2024

The Vasconcelos lab work on vascular regeneration was featured in the Best Health Magazine April/May issue. Congrats to all involved! (April 2024)
[Link]

 
 

Congratulation to Omar Mourad, a PhD student in the lab, who presented his work orally at the EMBO Cardiobiology Workshop in Heidelberg. Dr. Vasconcelos presented on vascular regeneration. (Feb 2024)

 
 

Happy New Year from the Vasconcelos lab! Because the end of 2023 was so busy we only now had the opportunity to get together for lunch and celebrate the end of a productive year. Looking forward to more discoveries from this bunch! (Jan 2024)

 

Omar, melody, sara, sonia, angela, Garry, si tong, xuetao, kasinan, safwat and chao

 

2023

Our trainees hard at work at the 3D bio printing workshop at Carnegie Mellon University w Prof Adam Feinberg as part of our collaborative NFRF-T grant. (Dec 2023)

 

Kasinan, Si Tong at poster presentation. photo credit to Kasinan.

Si tong and coulter (laflamme lab) assembling the 3D bioprinter. photo credit to Kasinan.

 

Dr. Xuetao Sun did a great job presenting the vascular regeneration work he leads at the Medicine by Design 8th annual symposium (Dec 2023).

 
 

Our recently funded project was featured at the UHN2023 research report ‘Reaching Our North Star'. (Nov 2023)

 
 

Congratulations to Dr. Kasinan Suthiwanich on receiving a TGHRI postdoctoral fellowship award! (Oct 2023)

 
 


Celebrating Ryan’s MASc graduation and welcoming new lab members with a lab lunch today. It’s the biggest we have ever been! (Aug 2023)

 

L to R starting from top: Chao, sara, omar, Kasinan, sitong, Safwat, angela, Ryan, melody, sonia and shabana (missing xuetao)

melody, chao, sara, sitong, shabana, kasinan, ryan, xuetao, angela, sonia, omar (missing Safwat)

 

Congratulations to PhD student Safwat Khan on presenting his beautiful data at the 2023 BBDC Scientific Day and winning the 2nd place poster award! (May 2023)
[LINK]

 
 

Congrats to current lab members Omar Mourad and Safwat Khan and past lab members Olya, Rupal and Kenny on the publication of their manuscript on the beneficial role of senolytics in a human model of cardiac fibrosis-on-a-chip! Double congrats to getting the cover as well! (April 2023)
[LINK]

 
 

Funding totalling $23.6M has been announced to establish an international team led by Dr. Michael Laflamme where Dr. Vasconcelos is a co-PI along with Drs. Biktashev, Bub, Epelman, Feinberg, Garton, Haller, Keller, Kimmelman, Protze, Yau, and with co-Applicants Drs. Amon, Broomell, Gepstein, Nanthakumar, Noiseux, Rac, Sarvazyan, Shoichet, Tavallaei, Yoo, and collaborators Drs. Valverde, Brown, Chen, Domian, Husain, Lindsay, Marchese, May, Simmons, and Willerth to develop cutting-edge regenerative therapies for heart disease. Congrats to all! (April 2023)
[Link UHN news] [Link NFRF]

 
 

In Feb, we celebrated the talented women that do research in Canada by meeting with MPs to advocate for science funding! Big Thanks to Hon Sgro for meeting with us to discuss the importance of #stemcell research for Canadian health and economy! (Feb 2023)

 
 

Feb 11th is International day of Women and Girls in Science! A day to celebrate all the amazing women we work with whose presence in STEM bring a different and most important perspective! (Feb 2023)

 
 

Congratulations to Omar, Ryan and Melody for the publication of their invited review paper to Circulation research where they highlight instances where the use of 3D chip-models were important to bring about disease phenotype. (Jan 2023).
[LINK]

 
 

2022

Dr. Vasconcelos has been promoted to Senior Scientist at UHN. A big thank you to current and past Vasconcelos lab members! (Dec 2022).

Dr. Vasconcelos presenting the lab’s work on revascularization at Harvard/Boston Children’s Hospital (Dec 2022).

 

photo by juan melero-martin via linkedin

 

End of the year celebration for the Vasconcelos lab at Planta Yorkiville (Dec 2022).

