Post-doctoral Fellowship Genentech Inc., South San
Francisco, CA, USA
Ph.D. Biochemistry Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC
B.Sc. Biochemistry Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC
Appointed Donnelly Centre, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON
Cross-appointed Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON; Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering (IBBME), University of Toronto, Toronto, ON
Contact sachdev.sidhu@utoronto.ca
Post-doctoral FellowshipHarvard,
Cambridge, MA, USA
Ph.D.University of Windsor, Windsor, ON
B.Sc.University of Windsor, Windsor, ON
Diploma Chemical Engineering TechnologySt Clair
College, Windsor, ON
Research interests Using proteomics techniques to
illuminate the fundamentals of disease and to develop tools
based upon acquired insights for the treatment of major
diseases affecting modern society.
Contact 
Hometown Niagara Falls/Windsor, Ontario
Post-doctoral FellowshipUniversity of
Toronto, Toronto, ON
Ph.D.University of Toronto, Toronto, ON
M.Sc.East China University of Science and Technology,
China
B.Sc.East China University of Science and Technology,
China
Research interests Antibody engineering; High-throughput screening; Generating synthetic antibodies targeting bacterial toxins, pathways critical for viral entry and posttranslational modifications in cell signaling pathway. These antibodies may be used as diagnostic tools and/or potential therapeutics.
Contact 
Hometown Jiangsu, China
Post-doctoral FellowshipUniversity of
Toronto, Toronto, ON
Post-doctoral FellowshipStanford University, Stanford,
CA, USA
Ph.D.Queen's University, Kingston, ON
Research interestsReceptor-Mediated Pharmacology;
Eph/Ephrins; Targeted Tumor Therapeutics.
Contact 
Hometown Toronto, ON
Post-doctoral FellowshipUniversity of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
Ph.D.University of Toronto, Toronto, ON
M.Sc.University of Toronto, Toronto, ON
B.Sc.University of Guelph, Guelph, ON
Research interestsProtein ubiquitination, type III effectors,
protein engineering, protein crystallography and protein
multidimensional NMR. Crystal structure determination of UbVs and
their targets, engineered adaptor domains and their targets, and
antibody/antigen complexes.
Contact 
Hometown Hamilton, ON
Post-doctoral FellowshipUniversity of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
Ph.D.University of Michigan,
Ann Arbor, MI, USA
B.Sc Juniata College, Huntingdon, PA, USA
Research interests Protein-protein interactions; G protein-coupled receptor signalling; protein engineering; pharmacology.
Contact 
Hometown Spring Mills, PA, USA
Post-doctoral Fellowship University of Toronto, Toronto, ON
Ph.D.University of Toronto, Toronto, ON
Research interestsProtein function; Developing
ubiquitin- based binders to the F-box family of SCF E3 ligase
Contact 
Hometown Kharkov, Ukraine
Post-doctoral Fellowship University of Toronto, Toronto, ON
Ph.D.University of Guelph, Guelph, ON
M.Sc.University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia
Research interests Biologics. Project management for research. Science funding. Intellectual property, entrepreneurship, and commercialization.
Contact 
HometownValjevo, Serbia
Post-doctoral Fellowship University of Calgary, Calgary, AB
Post-doctoral Fellowship University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC
Ph.D.University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC
B.Sc.Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC
Research interestsDevelopment of biologics as therapeutics; science funding and communication.
Contact 
HometownGeneva, Switzerland
Post-doctoral Fellowship University of Toronto, Toronto, ON
Post-doctoral Fellowship University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA
Ph.D.Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
M.Sc.Jiangnan University, Wuxi, China
B.Sc.Jiangnan University, Wuxi, China
Research interestsDevelopment of therapeutic biologics, protein structure-function relationship, biophysics, antibody engineering.
Contact 
HometownWuxi, China
Post-doctoral Fellowship Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
Ph.D.University of Toronto, Toronto, ON
B.Sc.University of Toronto, Toronto, ON
Research interestsFunctional engineering of intracellular scaffolds.
Contact 
HometownToronto, ON
Post-doctoral FellowshipUniversity of Toronto, Toronto, ON
Post-doctoral FellowshipAgriculture and Agri-Food Canada, London, ON
Ph.D.University of Western Ontario, London, ON
Research interests: Engineering and development of synthetic antibodies.
