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SickKids

Cynthia Guidos

Title: Senior Scientist, Cell Biology
Designations: PhD
Phone: 416-813-5026
Email: cynthia.guidos@sickkids.ca
Alternate Contact Name: Celeste Alora
Alternate Phone: 416-813-7654 ext. 308810
Alternate Email: celeste.alora@sickkids.ca
U of T Positions: Professor, Department of Immunology

Research Positions

Scientific Director, SickKids-UHN Flow Cytometry Facility

Scientific Director, SickKids’ Center for Advanced Single Cell Analysis 

Biography

Dr. Guidos directs a well-established research program focused on elucidating basic mechanisms of immune cell development and differentiation, as well as mechanisms of immune-mediated diseasesBecause high parameter analysis of single cells is central to each of these programs, she also develops and implements advanced single cell analysis technologies.  

She serves as the Scientific Director of the largest research Flow Cytometry Core facility in Canada. In addition, she recently established the Center for Advanced Single Cell Analysis (CASCA) at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), an infrastructure platform which provides researchers with access to time-of-flight mass cytometry (CyTOF) instruments and scientific expertise.  

Most recently, she established an innovative multi-well single cell “multi-omics” platform that can quantify mRNA and protein in up to 40,000 single cells at a time. She and her collaborators are using these advanced cytometry and multi-omics platforms to perform high content single cell screening of blood or other samples to identify biomarkers that distinguish between healthy controls from those with a variety of immune-mediated diseases, subtypes within an immune disease category, and effective responses to immune-targeted therapies.

Research

The overall goal of Dr. Guidos’ research program is to define mechanisms that regulate development, function and maintenance of normal immune cells that protect against microbial infections and cancer. A related goal is to use novel our novel technologies to improve diagnosis and treatment of aggressive leukemias.

Education and experience

  • 1976–1980: B.Sc., Biology (with Distinction), University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada
  • 1981–1986: PhD, Immunology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada
  • 1986–1991: Departments of Pathology & Developmental Biology, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA, Supervisor: Dr. Irving Weissman
  • 1991–1995: Associate Member, School of Graduate Studies,Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON,Canada
  • 1991–1997: Assistant Professor, Department of Immunology,Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON,Canada
  • 1991–1998: Scientist, Division of Immunology & Cancer; The Hospital for Sick Children Research Institute, Toronto, ON,Canada
  • 1995–Present: Full Member, School of Graduate Studies,Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON,Canada
  • 1997–2003: Associate Professor, Department of Immunology,Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON,Canada
  • 1998–Present: Senior Scientist, Program in Developmental & Stem Cell Biology; The Hospital for Sick Children Research Institute, Toronto, ON, Canada
  • 2003–2017: Member, Collaborative Ph.D. Program inDevelopmental Biology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON,Canada
  • 2003–Present: Professor, Department of Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

Achievements

  • 1981–1986: Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research Graduate Studentship (yearly award)
  • 1986–1989: Medical Research Council (MRC) of Canada Post-Doctoral Fellowship
  • 1997–2002: Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Scientist Salary Award
  • 2009–2010: American Association of Immunologists Nominating Committee (elected)
  • 2016–2018: Interim Steering Committee Member, Canadian Human Immunophenotyping Consortium
  • 2016–2019: American Association of Immunologists Awards Committee (elected)

Editorial boards

  • 2001–2007: Immunological Reviews (Blackwell Publishing, Osney Mead, Oxford, UK)
  • 2005–2006: Guest Editor, Immunological Reviews Volume 296, “Thymocyte and Thymus Development”, 23 articles
  • 2014–2016: Section Editor: Encyclopedia of Immunobiology, Volume 1: Development and Phylogeny of the Immune System, “Development of T Cells and Innate Lymphoid Cells”, 16 articles 

Conference organization

  • 2003–2005: Program Committee of the American Association of Immunologists (elected)
  • 2006–2007: Elected Co-Organizer for 2007 FASEB Summer Research Conference “Lymphocytes & The Immune System: Molecular, Cellular & Integrative Mechanisms”, Tucson, AZ, USA
  • 2009: Elected Lead Organizer for FASEB Summer Research Conference “Lymphocyte Lineage Decisions: From Stem Cells to Effector Cells”, Carefree, AZ, USA
  • 2010: Elected Vice-Chair & Session chair for 2010 Gordon Research Conference on Immunochemistry and Immunobiology, Les Diablarets, Switzerland
  • 2012: Elected Chair for 2012 Gordon Research Conference on Immunochemistry and Immunobiology, Les Diablarets, Switzerland