 

Sonia, sara, omar, ryan, safwat, melody, shabana, xuetao and beiping at planta

 

Drs Sara Vasconcelos and Shrike Zhang organized the 7th Aiche Bioengineering and Translational Medicine conference in Boston. It was a great meeting, with an amazing line up of speakers! Our own Omar Mourad received a 3rd place poster award - congrats! (Dec 2022).

sara vasconcelos, shrike zhang

conference kickoff - atendees

omar mourad, sara vasconcelos

November is diabetes awareness month and Dr. Sara Vasconcelos appeared on CTV news to discuss a multi PI project with the aim of developing a cell therapy for diabetes. (Nov 2022)
[LINK]

 
 

Congratulations to Drs. Sun and Aghazadeh on the publication of their manuscript on microvessel isolation from adipose tissue at Nature Protocols (Oct 2022)
[LINK]

 
 

Dr. Vasconcelos has presented the lab's work on vascular regeneration in diabetes at the International Society for Vascular Biology (IVBM) meeting (Oct 2022).

 

Katiannah Moise, Masayuki Yoshida, cinthya sthilaire, sara vasconcelos, Ngan huang, yukiko matsunaga and Luke Brewster at the Session: Translational Approaches to Vascular Pathology and Regeneration. photo credit @kitaj_angio

 

Congratulations to our former MSc Student Kayla Soon on the publication of a model human model of arteriovenous malformation-on-a-chip at biomaterials (Sep 2022)
[LINK]

 

assembly of a perfused vasculature on chip over time (green, endothelial cells; red, perfusion)

 

It was a great, in person TGHRI research day in 2022 on Diabetes. And congratulations to our own Dr. Sonia Taib on receiving a TGHRI postdoctoral fellowship award! (Sep 2022)

 

Tianru Jin, Sara vasconcelos, Dale Abel, Minna woo, Tony Lam, slava epelman

sara vasconcelos, Sonia taib

 

Congratulations to Postdoctoral fellow Sonia Taib who was nominated via a competitive mechanism a finalist of the international Stem Cell SpaceShot program (Sep 2022)
[LINK]

 
 

Congrats to our Master student Ryan Yee who co-led the development of a vaccine clinic at UofT St. George Campus! He is also the director of the U of T Emergency First Responders. Way to go Ryan! (Aug 2022)
[LINK]

Our revascularization work was highlighted at the Stem Cell Network report.
[LINK]

 
 

The Vasconcelos lab presented at TERMIS-AM 2022 with posters from Omar and Xuetao (they did not take any pics!) and a talk from Dr. Vasconcelos at the Engineering Microvasculature for Tissue Regeneration session (Jul 2022).

 

Ryan, Omar, Sara and xuetao

 

Congratulations to Dr. Vasconcelos for being appointed to the the John Kitson McIvor Endowed Chair in Diabetes Research, a joint Hospital-University Chair among University Health Network, the University of Toronto, and UHN Foundation. (Jul 2022).
[LINK]

Congratulations to Doctoral candidate Robin Woman for being awarded the BBDC Novo Nordisk Studentship! (Jun 2022)

Celebrating new lab members (Angela Zhou (MD/PhD student) and Sonia Taib (postdoc), new grants and in person work with a Lab lunch at Mercatto (May 2022).

 

L to R. Back row: Angela, Robin, Melody, Xuetao, Sara, Safwat, omar. Front row: Kayla, Sonia, ryan. (missing: Shabana, Shafaq)

 

Read about the Vasconcelos’ lab vascularization work funded by the Stem Cell Network in this recently published article at the Globe and Mail. (May 2022)

 
 

Dr. Vasconcelos has been awarded a Stem Cell Network Horizon Award to advance the lab's cardiac vascularization work into a large animal model in collaboration with Drs. Laflamme, Korbut and Ghugre (May 2022). [LINK]

 
 

Congratulations to our lab’s graduate student Ryan Yee on being awarded the CIHR Canada Graduate Scholarship-Master's. (Apr 2022)

Dr. Vasconcelos has been awarded a 5-year CIHR project grant to study Myocardial regeneration in a pre-clinical model of type 2 diabetes. (Mar 2022)

