St. Paul’s Foundation is grateful to the Ajaib (Jab) and Nirmal (Munni) Sidhoo Charities Endowment Fund and donors to the St. Paul’s Hospital Pulmonary Research Endowment Fund for supporting a Postdoctoral Research Grant Program.
The award winners were Drs. Amrit Singh and Alex Leung in the cardiovascular category, and Dr. Miranda Kirby in the pulmonary category!
This program supports promising postdoctoral researchers conducting cardiovascular and pulmonary research at the Centre for Heart Lung Innovation (HLI). The awards provide operating/salary support to ensure their research is successful and to increase the competitiveness of their CVs. Two awards, supported by the Sidhoo Fund, were given to cardiovascular researchers, and one award, supported by the Pulmonary Research Endowment, was given to a pulmonary researcher. The awards were valued at $20,000 per researcher, paid over 2 years ($10,000 per year to each fellow).
A brief outline of the winners and their projects:
Dr. Amrit Singh is a postdoctoral fellow at the PROOF Centre of Excellence, co-supervised by Drs. Bruce McManus and Raymond Ng. His interests include analyses of high dimensional biological datasets for biomarker discovery, data integration, disease classification and method development. His current research aims include identifying and improving the biological understanding of mechanisms and biomarkers in heart failure and heart transplant rejection.
Dr. Alex Leung is a Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Trainee at the HLI, working in the group of Dr. John Boyd. During his PhD, he co-developed a novel microfluidic technology for the synthesis of lipid nanoparticle delivery systems for nucleic acid-based therapeutics. Currently, his research focuses on the role lipoproteins play in mediating the clearance of bacterial endotoxins during sepsis.
Dr. Miranda Kirby completed a Bachelor of Science degree as the Gold Medalist with an honors double major in Applied Mathematics and Biology and a PhD in Medical Biophysics from Western University. Her postdoctoral research at the HLI is focused on developing imaging biomarkers of chronic lung disease. She received this postdoctoral award to pursue a project on the progression of emphysema and small airway disease in smokers.