Publications

  1. Perova T, Grandal I, Nutter LM, Papp E, Matei IR, Beyene J, Kowalski PE, Hitzler JK, Minden MD, Guidos CJ, Danska JS. Therapeutic potential of spleen tyrosine kinase inhibition for treating high-risk precursor B cell acute lymphoblastic leukemiaScience Translational Medicine 2014, 6(236): 236ra262.
  2. Johnson RM, Papp E, Grandal I, Kowalski PE, Nutter L, Wong RC, Joseph-George AM, Danska JS, Guidos CJMuLV-related endogenous retroviral elements and Flt3 participate in aberrant end-joining events that promote B-cell leukemogenesisGenes Dev 2014, 28(11): 1179-1190
  3. Boudil A, Matei IR, Shih HY, Bogdanoski G, Yuan JS, Change SG, Montpellier B, Kowalski PE, Voisin V, Bashir S, Bader GD, Krangel MS, Guidos CJIL-7 coordinates proliferation, differentiation and Tcra recombination during thymocyte beta-selectionNat Immunol 2015, 16(4): 397-405
  4. An Y, Adams JR, Hollern D, Zhao A, Chang S, Gams MS, Chung EDP, He X, Jangra R, Shah J, Yang J, Beck LA, Raghuram N, Kozma KJ, Loch AJ, Wang W, Fan C, Done SJ, Zacksenhaus E, Guidos CJPerou CM, Egan S. Cdh1 and Pik3ca mutations cooperate to induce Immune-Related Invasion Lobular Carcinoma of the Breast. 2018. Cell Reports 2018 25(3): 702-714.
  5. Dobson S, Garcia-Prat L, Vanner R, Wintersinger J, Waanders E, Gu Z, McLeod J, Gan O, Grandal I, Payne-Turner D, Edmonson M, MaX, Fan Y, Voisin V, Chan-Seng-Yue M, Xie S, Hosseini M, Abelson S, Gupta P, Rusch M, Shao Y, Olsen S, Neale G, Chan S, Bader G, Easton J, Guidos C, Danska J, Zhang J, Minden M, Morris Q, Mullighan C, and Dick J. Relapse fated latent diagnosis subclones in acute B lineage leukaemia are drug tolerant and possess distinct metabolic programs. Cancer Discovery 2020, 10(4): 568-587.

  • 2020–2025: Canadian Institutes of Health Research Project Grant
    Title: Targeting the immune landscape at presentation and relapse of immune-related lobular breast cancer
    PI: Sean Egan
    Co-PI: Cynthia Guidos 
  • 2020-2021: University of Toronto: Toronto COVID-19 Action Initiative
    Title: Immune Responses to COVID-19: Correlates Across the Age Spectrum
    PI: Upton Allen
    Co-PI: Koshrow Adeli, Philip Awadalla, Ari Bitnun, Aaron Campigotto, Helen Groves, Eyal Grunebaum, Cynthia Guidos, Scott Halperin, Jean-Philippe Julien, Allison McGreer, Stephen Metschel, Theo Moraes, Shaun Morris, Mario Ostrowski, Jesse Papenburg, Rulan Parekh, Manish Sadarangani, Michelle Science, Lisa Sepiashvili, Lisa Strug, Julia Upton
  • 2019–2024: Canadian Institutes of Health Research Project Grant
    Title: High dimensional characterization of effector-memory T lymphocytes in early life
    PI: Cynthia Guidos
  • 2019–2021: Garron Family Cancer Centre: Leukemia Team Impact Grant
    Title: Modeling Pediatric 7q- Myeloid Leukemia
    PI: Sean Egan
    Co-PI: Cynthia Guidos, Johann Hitzler
  • 2019–2024: Canadian Foundation for Innovation – John R. Evans Leaders Fund (Infrastructure Grant)
    Title: High dimensional single cell immune-analytic platforms for deciphering immune complexity in health and disease
    PI: Cynthia Guidos
    Co-Investigators: Jayne Danska, Katherine Siminovitch (MSHRI)
  • 2017–2022: Genome Canada – Large-Scale Applied Research Project Competition: Genomics and Precision Health
    Title: UCAN CURE: Precision decisions for childhood arthritis
    PIs: Rae S. M. Yeung (SickKids) and Susanne M. Benseler (University of Calgary)
    Co-Investigators: Michael BrudnoMarvin Fritzler, Joseph CafazzoAnna Goldenberg, Cynthia GuidosMaarten Ijzerman, Deborah Marshall, Quaid Morris, Stephen Scherer, Joost SwartMarinka TwiltSebastian Vastert,Nico Wulffraat
  • 2017–2021: Ontario Institute of Cancer Research: Translational Research Initiatives
    Title: Acute leukemia translational research initiative
    PIs: John Dick and Aaron Schimmer (University Health Network – UHN)
    Co-Investigators: Mick Bhatia, Cynthia Guidos, Daniel De Carvalho, Gary Bader, Jayne Danska, Jean Wang, Johann Hitzler, Suzanne Kamel-Reid, Darlene Lane, Brian Leber, Monica Lenkiewicz, Leonardo SalmenaDawy Lilley, Liran Shlush, Mathieu LupienMichael Hoffman, Mark Minden, Mitchell Sabloff, Norman Iscove, Paul Spagnulol, Philip Awadalla, Steven Chan, Karen Yee
  • 2016–2021: Leukemia & Lymphoma Society USA: Specialized Center of Research (SCOR)
    Title: Therapeutic implications of altered epigenetics and DNA damage responses in hematologic disorders
    PI: Tak Mak (University Health Network – UHN)
    Co-Investigators: Philippe Gaulard, Ross Levine, Christopher Mason, Ari Melnick, Mark Minden, Cynthia Guidos, Trevor Pugh
    Project Title: Guidos Core A: Single cell genome and proteome characterization 
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