About Us | Trendy And Innovativ

ABOUT US: THE STEERING COMMITTEE

Dr. Natalina Salmaso is an Associate Professor in the department of Neuroscience at Carleton University and holds the Canada Research Chair in Behavioural Neurobiology. Dr. Salmaso discovered her love for the stars of the brain, astrocytes, during her undergraduate work when she looked at sex differences in astroglial morphology under the supervision of Dr. Jane Stewart. Dr. Salmaso’s PhD work (under the supervision of Dr. Barbara Woodside at Concordia University) examined astroglial FGF2expression in response to changes in reproductive and hormonal states. Following this, Dr. Salmaso wanted to expand her research with glial cells to incorporate techniques that would allow for more robust phenotyping and so she pursued post-doctoral training with Dr. Flora Vaccarino at Yale University, where she gained expertise in genetic fate mapping, translating ribosome affinity purification and various sequencing techniques. Together, this training experience has culminated in Dr. Salmaso’s current work, where she leads her laboratory in the study of glial sex differences, both in development and in response to perturbations and how these mediate neuropsychiatric outcomes. Dr. Salmaso is also a licensed clinical psychologist and has a private practice in Ottawa, Canada.

Dr. Baptiste Lacoste is an Associate Professor in the department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at University of Ottawa. His research career started at University of Bordeaux, France, where he developed his passion for neurobiology. Seeking new challenges, Dr. Lacoste pursued his graduate training University de Montréal under the supervision of Dr. Laurent Descarries and acquired expertise in neuroanatomy. Desiring to expand his knowledge in neurobiology of disease, he continued his training with a first post-doctoral position at McGill University. From Dr. Edith Hamel’s lab, he investigated the involvement of cerebrovascular deficits in Alzheimer’s disease using transgenic mice. At that time, Dr. Lacoste developed a passion for vascular biology, which motivated him to further investigate the intimate relationships between neuronal and vascular systems in the healthy and diseased brain. To gain a thorough understanding of neurovascular interactions from a developmental point of view, Dr. Lacoste continued with a second postdoc at Harvard Medical School. From Dr. Chenghua Gu’s lab, he examined the influence of neural activity on cerebrovascular patterning during postnatal development, as well as the mechanisms governing blood-brain barrier formation. Dr. Lacoste established an original research niche based on the conviction that studying neurovascular interactions is a promising avenue in neurobiology at both basic and translational levels. From his lab established in 2016, Dr. Lacoste and his team discovered the vascular contributions to autism spectrum disorder, as well as novel mechanisms regulating cerebrovascular maturation.

Screenshot 2024-07-04 at 9.43_edited.jpg

Dr. Marie-Ève Tremblay is a Professor at the Division of Medical Sciences of the University of Victoria, with a Tier II Canada Research Chair in Neurobiology of Aging and Cognition. Her research focuses on studying the outcomes of the lifestyle andenvironment on microglia across the lifespan. Dr. Tremblay is also an Elected College Member of the Royal Society of Canada. She was previously an Associate Professor in the Molecular Medicine Department of Université Laval, with a Tier II Canada Research Chair in Neuroimmune Plasticity in Health and Therapy. She has developed national and international prominence for her work, and has collaborated with many scientists. She supports diversity, inclusivity, and accessibility, for instance when recruiting trainees or organizing events that include speaker panels. Dr. Tremblay received her PhD in Sciences neurologiques at the Université de Montréal in 2009. She was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy and Center for Visual Science at the University of Rochester from 2009 – 2011 and in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin- Madison from 2011 – 2012.

Dr. Maryam Faiz is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Anatomy at the University of Toronto. Dr. Faiz received her PhD from the Autonomous University of Barcelona in Spain. She trained with Dr. Milos Pekny at the University of Goteborg in Sweden and then with Dr. Andras Nagy at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute in Toronto. Dr. Faiz is interested in uncovering new treatments for brain injury and disease. She believes that the key to brain repair is understanding astrocytes! Her lab is interested in astrocyte heterogeneity and how it is established, the roles of astrocytes in the injured/diseased brain, and how this knowledge can inform future therapeutic interventions. Some research areas in the Faiz Lab include direct lineage reprogramming of astrocytes to other neural cell types, the heterogeneity of the astrocyte response to stroke, and the development of diverse cortical astrocytes from neural stem cells. She is also fascinated by the gut-brain axis and how the gut can mediate recovery from brain injury, which, who knows, may turn out to involve astrocytes!