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May 31, 2023

Annual research symposium brings MBP together

The third annual MBP Symposium was held on Monday, May 29 and Tuesday, May 30, 2023 at Hart House, the Wilson Hall Amphitheatre and William Doo Auditorium. This two-day, student-led affair combines the James Lepock Memorial (JLM) Student Research Symposium with the annual Alumni Networking Reception.

Thanks to the organization of our amazing graduate students, the Symposium was successful in bringing MBP faculty and students together to celebrate the accomplishments of our diverse department.

Alumni Networking Reception

The MBP Alumni Networking Reception, organized by the MBP Career Development Association and hosted at Hart House, allowed MBP students to explore various career paths through presentations by career professionals and a networking session featuring a number of MBP alumni.

The Alumni Reception included Keynote speaker Dr. Paul Constantinou, Senior Director of Hardware Engineering and R&D at IMAX, and a presentation by Dr. Christine Genge, Associate Director, Global Talent Acquisition at STEMCELL Technologies.

The networking reception also featured two round-table networking sessions in which students were able to select from a group of alumni to chat with regarding possible career paths.

Round-table session leaders

  • Serina Cheung
  • Dr. Marie Chia
  • Benjamin Grant
  • Mandeep Grewal
  • Tonny Huang
  • Dr. Farhang Jalilian
  • Dr. Azusa Maeda
  • Dr. Samuel Oduneye
  • Saeed Rajab
  • Dr. Mahadeo Sukhai
  • Dr. Aman Thind
  • Nina Wang

JLM Symposium

This annual event, organized by the Medical Biophysics Graduate Student Association, fosters scientific debate across disciplines, streams and institutes. The JLM commemorates the significant research contributions of the Dr. James Lepock, a former MBP faculty member, and provides opportunities for MBP students to present their research in a conference setting.

The day featured a student research showcase in the William Doo Auditorium consisting of 66 in-person scientific posters, with 16 posters presented online through VoiceThread. Research posters included most first-year MBP students.

Seminar presentations were delivered in the Wilson Hall Amphitheatre by lower-year graduate students Bianca Kirsh, Prerana Sensharma, Gail Lee, and Yifan Yu. Seminars were also delivered by upper-year graduate students Laili Jing, David Dai, Soumili Sarkar and Pamela Psarianos.

Presentations and posters were assessed by a group of MBP faculty and postdoc volunteers. Top presenters were recognized with a merit award at the reception following the event. The winners of these awards are as follows:

Top Lower-Year Seminar 

  • Gail Lee

Top Upper-Year Seminar

  • Pamela Psarianos

Research Posters

  • The top 10 highest-scoring poster abstracts: Apollo Wu, Ian Cheong, Zoey Wang, Vivian Chu, Emily So, Erik Ensminger, Yoshimasa Kudo, Stephanie White, Yihe Zhang and Noorhan Ghanem

The event also featured inspirational keynote addresses delivered by Dr. Hai-Ling Margaret Cheng (Prof. of Biomedical Engineering and Electrical Computer Engineering at U of T), and Dr. Alan Davidson (Prof of Biochemistry at U of T, and Dr. Shelly Dev, Staff Intensivist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre).

Symposium a Success

It was truly remarkable to be able to come together and celebrate the achievements of this wonderful department. MBP students enjoyed the opportunity to showcase their work, answer questions, engage in lively discussions with colleagues and learn more about possible career paths after the completion of their graduate degrees. Faculty found the event to be an excellent vehicle to mentor students and learn about graduate research being conducted in our extremely diverse department. 

The department wishes to thank members of the MBPGSA for the hard work and tireless dedication that went into organizing the MBP Symposium: Brian Nghiem and Foram Vyas (JLM co-chairs), Ian Cheong and Ruiyan Tan (Alumni Night co-chairs), Janny Kim, Jonas Yeung, Emily Poulton, Elisabeth Liedtke, Vivian Chu, Logine Negm, Elnaz Samani, Soumili Sarkar, Jazlynn Tan, Almas Khan, Peter Her and Bowen Zhang.

A huge thanks to the MBP faculty and postdocs who volunteered their time to act as competition judges: 

Special thanks to our sponsors; STEMCELL Technologies, the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, and the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre.

Finally, the department would like to thank the Symposium participants who assisted in setting up the poster session due to an unforeseen delay.

Learn more about the MBPGSA and how MBP students can get involved.