Dr. Vasconcelos is now chair of the International Society of Applied Cardiovascular Biology (ISACB) Women’s Leadership Committee (WLC), along with Dr. Rebecca Levit (vice-chair), Emory U. (Mar 2022)

Congratulations to Yassi on the publication of her pre-print at Stem Cell Reports! [LINK] (Mar 2022)

The lab has 2 more pre-prints! Xuetao’s T2D model in immunocompromised rats and Kayla’s human model of arteriovenous malformation (AVM)-on-a-chip are out on bioRxiv now! Congrats! [LINK]

Congrats to the team led by Dr. Shaf Keshavjee on the recently awarded a NFRT-Transformation grant. Dr. Vasconcelos is a co-applicant on this grant [LINK]

2021

Xuetao’s paper got featured on UHN’s 2020 “Science for society” report. Click here to see it (page 35).

Congratulations to Yassi whose paper was featured on the November cover of Cell Stem Cell! Looks so good! (Nov 2021)

 
 

Dr. Vasconcelos was elected as Councilor for The Microcirculatory Society. [LINK]

Yassi’s et al recent publication on vascularized grafts for the transplantation of pancreatic progenitors and human islets was featured by UHN: LINK

Congratulations to Yassi, Safwat, Rupal and Xuetao on the publication of their beautiful work “Microvessels support engraftment and functionality of human islets and hESC-derived pancreatic progenitors in diabetes models” at Cell Stem Cell! (Sep 2021) [LINK]

 
 

Dr. Vasconcelos was featured by MbD as “People of Medicine by Design”. [LINK]

We finally had a chance to get together and welcome the new lab members: Melody, Ryan and Robin! (Aug 2021)

 
Xuetao, Kayla, safwat, melody, yassi, robin,blessing, ryan, omar, sara

Xuetao, Kayla, safwat, melody, yassi, robin,blessing, ryan, omar, sara

 

Congrats to Kayla for placing 2nd on the CRAFT symposium oral presentation for her work on arteriovenous malformations (AVM)-on-a-chip. Congrats to the team of Kayla, Omar and Safwat for their 3rd place in the business pitch completion at the CRAFT symposium. (Aug 2021)

Congratulations to Dr. Vasconcelos on her promotion to Associate Professor at University of Toronto! (Jul 2021)
[LINK]

Congratulations to Kenny on the publication of his paper: “A 3-D human model of complex cardiac arrhythmias” at Acta Biomaterialia. (Mar 2021)
[LINK]

 
3D model of complex induced cardiac arrhythmias

3D model of complex induced cardiac arrhythmias

 

Congratulations to Kayla and Omar on the acceptance of their manuscript “Engineered cardiac microtissues: The state-of-the-(he)art” at Stem Cells. (Mar 2021).
[LINK]

 
Engineered cardiac microtissues: The state-of-the-(he)art

Engineered cardiac microtissues: The state-of-the-(he)art

 

Dr. Vasconcelos shared her lab work on revscularization in ischemic hearts in The Scientist magazine podcast: The Scientist Speaks. Click here to listen to The Long Haul: Improving Cardiac Cell Therapy Persistence. (Jan 2021)

2020

Drs. Nostro, Vasconcelos, Drucker, Pepper and Korbutt have been awarded a CIHR-JDRF Team Grant to apply novel transplantation strategies and HLA-edited hypoimmunogenic hPSCs to develop a superior islet-like product for T1D treatment. Congratulations! (Nov 2020)
[LINK]

Xuetao’s work on cardiac regeneration post MI was recently featured by UHN: LINK

Congratulations to Xuetao on the publication of his paper “Transplanted microvessels improve pluripotent stem cell–derived cardiomyocyte engraftment and cardiac function after infarction in rats“ at Science Translational Medicine! (Sep 2020)
[LINK]

 
Characterization of microvessels from adipose tissue

Characterization of microvessels from adipose tissue

 

Congrats to our MSc student Kayla Soon and PhD students Omar Mourad and Safwat Khan for respectively receiving the Mount Sinai Hospital Graduate Scholarship in Science and Technology, the Wildcat Scholarship and the TOeP scholarship!

