PEOPLE FROM THE WINSHIP LAB

Ian R. Winship

Principal Investigator

Dr. Winship is an Associate Professor and Alberta Innovates Health Solutions Scholar in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Alberta. As Director of the Neurochemical Research Unit (NRU), he leads a diverse group of scientists investigating the funadmental neurobiology of the CNS and working to develop new therapies for psychiatric and neurolgocial disorders.

Research in the Winship lab combines advanced imaging and behavioural neuroscience to define how the integrated CNS functions and identify key pathophysiological or adaptive processes in brain disease. These insights are used to develop new therapies for disorders including stroke, multiple sclerosis, and schizophrenia.

Sima Abbasi Habashi

Sima Abbasi Habashi completed her Masters MSc in Neuroscience with Major in Animal Physiology at the University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran. She is now pursuing a PhD with Dr. Winship.

Sima's PhD research uses advanced in vivo imaging to measure collateral blood flow during experimental therapies to improve blood flow and reduce brain damage due to stroke. Her work is looking at novel humoural regulators of collateral failure, as well as new pharmacological tools, to identify new collateral therapuetics.

John Wesley Paylor

Wes completed his Bachelor of Science (hons.) with distinction in Psychology in 2013 from the University of Victoria. In late 2015, he completed his Masters of Neuroscience in the Winship lab. His MSc thesis focused on a loss of "perineuronal nets" in the extracellular matrix of the central nervous system in pathological neural plasticity in schizophrenia.

Wes is now working on his PhD in the Department of Psychiatry. His current work is a continuation of his masters, focusing on pathological neural plasticity in animal models of schizophrenia. In his time at the University of Alberta, he has also made contributions to exciting papers examining the pathophysiology of multiple sclerosis.

Somnath Gupta

Somnath completed his Masters in Biotechnology at Nirma University and worked at at biopharmaceutical company for 3 years in Research and Development.

Somnath started his PhD at the University of Alberta in September 2016, and transferred into the Neuroscience and Mental Health Institute under the supervision of Dr. Winship and Dr. Kathryn Todd in September 2017. His research will investigate novel methods to drive neuroplasticity by manipulating CSPGs and CSPG receptors in vitro and in vivo after stroke.

Hossein Doosti

Hossein is currently completing his Master's degree under the supervision of Dr. Winship in the Neurochemical Research Unit of the Department of Psychiatry. He previously completed a MSc in Immunology at Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran, in 2013.

Hossein is studying models of cognitive impairment in schizophrenia as they relate to changes in cortical activity and extracellular matrix integrity.

An Bui

An is currently completing her Master's degree in Psychiatry and transferring to PhD program under the supervision of Dr. Winship. She previously completed her BSc (Hons) in Neuroscience in the lab in Winter 2022, investigating transcriptional changes post-stroke.

An is continuing studying the transcriptional profile of blood and neutrophils after stroke, and is particularly interested in age- and sex- differences in neutrophil-specific gene expression. Neutrophils aggregation in the microcirculation has been shown to contribute to poor recovery. Using two-photon microscopy, she will map gross changes in the blood vessels to gene expression changes.

Ron Migueil Bertenshaw

Ron is currently completing his Master's degree under the supervision of Dr. Winship in the Neurochemical Research Unit of the Department of Psychiatry. He previously completed his Honours Undergraduate BSc in Neuroscience with Dr. Winship.

Ron is studying the role of pleiotrophin in post-stroke recovery.

Abdallah Alwan

Abdallah is an honours neuroscience student working on a project creating a neutrophil counter using Tensorflow's object detection API.

Amena Thraya

Amena is an honours neuroscience student who works on a project that aims to visualize changes in the morphology of parvalbumin interneurons in the restrosplenial cortex using longitudinal in vivo two photon microscopy in an established chronic ketamine animal model of schizophrenia.

Yonglie Ma

Yonglie received his Bachelor of Medicine and Masters of Medicine in Neuroscience in China. He has worked as an animal surgeon or laboratory technician in different Departments and Institutions at University of Alberta since 2004.

