Group Members

Dr. Anna Blakney

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR

Anna Blakney (blake-knee) is an Assistant Professor in the Michael Smith Laboratories and School of Biomedical Engineering at UBC. She received her BSc in Chemical & Biological Engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and her PhD in Bioengineering from the University of Washington. Her doctoral work focused on the development of multipurpose prevention drug delivery technologies for the prevention of HIV-1 and unintended pregnancy. During her postdoctoral fellowship at Imperial College London, she developed molecular and biomaterial engineering strategies for delivery of self-amplifying RNA, under the supervision of Prof. Robin Shattock and Prof. Molly Stevens.

Mahsa Amirabbasi

BSc, Biology, University of British Columbia

Dr. Jaroslava Joniova

Postdoctoral fellowship: École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
PhD, Biophysics, Pierre and Marie Curie University (Now Sorbonne University) & University of Pavol Jozef Safarik
MSc, Biochemistry, University of Pavol Jozef Safarik
BSc, Chemistry, University of Pavol Jozef Safarik

Dr. Bappa Maiti

PhD, Organic Chemistry, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, India
MSc, Chemistry, Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, Shibpur, India
BSc, Chemistry, Midnapore College, Vidyasagar University, India

Jackie Ho

MSc, Experimental Medicine, University of British Columbia
BSc, Biochemistry, University of Washington

Amy Hsieh

MSc, Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Simon Fraser University
BSc, Biochemistry, University of Washington 

Damian Espinoza Ruiz

MSc, Biochemistry, McGill University
BSc, Biomedical Engineering, Tecnológico de Monterrey

Dr. Jonathan Dorogin

PhD, BioEngineering, University of Oregon and Oregon State University Joint Program
MASc, Biomedical Engineering, McMaster University
BASc, Nanotechnology Engineering, University of Waterloo

Dr. Jiaming Li

PhD, Systems, Synthetic, and Physical Biology, Rice University 
BSc, Physics, Peking University

Dr. Suiyang Liao

PhD, Materials Science, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
BEng, BBA, Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University

Dr. Lisa Opsomer

PhD, Veterinary Science, Ghent University
MSc, Master of Pharmaceutical Care, Ghent University
BSc, Pharmaceutical Sciences, Ghent University

Nuthan Bathula

Program: PhD, Biomedical Engineering (NMIN Graduate Awardee)
MSc, Immunotherapeutics, Trinity College Dublin
BTech, Biotechnology, Chaitanya Bharathi Institute of Technology

Sunny Peiwei Chen

Program: MASc, Biomedical Engineering
BSc (Hons), Microbiology and Immunology, University of British Columbia

Josh Friesen

Program: MASc, Biomedical Engineering (NMIN Graduate Awardee)
BSc, Biological Sciences, University of Lethbridge

Cynthia Huang

Program: MASc, Biomedical Engineering
BSc, Honours in Biotechnology, University of British Columbia

Wanda Janaeska

Program: MASc, Biomedical Engineering
BASc, Engineering Science – Biomedical Systems Engineering, University of Toronto

Petya Popova

Program: PhD, Biomedical Engineering (Zymeworks Immunotherapeutics Fellowship Awardee)
MSc, Engineering Chemistry- Biotechnology and Biorefining, University of Southern Denmark
BSc, Chemistry and Microbiology, University of Food Technology (Bulgaria)

Rachel Silva

Program: MSc, Genome Science & Technology
BSc, Honours in Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics & Microbiology, University of Toronto

Kaye Soriano

Program: PhD, Biomedical Engineering
BSc, Honours in Biotechnology, University of British Columbia

Yara Ensminger

Program: PhD, Chemistry, Freie Universität Berlin
MASc, Materials Science & Engineering, University of Toronto
BESc, Chemical Engineering, Western University

Jennifer de Jong

Program: MSc Molecular Medicine and Innovative Treatment, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
BSc Biochemistry (Honours), University of Bristol

Gabriel Correia Lima

Program: PhD candidate in Biotechnology, Federal University of São Paulo
BSc, Molecular Sciences, University of São Paulo

Milou Meulendijks

Program: MSc Biomedical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology
BSc Biomedical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology

Ziad Kandeel

Program: BSc, Honours in Biotechnology, University of British Columbia

Kaila Sands

Program: BSc, Combined Major in Chemical Biology, University of British Columbia

Muntaqim Syed

Program: BSc, Honours in Biotechnology, University of British Columbia

Kayla Wen

Program: BSc, Microbiology & Immunology, University of British Columbia

Chantelle Westgate

Program: BSc, Honours in Biotechnology, University of British Columbia