Congratulations to our Undergrad student Blessing Nkennor for receiving the Nahom Berhane Undergraduate Scholarship for Leadership and Inclusion!
[LINK]

Dr. Vasconcelos presented her lab's most recent work on cardiac regeneration using ready-made microvessels at NAVBO's webinar series on July 9th.
[Find out details here]

Our lab’s invited review on “Endothelium-mediated contributions to fibrosis" is out at Seminars in Cell & Developmental Biology - Special issue on Mechanisms of Fibrosis.
[LINK]

 
schematic Overview of endothelial contributions to fibrosis

schematic Overview of endothelial contributions to fibrosis

 

Dr. Vasconcelos was awarded the 2020 Outstanding Young Investigator Travel Award by the Microcirculatory Society. This annual award is given to reward meritorious research in the field of microcirculation by supporting the recipient's visits to laboratories within their country of origin or abroad. (Apr 2020)

Olya’s et al paper “Human cardiac fibrosis-on-a-chip model recapitulates disease hallmarks and can serve as a platform for drug testing” is out at Biomaterials. (Mar 2020)
[LINK]

 
Graphical abstract - human cardiac fibrosis-on-a-chip

Graphical abstract - human cardiac fibrosis-on-a-chip

 

Dr. Vasconcelos has joined other PIs in providing some lessons learned during the transition from trainee to first independent position for NAVBO. Read about it here. (Jan 2020)

Our lab has been featured at the North American Vascular Biology Organization (NAVBO) website! (Jan 2020)
[Link]

2019

To end the year with a bang, our invited review on ‘Endothelial contributions to fibrosis’ and our ‘Human cardiac fibrosis-on-a-chip model recapitulates disease hallmarks and can serve as a platform for drug testing’ paper have been accepted at “Seminars in Cell & Developmental Biology” and “Biomaterials”, respectively. More details soon! Congrats to all the authors! (Dec 2019)

Dr. Vasconcelos has been awarded a Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering Young Innovator Award @ BMES (Oct 2019).

 
drs willerth and vasconcelos

drs willerth and vasconcelos

IMG_8620.jpg
 

Our lab has been awarded a 2019 Innovation Fund from the Ted Rogers Center for Heart Research to develop in vitro models of heart failure in collaboration with Drs. Gramolini and Billia. (July 2019). Find out more here

 
DRs. Vasconcelos, gramolini and billia

DRs. Vasconcelos, gramolini and billia

 

Congratulations to Olya, for successfully defending her MSc thesis! Here is her and Rupal, who’s also leaving the lab to do her PhD, on their going away lab celebration.

 
Olya, rupal

Olya, rupal

 

It’s not just work! The lab went out to celebrate Kenny’s successful MSc defense and, in keeping with lab tradition started by Yassi (who could not attend), he got a personalized, GoT themed shirt and a med-school related gadget to remember us by. Good luck at med school, Kenny! Thanks for the hard work - we will certainly miss you! (Jun 2019)

 
Kenny, sara, rupal, bani, xuetao, olya, kayla and blessing (clockwise from L)

Kenny, sara, rupal, bani, xuetao, olya, kayla and blessing (clockwise from L)

kenny and his GoT shirt

kenny and his GoT shirt

 

Dr. Vasconcelos presented her lab’s work in cardiac regeneration post-MI at the ISACB meeting in Zurich (Jun 2019)

 
photo by @sthilairelab on twitter

photo by @sthilairelab on twitter

Photo by @appliedcvb on twitter

Photo by @appliedcvb on twitter

 

Our lab has published it’s first pre-print! We used human cardiac fibroblasts and hiPSC-CMs to create an in vitro model of heart failure driven by cardiac fibrosis. We think this model will be great to study specific pathways, cell-cell communication in a human-relevant model & welcome feedback on the paper’s content, our interpretation of data etc. Big thanks to amazing collaborators (Young and Fish labs) & the fantastic team who’s been working on this for ~4yrs! (May 2019)
[LINK]

Our paper on the deleterious effects of diabetes in vessel engraftment is out as part of the BMES society 2019 CMBE Young Innovators award. Thank you to all the hard working trainees involved and our funding sources. (May 2019)
Find out more HERE

