The Donnelly closes off the 2026 Summer Undergraduate Research Program with a symposium
“The Donnelly Centre prides itself on being a collaborative, interdisciplinary space for researchers,” says Mark Pereira, the Director of Research Operations and Strategy at the Donnelly. “Our undergraduate students are an important part of that community.”
The 2026 Summer Undergraduate Research Program officially concluded last Thursday, bringing together over fifty trainees and guests to the 2nd floor of the Donnelly Centre.
Run by interim Communications Officer Kira Belaoussoff, this year’s program united students across fifteen Donnelly labs by providing workshops and social events designed to complement their research. The final gathering was the 2026 Undergrad Symposium: an afternoon of student talks, poster presentations, and prizes.
“This symposium was the culmination of our undergrads putting in months of hard work,” says Belaoussoff. “It was incredibly important to us to give them the space to showcase that effort.”
With cash prizes on the line, the talks and poster presentations were judged by a panel of seven Donnelly graduate and postdoctoral researchers. The hand-selected student talks were each representative of a core research theme at the Donnelly:
ARTHURINE YU || Bioengineering at the Yip Lab. “Whole-organ optical clearing with 3DISCO enables three-dimensional visualization of Metastatic Group 3 Medulloblastoma across the CNS”
RUSSELL BELTRAN || Stem Cells, Regenerative Medicine & Aging at the Libby Lab. “Characterizing Pax7 Enhancer activity in neural crest specification during secondary neuralation”
BANITA JEYAKUMAR || Discovery Genomics at the Taipale Lab. “Engineering PARP1 cytotoxicity through induced proximity”
OWEN LO || Computational Biology & AI at the RNAlab. “Defining molecular effects of Saccharomyces cerevisiae mitovirus 1 using machine learning predictions of phenotype variance”
As the students presented in the Red Room, the seven judges sat in the second row and evaluated the content of their projects and their communications abilities. An identical rubric was later applied as the judges took to the 2nd Floor Atrium and determined their favourite posters. After a long deliberation, the panel chose their winners from the talented pool of students:
TALK WINNER (Left): Russell Beltran (Libby Lab): “Characterizing Pax7 Enhancer activity in neural crest specification during secondary neuralation”
RUNNER UP (Right): Arthurine Yu (Yip Lab): “Whole-organ optical clearing with 3DISCO enables three-dimensional visualization of Metastatic Group 3 Medulloblastoma across the CNS”
POSTER WINNER (Left): Asal Shahen-Dezfoulian (Brown Lab): “Exploring natural diversity of Saccharomyces cerevisiae to identify optimal hosts for plastic degrading enzyme production”
RUNNER UP (Right): Kevin Y.H. Gan (Shoichet Lab): “Evaluating the proteolytic stability of an engineered insulin-like growth factor 1”
“I just finished my undergrad, so doing [Donnelly’s summer program] was a great stepping-stone into graduate research,” says Russel Beltran, who took home the prize for the best talk. “It was a great experience—I learned not only the skills, but how to collaborate as a team, which is something that’s really important at the Donnelly.”
“Being here has been inspiring, everybody just works very hard,” says Asal Shahen-Dezfoulian, clutching the transport tube containing her award-winning poster. “Just being around the people in my lab, I feel so motivated. It’s one of the things I’m most grateful for during my summer here.”
The Donnelly Centre will continue to run the Summer Undergraduate Research Program in 2027.
About the Donnelly Centre
The Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research is a research hub at the University of Toronto’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine, where scientists from diverse fields work together to advance medicine and health. Founded in 2005, the Donnelly Centre is a global leader in research on systems biology, regenerative medicine and disease modelling.
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Media Contact
Kira Belaoussoff
Communications Coordinator at the Donnelly Centre
donnelly.communications@utoronto.ca
416-946-8253
