Wilson Poon, PhD

I completed my undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto in Engineering Science. Next, I finished a masters degree at McGill University in Biomedical Engineering with Prof. Jay Nadeau, where I developed ultrasmall gold nanoparticles for cancer treatment and imaging. I continued my research in nanomedicine by completing a PhD in Biomedical Engineering in the lab of Prof. Warren Chan at the University of Toronto. During my PhD, I investigated the organ- and cellular-level barriers to nanoparticle delivery in vivo.

I am currently a NSERC postdoctoral fellow in the McManus Lab. I have two main projects currently: (1) engineering more efficient and deliverable Cas nucleases for in vivo genome editing; and (2) developing new sensor animal models to track genome editing in vivo at the single cell level. I am a member of the American Chemical Society (ACS) and Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES). Some of my past honours and awards include the CIHR Canadian Graduate Scholarship (Masters level & Doctoral Level), Ontario Graduate Scholarship, and the University of Toronto Student Leadership Award.

Outside of the lab, I enjoy swimming and powerlifting, as well as exploring the city to find good cafes and restaurants. I am also interested in science outreach and communication. Throughout the COVID pandemic, I co-organized a virtual biweekly nanomedicine journal club on Zoom with invited first authors presenting their recent publications. The journal club has been a great success and we have drawn participants from more than 15 countries around the world and more than 60 different research institutes and universities reached. Previously, I have also organized the annual research conference for the University of Toronto Institute of Biomedical Engineering and delivered public workshops on “The Wonderful World of Nanotechnology” at science fairs and inner-city outreach programs. More recently, I was invited to speak at a public lecture organized by BioDojo on “From Bench to Clinic: mRNA vaccines”.