Celebrating Promotions of Drs. Reed, Zawertailo and Vedadi
The Department congratulates Dr. Reed on his promotion to Associate Professor, and Drs. Zawertailo and Vedadi on their promotions to Full Professor. We are proud to celebrate your successes, and we look forward to your continued impactful contributions. Your teaching, service and research makes a difference to our trainees, to our scientific enterprise, and to our community as a whole.
Dr. Reed is a medicinal chemist and Scientist at the Krembil Brain Institute, University Health Network (UHN). He is the Director of UHN Therapeutics and Co-Chair of UHN’s Collaborative Centre for Drug Discovery, which focuses on identifying and advancing novel therapeutic targets across UHN, academic institutions in Toronto, and international research partners. Dr. Reed is also a Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Treventis Corporation, a Toronto-based biotechnology company developing therapies for protein misfolding disorders. He brings over 20 years of experience in drug discovery in both biotechnology and large pharmaceutical companies in the US and Canada. His work integrates modern medicinal chemistry approaches to discover, optimize, and advance de risked lead compounds toward clinical development, with research spanning central nervous system disorders, anti-infectives, immunology, and oncology. Dr. Reed is an inventor on multiple patents in the areas of synthetic organic chemistry, neurodegeneration, neuropathic pain, inflammation, fibrosis, and cancer. He holds cross-appointments in the Department of Chemistry and the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology.
Dr. Zawertailo is a Senior Scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in the INTREPID Lab, Addictions Program, Institute of Mental Health Policy Research and has been an addictions researcher there for over 20 years. Her program of research is comprised of four main areas of tobacco and nicotine addiction: 1) understanding tobacco/nicotine use among women across the life span and the role of ovarian hormones in tobacco/nicotine addiction in order to improve treatment outcomes; 2) investigating the efficacy of non-invasive brain stimulation techniques to treat nicotine and tobacco dependence; 3) investigating the neural correlates of nicotine vaping and cigarette smoking in youth and young adults; and 4) population-level interventions and large-scale randomized trials for smoking cessation. Her lab consists of 1 Research Coordinator, 1 Research Assistant, 2 MSc students, 5 PhD students, and 1 post-doctoral fellow.
Dr. Masoud Vedadi is an enzymologist and protein biochemist who received his PhD from McGill University. His research at the University of Toronto and the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research has focused on early-stage drug discovery across a broad range of cancer and viral targets. He is internationally recognized for his impactful work on human protein methyltransferases and viral RNA capping methyltransferases, including the discovery of inhibitors and antagonists targeting these enzymes and their protein interactions. His laboratory integrates enzymology, screening for small molecules, and structural biology to develop novel therapeutic strategies. His group also studies cancer cachexia, muscle regeneration, and targeted protein degradation using PROTAC technologies. Most recently, his team reported development of SDIPTACs (Self-Dimerization Induced Proximity Targeting Chimeras) in collaboration with UCSF collaborators and OICR team, a new strategy that induces DCAF1 loss of function and inhibits HIV replication in T-cells. Published alongside ternary complex crystal structures revealing the mechanism of action, this approach may be broadly applicable, particularly for targeting challenging protein–protein interactions with large binding interfaces.
