Leah Cowan
Leah E. Cowen, Ph.D., is Professor and Chair of the Department of Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto, and co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Bright Angel Therapeutics, a company that leverages state-of-the-art technologies for development of novel antifungal therapeutics. She has been appointed the University of Toronto’s first Associate Vice-President, Research, a position that she will begin on March 1st, 2021. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of British Columbia, a PhD from the University of Toronto, and pursued postdoctoral studies at the Whitehead Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her laboratory takes an interdisciplinary approach to understand what allows some microbes to exploit the host and cause disease, and to develop new strategies to treat life-threatening infectious disease. Dr. Cowen has an outstanding track record of excellence in research, scholarship, and education. She has published over 100 high impact research articles. She has been recognized with a myriad of awards including a Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award, Grand Challenges Canada Star in Global Health Award, Merck Irving S. Sigal Memorial Award, E.W.R. Steacie Award, and Canada Research Chair in Microbial Genomics & Infectious Disease (Tier I and Tier II). She has been elected as Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Dr. Cowen has cultivated an international network of excellence as co-Director of the CIFAR Fungal Kingdom: Threats & Opportunities program, and is advancing knowledge translation as Chief Scientific Officer of Bright Angel Therapeutics.
Abstracts this author is presenting: