Our People

Team Members

Lead

Peter Zandstra

Co-applicants

Anna Blakney, Annie Ciernia, Pieter Cullis, Pauline Johnson, Hongshen Ma, Kelly McNagny, Alice Mui, Maria Tokuyama, Carolina Tropini, Nozomu Yachie

Faculty Collaborators

Yossef Av-Gay, Horacio Bach, Phillip Domeier, Laura Evgin, Ken Harder, Yanpu He, Govind Kaigala, Lisa Osborne, Morgan Roberts, Nika Shakiba, Laura Sly, Jim Sun, Simon Wisnovsky

Partners

ImmunoE Trainees

Graduate Students | 2027 Cohort

Amir Golzan

Program: PhD, Experimental Medicine

High-dimensional immunology and computational modeling to uncover how early respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection shapes infant immune development, revealing mechanisms that can inform future vaccine design

Anjali Parthasarathy

Program: MSc, Pharmaceutical Sciences

Functional Mapping of the Human T-cell Glycome Using Base Editing Screens

Armin Faghihi Taleghani

Program: MSc, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

Designing Lipid Nanoparticle-Based Tools to Engineer Macrophages In Vivo for Solid Tumor Immunotherapy

Asana Imanpour

Program: PhD, Interdisciplinary Oncology

Tumour-Immune Interactions in Resistance to Neoadjuvant Therapies in Muscle-Invasive Bladder Cancer

Catherine Ko

Program: MSc, Biomedical Engineering

Developing a smart bioprocess control system that monitors and adjusts iPSC differentiation toward hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells in real-time

Daniella Liao

Program: MSc, Interdisciplinary Oncology

Exploring B-cell Responses in Lung Cancer

Juliana Montoya Sanchez

Program: PhD, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

New RNA delivery techniques for examining microglial histone lactylation in vitro

Kisa Naqvi

Program: MSc, Experimental Medicine

Engineering chimeric antigen receptor regulatory T cell (CAR Treg) therapy to prevent allograft rejection and induce immune tolerance

Natalie Chong

Program: MSc, Microbiology and Immunology

Novel drug against multidrug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis

Maya Nathani-Sim

Program: MASc, Biomedical Engineering

Engineering bispecific natural killer cells to target cancer metabolic heterogeneity

Natalia Nayyar

Program: MSc, Experimental Medicine

Targeting podocalyxin for the treatment adverse-risk acute myeloid leukemia

Pegah Karimi

Program: PhD, Microbiology and Immunology

mRNA cancer Vaccines

Qing Ru Kong

Program: MSc, Experimental Medicine

Cell-based immunoengineering approach using engineered regulatory T cells as a therapy for ARDS

Sogand Golshahian

Program: MASc, Biomedical Engineering

Analysis of gene and protein expression data in patient cohorts with neurodegenerative and infectious diseases

Tithi Bhatt

Program: MSc, Microbiology and Immunology

Exploring B cell Selection in Germinal Centers Using Tonsil Organoids

Wanda Janaeska

Program: PhD, Biomedical Engineering

Next-generation cancer vaccines using self-amplifying RNA (saRNA)

Graduate Students | 2026 Cohort

Ali Koshyk

Program: MSc, Microbiology and Immunology

Developing a smart bioprocess control system that monitors and adjusts iPSC differentiation toward hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells in real-time

Sunny Chen

Program: PhD, Biomedical Engineering

Exploring the Therapeutic Potential of GlycoCaged Thiopurine in IBD

Cynthia Huang

Program: MASc, Biomedical Engineering

Functional Mapping of the Human T-cell Glycome Using Base Editing Screens

Kaye Soriano

Program: PhD, Biomedical Engineering

Designing Lipid Nanoparticle-Based Tools to Engineer Macrophages In Vivo for Solid Tumor Immunotherapy

Ceren Gulhan

Program: MSc, Interdisciplinary Oncology

Tumour-Immune Interactions in Resistance to Neoadjuvant Therapies in Muscle-Invasive Bladder Cancer

Megha Srinivas

Program: PhD, Biomedical Engineering

Exploring B-cell Responses in Lung Cancer

Katia Rosenflanz

Program: MSc, Biomedical Engineering

New RNA delivery techniques for examining microglial histone lactylation in vitro

Tae Kim

Program: PhD, Biomedical Engineering

Engineering chimeric antigen receptor regulatory T cell (CAR Treg) therapy to prevent allograft rejection and induce immune tolerance

Grace Kuo

Program: PhD, Experimental Medicine

Novel drug against multidrug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis

Jeff Yoon

Program: PhD, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

Engineering bispecific natural killer cells to target cancer metabolic heterogeneity

Parisa Nazari

Program: MSc, Biomedical Engineering

Targeting podocalyxin for the treatment adverse-risk acute myeloid leukemia

Lucas Zhu

Program: MSc, Microbiology and Immunology

mRNA cancer Vaccines

Maggie Ma

Program: PhD, Experimental Medicine

Cell-based immunoengineering approach using engineered regulatory T cells as a therapy for ARDS

Lily Bertolo

Program: MSc, Microbiology and Immunology

Analysis of gene and protein expression data in patient cohorts with neurodegenerative and infectious diseases

Imogen Porter

Program: PhD, Genome Science and Technology (GSAT)

Exploring B cell Selection in Germinal Centers Using Tonsil Organoids

Claire Sie

Program: PhD, Microbiology and Immunology

Next-generation cancer vaccines using self-amplifying RNA (saRNA)

Sam Khalilitousi

Program: MASc, Biomedical Engineering

Next-generation cancer vaccines using self-amplifying RNA (saRNA)

Postdoctoral Fellows

Faezeh Borzooee

BC Cancer Research Centre

Faezeh is a postdoctoral fellow at BC Cancer, Terry Fox Laboratory, in Drs. Kuchenbauer/Rouhi’s lab working in collaboration with the lab of Dr. Mani Larijani at SFU. She investigates the roles of APOBECs in the metabolic rewiring of cancer cells, with a focus on myeloma but potential applicability to other cancers as well.

Harsimran Khara

Department of Surgery

Simran is a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Alice Mui’s lab at UBC. Her research focuses on interleukin-10 receptor signaling and its anti-inflammatory potential in macrophages.

Jaime Korner

School of Biomedical Engineering

Jaime is a postdoctoral fellow in the Laboratory for Microtechnologies for Quantitative Biomedicine (uQB) under the supervision of Govind Kaigala. Her research aims to create a microfluidic device for urinary exosomal miRNA detection for early cancer screening.

Leah Hohman

Department of Microbiology and Immunology

Leah is a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Lisa Osborne's lab. Leah aims to elucidate mechanisms between age-related alterations to the microbiome, intestinal immune populations, and the brain.

Mahlegha (Nasim) Ghavami Nodeh

Department of Pediatrics

Nasim is a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Gregor Reid's lab. She is developing and optimizing GD2-targeted CAR-T cell therapies and radiolabeled antibody strategies for neuroblastoma

Nikko Jeffreys

School of Biomedical Engineering

Niko is a posdoctoral fellow in Dr. Peter Zandstra's lab. He studies T-cell engager systems pharmacology and childhood T-cell leukemogenesis.

Romaniya Zayats

Department of Surgery

Romaniya is a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Megan Levings' lab. She studies Treg Immune Therapy Against GVHD.

Zach Morse

BC Cancer Research Centre

Zach is a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Laura Evgin’s lab, where he is exploring genetic engineering to improve CAR T cell immunotherapies to treat aggressive lymphomas that resist conventional treatments.