Dr. Ruth Slack
Director, University of Ottawa Brain and Mind Research Institute (uOBMRI), Professor, Faculty of Medicine
Dr. Ruth Slack and her research group’s long term goals are to promote the regeneration of the damaged brain after stroke or in neurodegenerative diseases. She and her team have shown that proteins that regulate cell replication can also play important roles in the regulation of neural stem cell self renewal and long term maintenance in the embryonic and adult brain. Dr. Slack’s group has also shown that mitochondrial dynamics and function have a major impact on adult stem cells and their differentiation, thus changes in metabolism or defects in mitochondrial function in the context of neurodegenerative diseases may have a major impact on neurogenesis, regeneration and neurological function. By exploiting new knowledge of these key regulatory pathways, they plan to activate the neuronal precursor and stem cell pools in order to facilitate regeneration of the damaged brain.
Dr. Katey Rayner
Chief Scientific Officer and Vice President of Research at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute
Katey Rayner, PhD, is the chief scientific officer and vice president of research at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute. She holds a University Research Chair and is the director of the Vascular Inflammation and Metabolism Laboratory. She is a full professor in the Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Ottawa. She leads the Ottawa region strategic research innovation cluster on vascular inflammation and metabolism. From 2022 to 2024, Dr. Rayner was assistant dean of research in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Ottawa.
Topic: Brain-Heart Interconnectome (BHI), Research and Innovation, University of Ottawa
