
Current Members










Dr. Ryan Russell
Principal Investigator
Bio
Dr. Russell obtained his PhD from the University of Toronto in the field of molecular oncology, focusing on oxygen sensing and renal clear cell carcinoma. He performed his postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California San Diego in the laboratory of Kun-Liang Guan. There he focused on uncovering the relationship between stress and nutrient sensitive kinases and the autophagy pathway. Dr. Russell joined the University of Ottawa in May 2015 as an assistant professor with the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine. Recent work from Dr. Russell has shown novel regulatory mechanisms between nutrient sensitive kinases mTORC1, ULK1, and AMPK and the autophagy machinery. Future endeavours include expanding our knowledge of the regulatory mechanisms of mammalian autophagy and determining the clinical significance of recently identified pathways.
View Dr. Russell's CV here
Education and Past Experience
2010-2015: Postdoctoral fellow, Dept. of Pharmacology, University of California San Diego.
2004-2009: Ph.D Molecular Oncology, University of Toronto
2000-2004: B.Sc Biochemistry, University of British Columbia
Zhihao Guo
Research Technician
Bio
A recent graduate from the Master's program at the University of Windsor, Zhihao's joined the Russell lab as a full time research technician. He is currently working on disease related autophagy signalling pathways and development of new live-cell imaging techniques. Zhihao is interested in the areas of cellular/molecular biology and biotechnology.
Education and Past Experience
2012-2014: Graduate Assistant, University of Windsor
2010-2011: Research Assistant, University of Windsor
2012-2014: M.Sc. Molecular Biology, University of Windsor
2006-2010: B.Sc. Biology and Biotechnology, University of Windsor
Cloe To
PhD Candidate
Bio
Cloe is a graduate student currently pursuing her degree in Cellular and Molecular Medicine at University of Ottawa. She recently completed her undergraduate degree in Medicinal Chemistry where she wrote her Honours thesis, using computational chemistry to study the Diels-Alder reaction mechanism.
Education and Past Experience
2012-2016: B.Sc. Medicinal Chemistry, University of New Brunswick
Reham Alsaadi
PhD Candidate
Mercy Akuma
PhD Candidate
Wensheng Tian
Master's Candidate
Karyn King
Master's Candidate
Shruthi Karthikeyan
TMM Honour's Student, Volunteer in the lab
Bio
Shruthi is currently a fourth-year student in the Translational and Molecular Medicine program at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Medicine. She first joined the Russell Lab in 2017 after graduating from Colonel By Secondary School’s IB program. She was working on creating CRISPR/Cas9 knockouts of genes involved in the detection of pathogenic macromolecules to identify pattern recognition receptors responsible for AMPK activation. She is now completing her Honour’s thesis in the Russell Lab. Shruthi is interested in biotechnology, genome editing and translational applications of this work.