Research Staff
Shalvi Chirmade completed her Master of Bioinformatics at the University of Guelph and obtained her BSc in Biology (Molecular Genetics) at the University of Waterloo. She is passionate about the world of human genetic disease and hopes to combine this knowledge with programming to aid in advancing healthcare. In her spare time, Shalvi enjoys reading, photography, watercolor and calligraphy!
Dr. Mohsen Esmaeili earned his B.Sc. in Microbiology from the University of Isfahan and M.Sc. in Human Genetics at the Tehran University of Medical Sciences. He completed his PhD in Human Molecular Genetics at the Institute of Human Genetics, Jena University Hospital in Germany. After a post-doctoral research at Institute of Human Genetics in Jena, Mohsen joined Dr. Strug’s lab as a post-doctoral fellow to study how modifier genes contribute to Cystic Fibrosis disease. He currently holds the position of Research Associate and contributes to drug discovery and development for ion channels.
Katie Keenan completed her HB.Sc. in Human Biology and Psychology at the University of Toronto. She began working at SickKids in her final year of studies and has since been involved in several different research projects. She currently functions as a project manager for international newborn screening and genetic modifier studies in cystic fibrosis.
Fan Lin completed her Bachelor of Science and Master of Genetic Toxicology degrees in China. She has been working on the Cystic Fibrosis Gene Modifier Study for over 12 years. Lin has much expertise in preparing samples for high-throughput technologies, and contributes to genotyping and gene expression analyses for both our cystic fibrosis and epilepsy studies.
Scott Mastromatteo completed his M.Sc. in Applied Computing at the University of Toronto and his B.Sc. at the University of British Columbia in Computer Science and Molecular Biology. Scott is a data scientist with a particular infatuation for genetics. He has experience with all levels of the informatics pipeline from data storage to processing and analysis.
Graduate Students
Gengming He completed his first M.Sc. in Physics at McMaster University investigating the magnetic properties of ultra-thin metal films. He then pursued another M.Sc. in Biostatistics and joined the lab as a practicum student. He enjoyed his statistical genetics training in the Strug lab and he joined the lab as a Biostatistical Analyst and for his PhD studies, to study the role of gene modifiers in cystic fibrosis lung disease.
Boxi Lin is a PhD candidate in Biostatistics at the University of Toronto. He is working with Dr. Strug and Dr. Sun to study the role of gene modifiers in timing of Pa infection in cystic fibrosis. Before coming to Toronto, he completed his M.Math in Statistics, and B.Math in Statistics and Computational Mathematics at the University of Waterloo.
Jerry completed his B.ASc in Electrical Engineering and M.Sc in Statistics at the University of Toronto before enrolling in PhD program in Biostatistics at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health. He joined the lab as a Practicum student in Fall 2017. Under the supervision of Dr. Strug, he is currently building predictive models for Cystic Fibrosis Related Diabetes (CFRD) and severity of CF Lung Disease using sequencing data from Canadian patients.
Henry completed his BSc in Statistics and MSc in Biostatistics at the University of Toronto. Currently, he is a PhD student in Biostatistics jointly supervised by Dr. Lisa Strug and Dr. Rae Yeung. His research emphasizes on the genetic contributions to multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C).
Fesobi completed is BSc in Microbiology from the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta(FUNAAB), and a MSc in Bioinformatics from Covenant University, Nigeria. He is currently pursuing a PhD at the University of Toronto under the supervision of Dr Strug, where he will be working with state of the art long read genomic sequences from cystic fibrosis patients across Canada.
Wendi completed her BSc in Statistics and Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto and is currently doing her MSc in Biostatistics at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. She joined the lab as a practicum student in Fall 2023. Her research focuses on investigating the genetic variants contributing to BMI variation among individuals with cystic fibrosis.
Eric Sanders completed his B.Sc. in Statistics at Queen’s University, and completed his M.Sc. in Biostatistics at the University of British Columbia. He joined the lab as a practicum student while studying for a PhD in Biostatics at the University of Toronto, and for his current research he is working with Dr. Strug to identify genetic contributors to the incidence of absence seizures among people diagnosed with juvenile myoclonic epilepsy.
Lehang Zhong completed his HB.Sc in Statistics, M.Sc. in Biostatistics and is currently a PhD student in Biostatistics at the University of Toronto. He is interested in theories of statistical evidence, and his research project focuses on the method for differential gene expression analysis to RNA-seq data from patients with Cystic Fibrosis.
The Centre for Applied Genomics Statistical Genetics Team
STAGE Trainees
Dr. Elham Khodayari Moez received her Master’s in Biostatistics from Tarbiat Modares University, Iran, and PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Alberta, Canada in 2018. She is currently pursuing her postdoctoral fellowship in molecular epidemiology, investigating the genetic mechanisms of human diseases and traits via development and application of advanced bioinformatics tools.