Highlights from the Li lab

Navroop+Octavia

May 2024: Navroop and Octavia’s paper on PTEN mutant neurons and organoids is published in Cell Reports.

Wendy Choi PhD candidate

February 2024: Wendy has been awarded a David Stephen Cant Graduate Scholarship in Stem Cell Research from the University of Toronto, Department of Molecular Genetics.

Pragnya Chakraborty

December 2023: Pragnya has been awarded a Restracomp postdoctoral fellowship.

Sridevi Venkatesan

October 2023: Sridevi Venkatesan has joined the lab as a Schmidt Science Fellow.

Pragnya Chakraborty

September 2023: Pragnya Chakraborty has joined the lab as a postdoctoral fellow.

Afrin Bhattacharya graduate student PhD Candidate

July 2023: Our collaborative work with the Chou Lab on DNA origami nanodevice is published in Nature Nanotechnology.

Juan+Derek

May 2023: Juan Pablo Escorcia and Derek Tea have joined the lab as summer undergraduate students.

Mai Ahmed

April 2023:

Mai has been awarded a Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP) fellowship.

Mai’s review paper on CRISPR screens in human neural cells is published in the Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology.

Haruka Nishimura graduate student

October 2022: Haruka has been awarded a University of Toronto Open Fellowship, second year in a row!

Mai Ahmed

September 2022: Mai Ahmed has joined the lab as a postdoctoral fellow.

Octavia Weng Graduate student PhD candidate

August 2022: Octavia has been awarded a Restracomp PhD Scholarship.

CIHR logo

July 2022: Yun is awarded the Maud Menten New Investigator Prize in Genetics from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

June 2022: Octavia, Haruka and Aditi successfully passed their re-class and qualification exams to become PhD candidates.

May 2022: Lucinda Zhu, Edward Chen, and Yolanda Liu have joined the lab as summer undergraduate students.

Wendy+Liona

April 2022:

Wendy has been awarded a Canadian Graduate Scholarships – Doctoral award.

Liona successfully defended her MS thesis.

Octavia Weng Graduate student PhD candidate

March 2022: Octavia’s review paper on human cellular models of epilepsy is published in the Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience.

February 2022: Our lab received funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

Xiaoxue Dong

January 2022: Xiaoxue Dong, PhD student from Zhejiang University, has joined the lab as a visiting graduate student.

Afrin+Wendy

December 2021:

Afrin and Wendy’s review paper on modeling developmental brain diseases using human brain organoids is published in the Journal of Molecular Biology.

Afrin has been awarded a David Stephen Cant Graduate Scholarship in Stem Cell Research from the University of Toronto, Department of Molecular Genetics.

Haruka Nishimura graduate student

November 2021: Haruka has been awarded a University of Toronto Open Fellowship.

Epilepsy Canada website

October 2021: Our lab received funding from Epilepsy Canada.

Brain Canada Foundation website

September 2021: Yun is named a Future Leader in Canadian Brain Research by Brain Canada.

Collage of two staff headshots

August 2021: Navroop and Wendy’s paper on a new brain organoid model of microcephaly is published in Molecular Brain.

Medicine by Design website

May 2021: Our lab received funding from Medicine by Design Grand Questions Program, as part of a collaborative team led by Michael Garton.

Canadian Stem Cell Network website

October 2020: Our lab received funding from Stem Cell Network’s Innovating Research Program for Early Career Investigators.

Collage of four staff headshots

September 2020:

Haruka Nishimura, Octavia Weng and Aditi Aggarwal have joined the lab as graduate students.

Octavia Weng and Wendy Choi have been awarded Ontario Graduate Scholarships.

August 2020: Our lab received funding from the Brain and Behavioral Research Foundation.

Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council website

April 2020: Our lab received a Discovery Grant from NSERC to study primate brain evolution in the dish.

February 2020: Our review on brain organoids is published in the Journal of Neuroscience with a cover image.