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People

Our group includes learners and staff with backgrounds in pharmacology, biochemistry/chemical biology, cell biology, engineering, and pharmaceutics. Our graduate students are part of the Pharmaceutical Sciences graduate program, and we welcome undergraduate students from Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Pharmacology, and other programs at the University of Toronto. Interested in joining us? Please contact Dr. Corson to enquire about available opportunities

Meet Our Team

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Dr. Tim Corson

Principal Investigator

Dr. Corson is a Professor and Acting Co-Director, Graduate Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Toronto, Canada. He holds HonBSc, MSc, and PhD degrees from the University of Toronto, and completed a CIHR-funded postdoctoral fellowship in chemical biology with Craig Crews at Yale University. He established his lab in 2010 at Indiana University School of Medicine in the Department of Ophthalmology, where he became Vice-Chair for Basic and Translational Research, before serving as Chair of the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, where he continues to hold an adjunct appointment. He is an author on over 90 publications and an inventor on 11 patents with intellectual property optioned and/or licensed to multiple companies. His lab is currently supported by R01 grants from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), plus foundation grants. Selected awards include the Merrill Grayson Senior Chair and a Showalter Scholar at the Indiana University School of Medicine, an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Indiana Center for Biomedical Innovation, and a Watanabe Translational Scholar of the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute. He is on the editorial board of several journals and currently serves as a charter member of the NIH Pathobiology of Eye Disease 1 study section (review panel) as well as reviewing for public and private funders in the US, Canada, UK, Europe, and Australasia.

ORCiD: 0000-0002-1402-7875

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Curriculum Vitae

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Kamakshi Sishtla

Lab Manager

 BS Biology (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), 2003

Kamakshi joined the lab in 2011.  While she does a bit of everything, she mainly focuses on characterizing antiangiogenic small molecules and ferrochelatase inhibitors.

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Dr. Debadatta Mohapatra

Postdoctoral Researcher

MPharm, PhD (IIT-BHU, Varanasi, India), 2023

Debadatta joined the lab at the LDFP, University of Toronto, in September 2024. He will be involved in the development and therapeutic evaluations of novel drug delivery systems for ocular neovascularization and related diseases.  

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Gabriella Hartman

Indiana University PhD Candidate

BS Pharmaceutical Sciences (University of Mississippi), 2020

Gabriella's PhD project focuses on elucidating pathways underlying retinal neovascularization and evaluating novel, orally bioavailable small molecule inhibitors for treatment of neovascular eye diseases.

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Mohammed Ayan Chhipa

PhD Student

MSc Molecular Science (Toronto Metropolitan University), 2024

Mohammed examines how our novel inhibitors affect protein production in downstream pathways, with a particular focus on their role in inhibiting neurovascularization.

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Suman Birdee

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MSc Student

BTech, Biotechnology (McMaster), 2023

Suman investigates the effects of a novel retinal degeneration inhibitor for dry age-related macular degeneration.

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Amir Afsharpour

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MSc Student

BMSc Medical Cell Biology (University of Western), 2024 

Amir's research explores the regulatory effects of heme synthesis on retinal endothelial cell metabolomics and its linkage to neovascularization.

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Thuc Binh (Julie) Lam

PHC489 Undergraduate Student

BSc Pharmaceutical Chemistry

(University of Toronto), 2025

Julie investigates the impact of Ref-1 inhibition on energy generation in human retinal endothelial cells to potentially identify novel therapeutic strategies for neovascular eye diseases

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Luisa Gerhard

PCL297 Undergraduate Student

BSc Pharmacology and Toxicology

(University of Toronto), 2026

Luisa’s research focuses on screening small molecules for the inhibition of ferrochelatase and of proliferation in human retinal endothelial cells.

Graduate, Fellow, and Postdoc Alumni

Halesha Basavarajappa - PhD

Rania Sulaiman - PhD/Postdoc

Michael O'Hare - MSc

Trupti Shetty - PhD/Postdoc

Sheik Pran Babu Sardar Pasha - Postdoc

Bomina Park - PhD/Postdoc

Hannah Whitmore - Visiting PhD Student

Nathan Lambert-Cheatham - Fellow

Nathan Jensen - Fellow

Brandon Jacobs - Fellow

Dhawal Chobisa - Visiting PhD Student

Anbukkarasi Muniyandi - Postdoc

Yang Song - Postdoc​​​​​

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