Contact 
Hometown Esfahan, Iran
Post-doctoral FellowshipUniversity of Toronto, Toronto, ON
Post-doctoral FellowshipUniversity of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC
Ph.D.University of Toronto, Toronto, ON
M.Sc.University of Guelph, Guelph, ON
B.Sc.University of Guelph, Guelph, ON
Research interests: Protein engineering; development of therapeutic antibodies; site-specific bioconjugation.
Contact 
Hometown Toronto, ON
Post-doctoral FellowshipMassachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
Ph.D.University of Toronto, Toronto, ON
B.Sc.Queen’s University, Kingston, ON
Research interests: Screening UbV libraries in human cells to identify novel treatments for cancer and regenerative medicine.
Contact 
Hometown Markham, ON
Post-doctoral FellowshipUniversity of Toronto, Toronto, ON
Post-doctoral FellowshipNational Institutes of Health, NIEHS, Research Triangle, NC, USA
Ph.D.McGill University, Montreal, QC
B.Sc.McGill University, Montreal, QC
Research interests: Evaluation of bispecific T cell-engaging antibodies that target Ephrin Receptors as potential cancer immunotherapeutics, using cell-based assays (such as, tumor cell line : T cell co-cultures), antibody and cellular profiling techniques, and in vivo solid tumor models. A secondary research interest is to develop an in-house CAR T cell program.
Contact 
Ph.D.Oxford University, Oxford, UK
M.Sc.University of Padua, Padua, Italy
Research interestsProtein engineering to modulate cells.
Contact 
HometownVenice, Italy
Ph.D.University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
M.Sc.University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
Research interests: Antibody Engineering. Generation and assessment of the functionality of multispecific antibodies that combine anti-angiogenic agents with immune checkpoint inhibitors.
Contact 
Hometown Belo Oriente, Brazil
Ph.D.University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK
B.Sc.Brigham Young University-Idaho, Rexburg, ID, USA
Research interests: Tools to identify small molecules targeting the ubiquitin system.
Contact 
Hometown Vietnam
Post-doctoral FellowshipUniversity of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
Ph.D.University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
B.Sc.University of York, York, UK
Research interests: Application of structural and biophysical techniques to characterize antibody and antigen interactions.
Contact 
Hometown Warrington, UK
Ph.D.Laval University, Quebec, QC
M.Sc.SASTRA University, Thanjavur, India
B.Sc.Kerala University, Kerala, India
Research interests: Antibody engineering, development of virus-like particle (VLP)-based therapeutics targeting novel candidate proteins in immune pathways.
Contact 
Hometown Kerala, India
Ph.D.University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
B.Sc.University of Leicester and Universitat de Barcelona, Leicester, UK and Barcelona, Spain
Research interests: Protein engineering, phage display, the ubiquitin system and host/virus protein-protein interactions.
Contact 
Hometown Chester, UK
B.Sc.York University, North York, ON
Research interestsSynthetic antibody development to control cellular behavior in cancer and regenerative medicine contexts.
Contact 
HometownToronto, ON
M.Sc.University of Toronto, Toronto, ON
B.Sc.University of Western Ontario, London, ON
Research interestsSH2 domain engineering to investigate the phosphoproteome.
Contact 
HometownMarkham, ON
B.Sc.University of Toronto, Toronto, ON
Research interestsEngineering ubiquitin variants (UbVs) to interrogate the ubiquitin proteome system.
Contact 
HometownScarborough, ON
B.Sc.University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC
Research interestsSynthetic antibody generation and evolutionary genetics.
Contact 
HometownVancouver, BC
M.Sc.Institute of Ecological Genetics, Academy of Sciences, Moldova
Research interestsNew applications of antibody in
research and medicine; Affinity reagents development; Antibody
phage display against various targets.
Contact 
Hometown Chisinau, Moldova
M.Sc.Concordia University, Montreal,
QC
B.Sc.Zhongshan University, Guangzhou, China
Research interestsProtein expression and purification. Developing ubiquitin variants (Ubvs) for E3 ligases and DUBs using high throughput phage display technology.
Contact 
Hometown Yichun, China
M.Sc.University of Havana, Havana, Cuba
Research interestsProtein expression and purification. Functional validation of synthetic antibodies using cell-based assays.
Contact 
Hometown Havana, Cuba
M.Sc.McMaster University, Hamilton, ON
Research interestsGenerating synthetic antibodies to a wide range of targets using phage display technology.
Contact 
Hometown Mississauga, Ontario
M.Sc.The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
Research interestsAntibody and protein production and characterization, therapeutic drug development.