Yonglie joined Dr. Winship’s lab in November 2014. His research focuses on the mechanisms of remote ischemia (with support from the QNRF) and the use of laser speckle contrast imaging and 2-photon imaging to measure collateral blood flow after distral middle cerebral artery occlusion in rodents.

Tricia Kent

Tricia attended the University of British Columbia to obtain a BSc. Biochemistry in 2010 and then went on to complete a MSc. Experimental Medicine at McGill University in 2014. Her research focused on genetic regulation of hepatic iron metabolism, focusing on upstream regulation of hepcidin.

Tricia joined the NRU in May 2016 as the NRU - Dewhurst labs biotechnologist and lab coordinator. She brings a wealth of experience to the Winship, Todd, and Chan labs. For the Winship lab, she uses her background in genetics to maintain the transgenic mice colonies as well as helping to develop novel assays with the graduate students.

WINSHIP LAB ALUMNI

Mischa Vance Bandet

Mischa is a University of Alberta Alumni, graduating in 2013 from the BSc Honours Neuroscience program where he completed his thesis in Dr. Winship's Lab.

His PhD is investigating sensorimotor encoding of cutaneous and proprioceptive information in rodents using two-photon calcium imaging prior to and after stroke onset. His primary focus is on understanding the neurophysiological basis underlying plasticity and recovery of sensory function in post-stroke neural networks, and how adaptive plasticity can be augmented with therapeutic drugs. He has also made exciting contributions to high impact collaborative projects (e.g. "Metabotropic NMDA receptor signaling couples Src family kinases to pannexin-1 during excitotoxicity" and "Pericytes impair capillary blood flow and motor function after chronic spinal cord injury")

Celestina Tanase

Celestina is a University of Alberta Alumni. She completed her Master's thesis in Dr. Winship's Lab in 2022. She received her BSc. Honors in Neuroscience from the University of Alberta in 2019. She is currently medical student at the University of Galway

Celestina studied the regulating of post-stroke plasticity by endgoenous growth factors after stroke, and examining new approaches to drive plasticity and improve recovery.

Eszter Wendlandt

MSc, January 2020 || Remyelination and plasticity in peri-infarct cortex

Junqiang Ma

PhD, July 2019 || Preventing collateral failure to improve blood flow during stroke

Amelie Tison

MSc, Exchange with Lund University, January 2019 || Spinal cord plasticity and rehabilitation after stroke

Anna Wiersma

PhD, June 2017 || Spinal cord plasticity and modulation of the extracellular matrix to improve recovery after stroke

Sam Joshva

PhD, January 2017 || Microglial response to CNS injury

John Wesley Paylor

MSc, November 2015 || Pathological neural plasticity in schizophrenia

Gomathi Ramakrishnan

MSc, November 2013 || Augmenting collateral bloodflow after stroke

Summer Students, Honours Students

2022  Mehul Nimpal & An Bui & Grant Mix (Summer Students || NMHI Honours) & Trevor Trinh & Caroline Part
2021  Faith Trinh & Rayyan Aqueel (Summer Students || NMHI Honours) & Jocelyn McConnell
2019  David Lotz & Ron Miguel Bertenshaw (Summer Student || NMHI Honours)
2018  Easton Munchrath & Celestina Tanase (Summer Student || NMHI Honours)
2017  Samantha Ho (Summer Student || NMHI Honours) & Mujtaba Siddique
2016  Tara Freeman (NMHI Honours) & Eszter Szevespari (Summer Student || NMHI Honours)
2015  Cole Sugden (AIHS Summer Student)
2014  Sean Rah, Reiner Silveira de Moraes
2013  Aala Abdullahi & Mischa Bandet (AIHS Summer Student || NMHI Honours)
2012  Mischa Bandet (AIHS Summer Student) & Nathan Ikuta (AIHS Summer Student || NMHI Honours)
2011  Naik Arbabzada (AIHS Summer Student) & Anna Wiersma (Physiology Honours) & Kirsten Kelly (HYRS)
2010  Anna Wiersma & Stan Hrybouski (Summer Student || NMHI Honours)
2008  Cris Quitral & Stephanie Pelech (NMHI Honours) & Terence Wong & Maria Lee (AIHS Summer Student)