The Hynes Lab
Disrupting the neuroscience of addiction
Simon Fraser University
Gurkirat Singh Nijjar
MD Student - Toronto Metropolitan University
Gurkirat Singh Nijjar is a medical student at the Toronto Metropolitan University School of Medicine researching the neurobiology of addiction, focusing on glial cells and neural circuitry in substance use disorders. Formerly in Dr. Annie Ciernia’s lab at UBC, he explored translational research connecting neuroscience with improved prevention, treatment, and recovery for neuropsychiatric illness. He is the Founder and Managing Director of the Students Overcoming Substance Use Disorder and Addictions Society of Canada (SOUDA), a nonprofit promoting harm reduction and culturally safe substance use education. Through multilingual workshops in English and Punjabi, he has trained over 30,000 people in overdose prevention. In his free time, he plays field hockey with
the Surrey Raiders Field Hockey Club.
Kayla Ji
Undergraduate Researcher - Queen's University
Kayla is a Health Sciences student at Queen’s University interested in the neurobiology of addiction and pharmacological foundations of treatment. She is particularly drawn to the Hynes Lab’s work on astrocytes and dopamine transporters and how these contribute to individual differences in vulnerability to addiction. She hopes to gain experience with the techniques and animal models that connect cellular mechanisms to real-world behaviour and wishes to contribute to precise and personalized addiction treatment research. Outside academics, Kayla is involved with her local air cadet squadron and enjoys playing percussion, running, and listening to music.
Sofiia Shevchuk
Undergraduate Researcher - University of Cambridge
Sophiia is deeply interested in learning about the neurobiology behind emotion and motivation, in particular about the dopamine system and reward, and how this can be used to understand addiction. Sofiia worked under Dr. Hynes at the University of Cambridge and is now a visiting researcher in his lab at Simon Fraser University. Sofiia was the first to use CRISPR/Cas9 to delete the dopamine transporter from astrocytes of the striatum. She has come to Canada to use spatial transcriptomics and in vivo dopamine reuptake assays to show exactly what this transporter can do. Fun fact: she was a social media manager for a light bulb company.
Daniel Wood
Undergraduate Researcher - University of Cambridge
Daniel is a Cambridge-educated mathematician who is interested in researching the application of image processing software to RNAscope - in particular, the algorithms used in these software, the mathematics behind them, and how they may be optimised. Fun fact about Daniel: when he was a kid he had 10 guinea pigs, and he would try give them "IQ tests" to do. Usually they just ran away. Daniel thinks that by producing a GUI for the RNAscope imaging software, he will make a real-world impact by making the software more accessible and easier to use, removing the requirement of having programming knowledge to use it.