Contact 
Hometown Moscow, Russia
B.Sc.University of Toronto, Toronto, ON
Hometown Toronto, ON
Dr. Christine Misquitta joined the Sidhu lab as a program manager in 2011. Christine had completed her B.Sc. and Ph.D. at McMaster University, and then a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Toronto. She then worked as a research associate with a number of groups at the Donnelly Centre, before taking on the role of program manager for several large-scale grants from Genome Canada, OICR and MRI's ORF program. Christine has been critical to the smooth running of the Sidhu lab. She was also instrumental in setting up and running communication and administration for the Centre for the Commercialization of Antibodies and Biologics (CCAB). In summer 2019, Christine took on the position of Director, Strategy & Partnerships at the PRiME initiative at the University of Toronto, which aims to align research efforts in the area of precision medicine. We wish her the best in her new role!
Deelaka Wellappili joined the Sidhu lab in 2017 after completing a B.Sc. at McMaster University. Being interested in cytokine pathways, he characterized synthetic antibodies and assessed their effects on IL-23 downstream signaling in cultured cells. In January 2019, he defended his M.Sc. thesis entitled "Developing receptor-directed synthetic antagonists against the IL-23 signal transduction pathway". Deelaka is now a research associate at Angle Biosciences Inc.
Mitsue Mariam Zaman joined the Sidhu lab in 2017 after completing a B.Sc. in Biotechnology & Molecular Biology at the University of Toronto. She was interested in studying CD200/CD200R antagonists as potential cancer immunotherapeutics. In April 2019, she defended her M.Sc. thesis entitled "Development of CD200/CD200R antibodies and assessment of their anti-tumorpotency".
Congratulations to both and we wish you success in your future endeavours!
Post-doctoral fellow Dr. Wei Zhang joined the Sidhu lab in 2012 after completing a Ph.D. in Dan Durocher's lab at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute. Wei took the lead of the UbV project in the lab and advanced it very productively with a total of of 13 publications, 3 of which as first author in high impact journals and one on which he is a corresponding author. While Wei worked on the goal of targeting most enzymes of the human ubiquitin system with UbVs, he also branched out into a new area where the concept could be applied, by targeting viral ubiquitin-binding proteins where UbVs could be developed as potential compounds against infection. Wei participated in writing a number of high profile grant applications (CIHR, Genome Canada, CCSRI), many of which were successful. On a personal level Wei successfully applied for a CIHR post-doctoral fellowship, which was followed by a Mitacs Elevate fellowship. His success was also recognized with a Mitacs Outstanding Innovation award, and with coverage in the media. In his final year, Wei obtained a highly coveted CRS "Scholarships for the Next Generation of Scientists" that includes new investigator start-up funds.
Wei is therefore more than ready to start his career as an independent researcher and we are thrilled that he got a position at the University of Guelph starting July 2018. Visit his new lab page for more information on his projects.
Congratulations Wei and best wishes for success in your new lab!
Max London joined the Sidhu & Boone labs of the Donnelly Centre in 2011, after completing a B.Sc. in Biopharmaceutical Science at the University of Ottawa. Max worked on a collaborative project that used phage display, yeast display, and mammalian overexpression technologies to develop new antibodies to the human receptor tyrosine kinase family. He successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis entitled "Phage Display for the Development of Synthetic Antibodies Targeting Receptor Tyrosine Kinases" in June 2018.
Way to go Max and we wish you continued success in your career!
Natasha Pascoe joined the Sidhu lab in 2012 after completing a B.Sc. in Immunology at the University of Toronto. In collaboration with Charlie Boone (Donnelly Centre), she worked on developing intracellular screening systems to identify inhibitors of deubiquitinating enzymes. In April 2018 she successfully defended her Ph.D. thesis entitled "Yeast Two-Hybrid is an Effective Platform for the Discovery of Novel Inhibitors of Human Deubiquitinases".
We wish Natasha all the best in the next phase of her career.
In July 2017, Pankaj Garg successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis entitled "Development of E2 enzyme modulators using phage-displayed ubiquitin variants". After completing a B.Sc. in Biotechnology from the University of British Columbia, during which he visited the Sidhu lab as a summer student, Pankaj joined the lab in 2010 first as a technician and then as a graduate student to investigate specificity profiles of peptide recognition modules, and later to engineer novel protein-based modulators of the ubiquitin pathway.
