2024 Discovery Award winners
As Canada’s first grant-giving charity in biomedical and health research, the Banting Discovery Foundation has announced the eight latest Discovery Award winners. The early-career scientists will each receive up to $30,000 to pursue their moonshot research projects.
We are proud to announce our 99th cohort of Discovery Awardees.
Gregory Pearcey
Assistant Professor, School of Human Kinetics and Recreation, Memorial University of Newfoundland
Banting – Ontario Brain Institute Discovery Award
Understanding How Our Brains Control Body Movements
Dr. Pearcey received his PhD in neuroscience at the University of Victoria by study how our bodies move without thinking because of reflexes. Specifically, he wanted to know how our reflexes change with senses (e.g., smell, touch) and rhythms. After that, he completed postdoctoral fellowships at Northwestern University, where he learned how nerves and muscles work together to help us move, both in health and sickness. Since 2020, Dr. Pearcey has been organizing the Motor Unit Group Seminar Series for researchers all over the world to share their work and ideas.
Now, Dr. Pearcey is decoding how our brains control our movements and how we can recover movement after injuries to the nervous system. Our muscles move because they receive signals from motor units, which are groups of nerve cells. These signals can be recorded and analyzed, but doing so has been difficult during real movements until recently. Dr. Pearcey uses new technology to study how the brain sends signals to control movements in the real world and how these signals change after a stroke. Understanding these signals can help improve and restore movement after injuries or diseases.
Neural interface for movement lab
Back (from L to R): Ben Nazaroff (NSERC CGS MSc student), Glenn Pearcey (Greg’s dad), Greg Pearcey, Emma Mitchell (Kinesiology honours student), Ethan Kean (Kinesiology honours student), Josh Skinner (Kinesiology honours student), Elmira Ahmadi (MSc student). Front (from L to R): Riley Pike (MSc student), Kaitlyn Sutton (MSc student), Nick Maher (MSc student), Olivia Ryan (NSERC USRA student), Brianna Chaulk (former Kinesiology honours student). Missing from photo: Zamaneh (Sara) Bonyatpour (MSc student).
Xian Wang
Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Queen’s University
Banting – Ontario Brain Institute Discovery Award
Tiny Robots to Fight Cancer
Dr. Wang has a PhD in mechanical and biomedical engineering from the University of Toronto, where he made micro/nanorobots to study cells. Then, he completed his postdoctoral training at the Hospital for Sick Children, where he learned to use magnets, sound waves, and light to control these tiny robots to treat cancers. Now, Dr. Wang is continuing his work at Queen’s University by using mechanical forces from his tiny robots to study or treat cancer cells.
One of Dr. Wang’s main focuses is on glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), a deadly type of brain tumour that causes most patients to die within 14 months. As GBM often stops responding to traditional chemotherapy, Dr. Wang offers his idea of a tiny robot made from safe materials that can go directly to the tumour and physically destroy GBM cells while guided by magnets and sound waves. With the ability to be guided by immune cells to the tumour, this new method could change how we treat GBM, making it more effective, targeted, and less invasive for patients.
Small-Scale Robotics Lab
(from Left to Right): Cun, Annabel, Amina, Xian
Maryam Kebbe
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Kinesiology, University of New Brunswick
Banting – Heaslip Foundation Discovery Award
Nurturing Young Tummies: Testing the Mediterranean Diet vs Canada’s Food Guide for Toddlers' Gut Health
Dr. Kebbe received her PhD in medical sciences from the University of Alberta’s Department of Pediatrics. After that, she completed two postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Oxford and the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Louisiana before joining the University of New Brunswick in January 2023.
Dr. Kebbe studies how food, exercise, and gut bacteria (also known as the gut microbiome) affect obesity in babies and young children. In her study, she will compare the effects of the Mediterranean diet and Canada’s Food Guide diet on the gut health of toddlers aged 2-3. Sixty-four toddlers and their caregivers will be randomly assigned to one of these diets. Each group will get daily food boxes made by a dietitian to meet their nutritional needs. The toddlers’ stool samples will be collected on days 1 and 14 to check their gut bacteria. This study will show how these diets affect the gut health of young children.
PEADS Lab
(bottom to top, left to right): Maryam Kebbe, Ben Perrett, Denisha Coelho, Oula Maguire, Emma Murray, Peighton Johnson, Tamara Gray, Erica Blackmore
Jean-Philippe Leduc-Gaudet
Assistant Professor, Department of Medical Biology, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières
Banting Discovery Award – Jarislowsky Fellowship
Discovering Genes That Keep Muscles Healthy
Dr. Leduc-Gaudet received his PhD in 2020 from McGill University, where he studied how autophagy (the breakdown of damaged cells) and mitophagy (removal of damaged mitochondria via autophagy) help keep muscles healthy. After postdoctoral training at the University of Padova, he joined UQTR. His research focuses on how mitochondria (the powerhouses of the cell) and muscles work, especially looking at new genes that help keep muscles healthy, affect whole-body metabolism, and influence how long we live. He also looks at how problems with mitochondria and autophagy can harm muscles and cause muscle-wasting diseases, including those related to aging and neuromuscular conditions.
Autophagy is important for keeping our bodies strong and healthy, but we still know little about how it works in muscles at the molecular level. Dr. Leduc-Gaudet’s project will study how certain pathways control the breakdown and creation of proteins, focusing on new genes involved in autophagy. Specifically, his team will look at how two genes – Mytho and Bcas3 – help regulate muscle mass and health in both normal and diseased conditions, using various genetic, molecular, cellular, and physiological methods.