Congrats to our Master’s student Kenneth Williams on his acceptance into med school at UofT! Well deserved! We are sure he will become a very capable an caring physician. (May 2019)

Dr. Vasconcelos talking about her lab’s work in modelling cardiac fibrosis in vitro in the all female led panel discussion at the OIRM 2019 symposium in Toronto (May 2019)

 
photo from @OIRMnews

photo from @OIRMnews

 

The lab has set up a booth at the Let’s talk science event to interact with grade 6-8 students and talk about science and what we do in the lab. A huge thank you to all who participated - especially Rupal and our undergrads Blessing and Kayla who hit the ground running and took initiative to get involved! (May 2019)

 
Olya, kenny, rupal and kayla at the let’s TALK science booth

Olya, kenny, rupal and kayla at the let’s TALK science booth

 

Dr. Vasconcelos presented the latest work from the Vasconcelos lab on Therapeutic Vascularization for Tissue Regeneration at the Emerging Topics session on Adaptation of Microvessels and Lymphatics at the Experimental Biology meeting in Orlando (April 2019)

 
photo by Dr leblanc

photo by Dr leblanc

 

Dr. Vasconcelos presented the latest work from the Vasconcelos lab on modelling human cardiac fibrosis-on-a chip at the hiPSCs: From Disease Models to Mini-Organs conference in Tours, FR. (Jan 2019)

 
photo by le studium

photo by le studium

 

2018

End of the year lab celebration at Rosalinda. Happy Holidays! (Dec 2018)

 
xuetao, Yassi, Rupal, Olya, Kenny, sara and bani. Rosalinda

xuetao, Yassi, Rupal, Olya, Kenny, sara and bani. Rosalinda

 

Our post-doc, Dr. Yassi Aghazadeh, received a best poster award from the 11th World Congress of Microcirculation for her work on pre-vascularization strategies for stem cell therapy for the treatment of type 1 diabetes. Congrats! (Sep 2018)

 
IMG_1809.jpg
 

Yassi and Xuetao presenting their work at 11th WCM in Vancouver. (Sep 2018)

 
Yassi aghazadeh (right)

Yassi aghazadeh (right)

Xuetao Sun (right)

Xuetao Sun (right)

 

WCM2018 Local Organizing Committee dinner in Vancouver. (Sep 2018)

 
Geoff Pickering, Chris G. Ellis, Shayn Peirce-Cottler, Bojana Stefanovic, Donald Welsh, Suzanne Brett Welsh, William Cupples, Coral Murrant, Sara Nunes Vasconcelos, Gediminas Cepinskas

Geoff Pickering, Chris G. Ellis, Shayn Peirce-Cottler, Bojana Stefanovic, Donald Welsh, Suzanne Brett Welsh, William Cupples, Coral Murrant, Sara Nunes Vasconcelos, Gediminas Cepinskas

 

Drs Vasconcelos, Fish, Cherney & Billia received the 2018 Heart & Stroke/Richard Lewar Centre of Excellence/Banting and Best Diabetes Center Pilot and Feasibility Grant in cardiovascular disease & diabetes to study the pleiotropic cardioprotective mechanisms of empagliflozin on heart failure in T2D. (Aug 2018)

Congrats to LMP's MSc candidate Kenny on receiving a 2018-2019 Heart & Stroke/Richard Lewar Centre of Excellence Studentship Award! (Aug 2018)

Dr. Vasconcelos has received an Ontario's Ministry of Research, Innovation and Science Early Investigator Award (ERA) to advance the work on regenerative medicine. (May 2018)

Congrats to our USRP trainee Margaret on her IBBME Director's Summer Research Opportunities award! (May 2018)

Here we are celebrating Kenny's and Olya's success with CHIR and NSERC applications. Great job, guys! (April 2018)

 
Rupal, xuetao, yassi, khalil, (Bani hiding behind khalil), margaret, olya, kenny and sara (L to r)

Rupal, xuetao, yassi, khalil, (Bani hiding behind khalil), margaret, olya, kenny and sara (L to r)

 

Dr. Vasconcelos was featured in the Microcirculatory Society newsletter. (Apr 2018) [LINK]