Amy H. joined the Sidhu lab in January 2015 as a graduate student co-supervised by Drs. Sidhu and Moffat. She optimized technology that uses synthetic antibodies and mass cytometry to study brain cancer heterogeneity and successfully defended her Master's thesis entitled "Coupling synthetic antibodies with mass cytometry allows the development of a highly tailored, multi-parametric single cell analysis strategy" in September 2017.
Congratulations to both of you, and all the best for your continued scientific career.
Originally from Pardes Hanna-Karkur, Israel, Dr. Moshe Ben-David joined the Sidhu lab as a post-doctoral fellow in 2013 after completing an M.Sc. and a Ph.D. at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel. Dr. Ben-David's interests were to design protein-based affinity reagents as tools for manipulating protein-protein interactions and studying signalling pathways, and to engineer protein hydrophobic cores in order to manipulate their conformational diversity and activity. Dr. Ben-David returned to Israel to take up a position in a biotech company.
Originally from Hong Kong, China, Isabel Leung completed her B.Sc. at the University of Toronto and then joined the Sidhu lab as a graduate student in 2010. She worked on projects aiming to develop intracellular inhibitors of signaling. In October 2016, she successfully defended her PhD thesis entitled "Ubiquitin Engineering: Understanding Ubiquitin Recognition and Generating Affinity Reagents". Way to go Isabel!!! We wish you the best in your future endeavours.
Dr. Haiming Huang joined the Sidhu lab as a post-doctoral fellow in 2008, and became a research associate in 2011. Originally from Jiangxi, China, Haiming completed his Ph.D. at the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences (Peking Union Medical College) and post-doctoral training at the University of Western Ontario. Haiming worked on large-scale characterization of peptide domains such as SH3, and then moved on to develop synthetic antibodies to these domains. He is now a scientist at Innovent Inc. (Suzhou, China).
Dr. Lori Moffat joined the Sidhu lab as a post-doctoral fellow in 2012, and became a research associate in 2015. Originally from Halifax, NS, Lori completed her B.Sc. at Dalhousie University (Halifax, NS) and her Ph.D. at the University of Calgary (Calgary, AB). Lori worked on antibody discovery projects and technology optimization. She is now the IgG platform leader at the CCAB.
As of April 2016, Danielle has taken over duties from Linda and will now be in charge of keeping things in check in the Sidhu lab with ordering and organizing. Danielle joined the Sidhulab as a technician in 2010 and has since gained a wide experience in most of the techniques employed in our lab. We're counting on you Danielle!
Graduate student Hayoung Yoo successfully defended her M.Sc. thesis in April 2016. Originally from Vancouver, BC, Hayoung completed her undergraduate degree at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, BC). She joined the Sidhu and Moffat labs in 2013 to work on functional screening of antibodies. She was a great member of the lab these past few years. Way to go, Hayoung!
Linda was a pillar of the Sidhu lab since Dr. Sidhu started at the University of Toronto in 2008. A graduate of York University and a senior technician with many years experience, she helped set up the lab and participated in many projects. In the last few years, due to the large size of the lab, Linda spent most of her time doing purchasing, organizing, trouble-shooting and generally trying to help the lab run smoothly. Lab members celebrated Linda at a lively party in March 2016. Linda was a valued lab member and we will miss her! We wish her the best!
With much sadness, we had to say goodbye to our esteemed colleague and friend, Dr. Hong Na, who suddenly and unexpectedly passed away in March 2016. Originally from Kunming, China, Hong completed his B.Sc. at Zhongshan University (Guangzhou, China) and his M.Sc. at East China University of Science and Technology (Shanghai, China). He then obtained his Ph.D. at York University (Toronto, ON) and completed post-doctoral training at the University of Alberta (Edmonton, AB) before joining the Sidhu Lab in 2012 as a post-doctoral fellow. Hong became a research associate in 2015 and has made valuable contributions to our team. He worked on projects related to the use of protein engineering for the development of therapeutic and diagnostic antibodies, and some of his work was recently published in RNA (Na, H., et al. (2016) A high-throughput pipeline for the production of synthetic antibodies for analysis of ribonucleoprotein complexes. RNA 22, 636-55. PMID: 26847261). Hong will be missed and our thoughts are with his family.
Dr. Johan Nilvebrant was a post-doctoral fellow in the Sidhulab until January 2016. Originally from Stockholm, Sweden, Johan completed his M.Sc and Ph.D at the Royal Institute of Technology (Stockholm, Sweden). He joined the Sidhu Lab in 2014 and worked on projects focusing on autonomous antibody domain libraries and strategies to improve their properties.