From right to left: Jean-Philippe Leduc-Gaudet, Anthony Capobianco, Justine Deshaies, Suzanne Marie-Pierre Ina Lamizana
Katie Wilson
Assistant Professor, Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Science, Memorial University of Newfoundland
Banting Discovery Award – Jarislowsky Fellowship
Using Computers to Fight Tough Bacterial Infections
Dr. Wilson received her PhD in computational chemistry from the University of Lethbridge. After doing postdoctoral research in Australia and at the University of Toronto Mississauga, she joined MUN in 2022. She is known for using computer models to study complex biochemical systems, including proteins, RNA, and lipids. Instead of doing traditional wet lab work, her research uses computer modelling to simulate how these molecules work. This helps design new tools and treatments for diseases like antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections and cancer.
The World Health Organization has declared multidrug-resistant bacteria to be a serious global health threat. Gram-negative bacteria are especially hard to treat because of their complex cell membrane, which has molecules called lipopolysaccharides (LPS) that protect them from antibiotics. Dr. Wilson’s project will use computer models to study how drugs can target a protein called Waal, which helps make LPS. Her computational approach is safer than working with harmful bacteria in a lab, and will help develop new ways to fight antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
(from left to right) Katie Wilson, Aaron Pye, Kyle Warren, Tama Ghosh and Farzad Mostafavi.
Janie Coulombe
Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics and Statistics (DMS), Faculté des Arts et des Sciences, Université de Montréal
Banting – CANSSI Discovery Award in Biostatistics
Finding the Best Doctor’s Visit Schedule for High Blood Pressure
Dr. Coulombe completed her PhD in biostatistics from McGill University and won the prestigious Pierre Robillard Award for having the best PhD thesis on a statistics-related topic in Canada in 2022. She develops statistical methods to understand cause-and-effect relationships using real-world data from electronic health records. She is currently focused on strategies that help tailor treatment or visit choices to patient characteristics to improve clinical outcomes.
People with high blood pressure (i.e., hypertension) have a higher risk of cardiovascular diseases. While many studies have looked at different drugs to treat hypertension, none have focused on the best schedule for doctor visits to improve heart health. Using data from a U.S. study on blood pressure, her team aims to determine the best times for doctor visits based on a patient’s demographics, other health conditions, blood pressure, and current medications. The goal is to create a method that patients can use at home with their blood pressure monitors to decide if they need to see their doctors each month.
Coulombe Lab
Zong Yang Yu, Si Ming Xu, Emiliano Aviles Astorga, Janie Coulombe, Mathilde Dicaire-Cartier and Paguidame Sambiani.
Justin Slater
Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Guelph
Banting – CANSSI Ontario Discovery Award in Biostatistics
Using Fast Computer Models to Study Hepatitis C
Before starting his PhD, Dr. Slater worked as a biostatistical analyst at the Institute for Clinical and Evaluative Sciences, and analytics lead at Cytel (formerly Lighthouse Outcomes). Just before completing his PhD in March 2023 at the University of Toronto, he already started as a tenure-track assistant professor at the University of Guelph. Dr. Slater’s research focuses on modelling underreported infectious diseases like hepatitis C (HCV) at both the individual and population levels, and estimating how common these diseases are even with minimal data. He is also dedicated to teaching future statisticians about Bayesian statistics, time series, and geospatial analysis.
Hepatitis C spreads through activities like injection drug use and sexual intercourse, but tracking these activities is difficult. Scientists use computer simulations called agent-based models (ABMs) to understand HCV risk factors and estimate how widespread the disease is. However, these simulations are time-consuming, so researchers use faster methods called statistical emulators, which are not yet fully understood. Dr. Slater’s project aims to create better statistical emulators that can also account for undiagnosed HCV cases. In the future, these new methods will be applied to individual-level HCV data to get a complete picture of HCV risk factors and infection rates in Ontario.
From left to right: Chung Yan Fong (Masters of Data Science Graduate), Gagan Umesha (Undergraduate researcher), Justin Slater, Vinay Joshy (Undergraduate researcher), Ege Durla (Undergraduate researcher).
Karine Choquet
Assistant Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Functional Genomics, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Université de Sherbrooke
Banting Discovery Award
Understanding How RNA Splicing Works to Prevent Diseases
Dr. Choquet completed her PhD in Human Genetics at McGill University, where she studied rare inherited disorders. She then did postdoctoral research at Harvard Medical School, gaining expertise in RNA biology, long-read nanopore sequencing, and bioinformatics. In 2023, she joined the Université de Sherbrooke and the Research Centre on Aging.
Dr. Choquet’s research focuses on mRNA splicing, its role in aging and neuromuscular diseases, and how it can be targeted for treatments. Messenger RNAs (mRNAs) carry instructions from our DNA to make proteins, which are essential for our cells. They start as incomplete pre-mRNAs and need to go through a process called splicing to become mature mRNAs. Errors in splicing can cause aging and many diseases like cancer and dementia. Not much is known about why these errors happen or how splicing works in human cells. Human pre-mRNAs are very long, but scientists have only studied splicing in small sections at a time. Dr. Choquet’s project will investigate how different parts of a pre-mRNA communicate with each other to avoid splicing mistakes, helping to understand how these errors contribute to aging and diseases.
(from left to right): Louis-Philippe Chaumont, Karine Choquet, Salomé Sabatié, Téa Malo, Mathia Canepa and Ibrahim Soumana Adamou.
