Congratulations to McGill iGEM!

We are proud to share that McGill iGEM has won the 2025 Grand Prize at the International Genetically Engineered Machine competition.  This is their second global win and another incredible achievement for McGill!

The Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics is happy to have supported this outstanding team once again and congratulates all members on their remarkable success. 

Hannah Derue, PhD student in Professor Ribeiro da Silva’s lab, featured on the first page of the McGill Reporter

Hannah Derue is a PhD candidate in neuroscience in Dr. Ribeiro-da-Silva’s lab at the Department of Pharmacology & Therapeutics. She recently founded a research and development startup called PAin+ — an interdisciplinary venture that combines artificial intelligence and visual art to help individuals communicate about and manage chronic pain in novel ways.

Congratulations to Roberto Charles, who won the 2025/26 Personnel Awards for Black Scholars from Heart & Stroke and Brain Canada

Roberto Charles won the 2025/26 Personnel Awards for Black Scholars (BSA). 

Congratulations to Terry Hébert, who is a winner of 2025 David Thomson Award for Graduate Supervision and Teaching

Congratulations to Terry Hébert, who is a winner of 2025 David Thomson Award for Graduate Supervision and Teaching. The David Thomson Award for Graduate Supervision and Teaching acknowledges outstanding contributions to promoting graduate student excellence through supervision and teaching by a faculty member who has been supervising for 10 years or more.

Congratulations to Diego Loggia -PhD3 in Dr. Terry Hebert's lab, who has won a D2R Doctoral Scholar Award

Super proud of Diego Loggia who just won a D2R Doctoral Scholar Award! He will use our iPSC-derived disease in a dish model to explore the utility of RNA- and DNA-based drugs to modulate patient-specific disease outcomes in dilated cardiomyopathy.

Congratulations to Sabrina Romanelli/PhD3 and Tara Shomali/PhD4 in Dr. Jean-Francois Trempe's lab, who have been awarded the FRQS doctoral scholarship

Sabrina Romanelli (PhD3) and Tara Shomali (PhD 4) were awarded the FRQS doctoral scholarship ("Bourses de doctorat en recherche - volet régulier”). Both are supplemented by a contribution from Parkinson Quebec in partnership with the FRQ.

Congratulations to Danielle Simons-PhD2 in Dr. Jean-Francois Trempe's lab, who has been awarded the 2025 Max Eivaskhani Memorial Fellowship from CRBS

Danielle Simons (PhD2) has been awarded the 2025 Max Eivaskhani Memorial Fellowship from the Centre de Recherche en Biologie Structurale (CRBS). This fellowship was established in 2021 in remembrance of former CRBS student Max Eivaskhani and is awarded to the top ranked application among the submissions for the CRBS Scholarship competition.

Congratulations to Simran Dhir-PhD2 and Thomas Deluc - PostDoc in the lab of Dr. Alfredo Ribeiro Da Silva

Congratulations to Simran Dhir/PhD2, who received The Louise and Alan Edwards Foundation’s Edwards PhD. Studentships in Pain Research 2025. This Studentship carries with it a stipend of $25,000 per annum for three years.

Congratulations to Thomas Deluc/PostDoc, who received the Ronald Melzack Fellowship in Pain Research ($70,000 per year for three years).

Congratulations to Sabrina Romanelli, who received a prestigious Graduate Student Award from Parkinson Canada (2025-2027 cycle)

Congratulations to Sabrina Romanelli, who received a prestigious Graduate Student Award from Parkinson Canada (205-2027 cycle). This competitive 2-yr $40,000 award was given to 11 exceptional doctoral trainees across Canada working on Parkinson’s disease. Sabrina’s project aims to elucidate the mechanism of PINK1 activation on damaged mitochondria via interactions with the translocation machinery.

Adithi Sundarakrishnan won the Best Graduate Student Poster Presentation Award at a symposium held by the Center for Studies in Behavioral Neurobiology (CSBN) at Concordia University

Adithi Sundarakrishnan from the Clarke lab won the Best Graduate Student Poster Presentation Award at a symposium held by the Center for Studies in Behavioral Neurobiology (CSBN) at Concordia University. Additionally, she secured the Best 3-Minute Thesis Presentation Award at the recent School of Biomedical Sciences (SMBS) Grad Talks event.

Seline Vancolen is awarded 1st Place Senior Poster Presentation Award

Seline is awarded the 1st Place Senior Poster Presentation Award at the Child Health and Human Development Research Day 2024 of the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre. Congratulations Seline!

Zixuan Li received the McGill MedStar Award for her publication that appeared in the August 2023 issue of Endocrinology (doi: 10.1210/endocr/bqad119.)

Zixuan Li received the McGill MedStar Award for her publication entitled “The Organophosphate Esters Used as Flame Retardants and Plasticizers Affect H295R Adrenal Cell Phenotypes and Functions”, in recognition of the excellent research carried out in the Faculty of Medicine at McGill University.

Congratulations to Tara Shomali, who received the prestigious Graduate Student Award from Parkinson Canada (2024-2026 cycle)!

Congratulations to Tara Shomali, who received the prestigious Graduate Student Award from Parkinson Canada (2024-2026 cycle). This is a competitive 2-yr $40,000 award given to only 7 outstanding doctoral trainees doing research on Parkinson’s disease across Canada. This will help Tara works towards developing compounds targeting PINK1, a kinase implicated in early-onset familial Parkinson’s.