Olya, our MSc student from IBBME also got her fellowship application funded! Congrats on your NSERC, Olya! (April 2018)

Kenny, our MSc student from LMP, got his fellowship application to CIHR funded! Congrats, Kenny! (Apr 2018)

Dr. Sara Vasconcelos presented the latest work from the Vasconcelos lab on organ-on-a-chip and disease modeling at the MMB2018 in Monterrey, CA. (Mar 2018)

 
photo by @nooshw

photo by @nooshw

 

Dr. Sara Vasconcelos presented the latest work from the Vasconcelos lab on cardiac tissue regeneration at the Center for Regenerative Medicine in Barcelona, Spain. (Mar 2018)

 
Q&A after the talk. photo by @aveiga2 on twitter

Q&A after the talk. photo by @aveiga2 on twitter

 

The lab keeps growing: Khalil has joined us for his postdoctoral training from McGill U. He will be working on disease modeling in complex microtissues. (Mar 2018)

We start the new year with a new lab member: Rupal is joining us as a tech to help keep things in the lab running smoothly. Welcome Rupal! (Jan 2018)

2017

Our little get together for the Holidays at Guu Izakaya (Dec 2017)

 
Yassi, olya, Xuetao, sara and Bani

Yassi, olya, Xuetao, sara and Bani

 

Yassi, who is doing a postdoc co-supervised by Drs. Vasconcelos and Nostro, placed 3rd at the Medicine by Design annual symposium poster competition! Congrats, Yassi! Beautiful work. (Dec 2017)

This is us saying goodbye to Ben Moon who is leaving out lab and moving to Montreal for a great job at NRC. Good luck, Ben! (Nov 2017)

 
Xuetao, margaret, yassi (left) olya, ben, sara and kenny (right) at sansotei

Xuetao, margaret, yassi (left) olya, ben, sara and kenny (right) at sansotei

 

Xuetao presented his work on heart re-muscularization with iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes at the 2017 Till & McCulloch Meeting in Mont-Tremblant with the support of a Medicine by Design travel award! (Nov 2017)

 
Dr. Xuetao sun

Dr. Xuetao sun

 

Congrats to both Olya and Kenny for being awarded scholarships, TOeP and OGS respectively, for their MSc!

Today my very first PhD student defended her thesis successfully. Congrats Dr. Wafa Altalhi! We both learned so much in these past 5 years. Good luck! (Sep 2017)

Thanks to the talented Maria Chakra (@PatternsNGames) for the great sketch of my talk on "Cardiovascular tissue engineering and regeneration: building complexity" at the Medicine by Design organoid group earlier this month (Aug 2017).

 
by maria chakra

by maria chakra

 

We welcome Olga Mastikhina who will be doing her MSc with us through the IBBME program at UofT (July 2017).

Congrats to Xuetao as his abstract got selected for oral presentation at the 2017 Till & McCulloch Meeting in Mont-Tremblant. He also got a full travel award from Medicine by Design! (July 2017)

We welcome the newest member of the Vasconcelos lab: Kenneth Williams. Kenny will be doing his MSc with us through the LMP program at UofT (July 2017).

Our trainees support the implementation of the Naylor Report and wanted you to know. You should support it too! [link]

 
Xuetao, Ben, Margaret, Yassi & wafa #supportthereport

Xuetao, Ben, Margaret, Yassi & wafa #supportthereport

 

Congratulations to our own Ben Moon for winning 1st place at the Ontario-on-a-Chip symposium Video Competition with his Hearts-on-a-chip (May 2017) [LINK]

Dr. Sara Vasconcelos has been awarded funding from CIHR (project grant) to pursue research in cardiac regenerative medicine in myocardial infarction. (May 2017)

Dr. Sara Vasconcelos NSERC discovery grant application in the effects of biomimetic cues in cardiovascular system formation has been funded. (Apr 2017)

Today we said goodbye to our undergrad Julia who's graduating from UofT. Thanks for the hard work! (Apr 2017)

 
Lab Lunch at margaritas to say goodbye to julia (left).

Lab Lunch at margaritas to say goodbye to julia (left).

