Drew DeBay
PhD candidate in Anatomy and Neurobiology
I think there is limitless potential for brain imaging in the future that will, without question, have monumental impact on our healthcare system. This is very inspiring to me.
Supervisor
Why Dal?
Dalhousie has a really strong medical research community. I’m also a Halgonian (born and raised—so I’m a bit biased) but I love this city!
Why medical neuroscience?
The Department of Medical Neuroscience has some fantastic mentors and research programs underway currently. My research with Dr. Darvesh focuses on developing improved neuroimaging approaches to aid in the early, definitive diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. This will ultimately help direct treatment strategies that may eventually lead to a cure for the disease.
Medical neuroscience has provided me with unique training and the opportunity to apply my previous background in engineering to help address important, clinically relevant issues in medicine. There’s lots of great things happening in the Department of Medical Neuroscience right now.
What inspires you?
Recent advances in the field of neuroimaging have provided us tremendous (and non-invasive) insight into how the brain functions in health and disease that until now has not been as readily accessible. I think there is limitless potential for brain imaging in the future that will, without question, have monumental impact on our healthcare system. This is very inspiring to me. Music too! I play drums in a few different bands and it’s great to be able to pursue these endeavours to help provide some balance.
Teaching, labs & research groups
- Darvesh Research Group
- Biomedical Translational Imaging Centre (BIOTIC)
- ANAT5217 Neuroanatomy Teaching Assistant
Publications
- MacDonald I.R., DeBay D.R., G.A. Reid, T.P. O’Leary, M. Cash, C.T. Jollymore, G. Mawko, S. Burrell, E. Martin, C.V. Bowen, R.E. Brown, S. Darvesh. Early Detection of Cerebral Glucose Uptake Changes in the 5XFAD mouse. Current Alzheimer’s Research 11(5): 450-460.
- Bowen C.V., DeBay D.R., Stephen Ewert, T. Toney Ilenchuk, Tyler Lutes, Marzia Martina, Geoffrey Mealing, Nadine Merkely, Maria Mareno, Christopher Rice, Ray Syvitsky, J. M. Stewart, and Umar Uqbal Anti-cancer peptides derived from soricidin are antagonists of TRPV6 and useful in the detection of TRPV6-rich tumours by fluorescent and magnetic resonance imaging. PLoS One. 2013;8(3).
- D'Arcy R.C.N., Bardouille T, Newman, AJ, McWhinney SR., DeBay D.R., Sadler RM, Clarke DB, Esser MJ. Spatial MEG Laterality maps for language: Clinical applications in epilepsy. Human Brain Mapping, 2013 Aug; 34(8):1749-60.
- O’Blenes SB, Li AW, Bowen CV, DeBay D.R., Althobhaiti M, Clarke J. Impact of hepatocyte growth factor on skeletal myoblast transplantation late after myocardial infarction. Drug Target Insights 2013:7 9–17.
Awards, honours & conferences
- MITACS Accelerate Studentship
- DMRF Molly Appeal Neuroscience Traineeship
- Brain Repair Centre Research Day: Best Oral Poster Presentation, 2014
- National Research Council of Canada: Outstanding Achievement Award - Community Innovation: Translation of non-invasive technologies to clinical neuroscience and to their commercialization, 2010
- Alzheimer’s Association International Conference & Imaging Consortium, Copenhagen Denmark, 2014