Przemyslaw Sapieha, PhD

Mike (Przemyslaw) Sapieha is the Wolfe Professors in Translational Vision Research at the University of Montreal and holds the Canada Research Chair in Retinal Cell Biology. His work focuses on identifying novel, druggable mechanisms for retinal vascular diseases such as age-related macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy. To date, fundamental work from his lab has been translated and is currently in distinct clinical trials. His lab has published articles in journals such as Science, Cell Metabolism, Science Translational Medicine, Journal of Clinical Investigation, PNAS and more. He is the founder of the biotech company SemaThera Inc and the Chief Scientific Advisor of UNITY Biotechnology in San Francisco. Mike previously served as the director of vision research at the Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital Research Centre in Montreal and later the interim director of the Center. He received the 2019 Cogan Award from the Association for Research and Vision and Ophthalmology and the 2020 Alcon Senior Investigator Award. In 2018, he was elected to the College of the Royal Society of Canada.