised by Dr. Emmanuel Ho at the University of Waterloo. His research focuses on the development of polymeric nanoparticles targeting leukaemia cells
- Jiamin Wu, a Postdoctoral Fellow with Dr. Shyh-Dar Li at The University of British Columbia. His current research focus is on developing needle-free technology for biologics delivery to improve medication adherence and patient comfort