 

We went out to celebrate Wafa's paper coming out. (Mar 2017)

 
lab lunch at mercatto

lab lunch at mercatto

 

Congrats to our research associate Xuetao Sun! His paper is out at Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology. (Mar 2017)

Xuetao is the star of our JoVE paper coming out soon. It took a full day to film it but we made sure to have fun in the process! (Feb 2017)

 
photo by ben moon

photo by ben moon

 

2016

Joint holiday celebration with Husain and Laflamme labs. Celebrating the end of a productive year. (Dec 2016)

 
photo by bani bali

photo by bani bali

 

Congrats to our PhD candidate Wafa Altalhi and research associate Xuetao Sun for the acceptance of their manuscript on the impact of diabetes on vessel maturation and arterio-venous specification in vascularized engineered tissues at Biomaterials! (Dec 2016)

Congrats to Wafa for receiving a travel award from CIHR to present her work on the impact of diabetes on pre-vascularized engineered tissues at IVBM 2016 in Boston! (Oct 2016)

Lab lunch at Adega! (Sep 2016)

 
lab lunch

lab lunch

 

Drs. Sara Vasconcelos, Cristina Nostro and Derek van der Kooy have been awarded funding from JDRF-USA to pursue research in Type 1 diabetes [LINK]. (Sep 2016)

Congratulations to Yassi for winning the prestigious JDRF-Lilly Canada fellowship! (Sep 2016)

Drs. Sara Vasconcelos, Cristina Nostro, Derek van der Kooy and Mark Cattral team grant has been funded by Medicine by Design, Canada First Research Excellence Fund [LINK]. (Aug 2016)

We welcome Byeong-Ui (Ben) Moon to the lab! He will be working on our microfuidics, organ-on-a-chip projects. (Aug 2016)

Congratulations to Yassi for winning TGRI postdoctoral fellowship! (Aug 2016)

Congratulations Yassi on your marriage! Here we are helping her say goodbye to the single life... (Jun 2016)

 
IMG_2536.jpg
 

Congratulations to the Mighty Myocytes who raised >$5,000 this year for the Heart and Stroke Foundation at the Ride for Heart. (Jun 2016)

 
image001.png
 

We are excited to be part of the Team funded by NSERC's Collaborative Research and Training Experience (CREATE) program, designed to help train teams of highly qualified students and postdoctoral fellows in organ-on-a-chip engineering and entrepreneurship (TOeP). [LINK]

Drs. Vasconcelos and Nostro have been awarded seed fund from Canada First Research Excellence Fund, Medicine by Design for their work on engineered human islets.

2015

Dr. Vasconcelos has received an Early Stage Faculty Travel Award from the European Society of Microcirculation for the 10th World Congress of Microcirculation in Tokyo, Japan. (Sep 2015)

We have received a Medical Research Award from the JP Bickell Foundation (Toronto, CA) (Oct 2015)

Dr. Vasconcelos received bridge funding from CIHR for her project on cell transplantation for myocardial regeneration. (Mar 2015)

2014

Dr. Sara Vasconcelos has received an Early Stage Faculty Travel Award from the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society (TERMIS) for the 2014 TERMIS-AM conference in Washington D.C., USA.

We welcome Xuetao Sun to the lab! He will be leading a project on cardiac tissue regeneration using human induced pluripotent stem cells. (Aug 2014)

Congratulations to Sara and co-authors on receiving the Best manuscript award from the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering, University of Toronto for the publication: “Biowire: a platform for maturation of human pluripotent stem cell derived cardiomyocytes”.

Congratulations to the Mighty Myocytes who raised >$1,700 this year for the Heart and Stroke Foundation at the Ride for Heart. (Jun 2014)

 
MightyMyocytes-1V7A0109.jpg
 

Dr. Vasconcelos received bridge funding from CIHR for her project on vessel arterio-venous malformations. (Mar 2014)

We have successfully renewed our HSF grant on vessel arterio-venous specification (Mar 2014) 

2013

Dr. Sara Vasconcelos has received the competitive Innovation and Career Development Travel Award from the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES).

2012

Dr. Vasconcelos' project on vessel arterial-venous malformations was funded by the HSF.