Rony Chidiac, PhD

I am a postdoctoral fellow at Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Toronto. I completed my doctoral studies in the department of pathology and cellular biology at the University of Montreal. During my Ph.D. work, I used mass spectrometry-based proteomics approaches to uncover the molecular mechanisms modulated by two crucial pro-angiogenic growth factors during blood vessels formation; the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and Angiopoietin-1. This allowed me to acquire a vast array of technical knowledge in cell signaling related to endothelial cell biology. Currently, I am a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Stephane Angers at UofT, a world leader research team internationally recognized in the Wnt signaling and signal transduction field. My research interest is to study the role of Wnt/ßcatenin signaling in modulating blood-brain and retinal barrier function and develop novel therapeutic approaches. Our laboratory has recently engineered a unique catalog of synthetic antibodies modulating the Wnt pathways for regenerative medicine applications. One focus of my work is to investigate the therapeutic potential of these novel antibodies for the treatment of ocular diseases such as nAMD. Using my experience in proteomics and signal transduction that govern angiogenesis, along with the expertise shared from our collaborators, I will study the impact of using our novel synthetic antibodies to block or normalize pathological vasculature in nAMD.