(left to right) Patrick Budylowski, Ashley Campbell, Julien Couture-Senecal, James Zhu
March 14, 2025
By Sunitha Chari
Today the University of Toronto’s Emerging & Pandemic Infections Consortium (EPIC) announced the winners of the 2025 Future Leaders Prizes.
The EPIC Future Leaders Prizes are $5,000 cash prizes, awarded to PhD graduates who defended an excellent infectious disease-related thesis in 2024. This year, applications came in from across three different faculty divisions and two hospital partners, and winners were selected based on the scientific excellence of their research and their demonstrated leadership skills such as mentoring, communication, innovation and entrepreneurship.
“This award celebrates the outstanding trainees that we have in our community and highlights the diversity of expertise required to tackle infectious disease-related problems,” says Scott Gray-Owen, EPIC’s academic director and professor of molecular genetics, Temerty Faculty of Medicine.
“We are proud to support these four young investigators in the next step in their careers, and we look forward to seeing their future innovations and watching them become established as leaders in this important field.”
Get to know the awardees of the 2025 Future Leaders Prizes below.
Patrick Budylowski, Unity Health Toronto, Temerty Faculty of Medicine
A main challenge towards developing a cure for HIV/AIDS is the persistence of the HIV reservoir – a collection of host cells infected with dormant HIV- which cannot be detected by the immune system. Unique surface proteins present on these latently infected cells could provide valuable clues towards identifying and eliminating them, but not much is known about which surface proteins indicate latent HIV infected cells.
Supervised by Mario Ostrowski, professor of immunology, Temerty Medicine and a clinician scientist at Unity Health Toronto, Patrick Budylowski began his PhD research investigating these surface protein profiles. Through this work, which was done in collaboration with Goetz Ehrhardt, associate professor of immunology, Temerty Medicine, Budylowski identified 25 previously unknown proteins present specifically on latently infected cells. The findings of this research will inform strategies to detect HIV reservoirs and target methods to eradicate them.
While work on his HIV project was ongoing, the COVID-19 pandemic happened, necessitating Budylowski to pivot his research to focus on SARS-CoV-2. Working in Toronto’s High Containment Facility, he developed an assay to detect SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in the blood and measure their effectiveness against viral infections. Another notable contribution from his research was the validation of a broad acting mRNA vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 variants of interest, in partnership with Providence Therapeutics, which has since successfully passed phase 2 clinical trials.
In his current role as a postdoctoral fellow in the Ostrowski lab, Budylowski continues his work on emerging viral pathogens, including new SARS-CoV-2 and influenza virus variants, findings from which could lead to the development of pan-coronavirus vaccines and novel influenza vaccines.
“As a future leader, I believe I should be adaptable to ever changing situations so I can stay ahead of viral threats to keep the public safe. Now that COVID-19 has taken a step back, I am focusing on highly pathogenic influenza, the new and current threat.”
Patrick Budylowski, 2025 EPIC Future Leaders Prize recipient
Ashley Campbell, U of T, Temerty Faculty of Medicine
Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is a herpesvirus that infects about 90% of people worldwide. EBV hijacks several host cellular processes to establish and maintain infection, and investigating these mechanisms is important to understanding methods of viral infection.
For her PhD work with Lori Frappier, professor of molecular genetics, Temerty Medicine, Ashley Campbell focused on the mechanisms by which EBV manipulates cellular microRNAs (miRNAs) during infection. miRNAs are small RNA molecules that regulate the process of protein production.
Campbell’s research identified novel mechanisms by which EBV proteins control miRNA levels and promote viral lytic infection cycle – the process by which EBV replicates inside a host cell and releases infectious viral particles to infect surrounding cells. The research findings have opened a new area of looking at dysregulated miRNAs and their association with EBV infection.
Outside her scientific contributions, Campbell is actively involved in teaching and mentoring undergraduate and graduate students. Her achievements in teaching were recognized by the department of molecular genetics when she received the competitive Dr. Louis Siminovitch Catalyst Award in 2023.
As the next step in her career, Campbell has begun her postdoctoral training with Lori Frappier, where she continues her research on miRNAs in EBV infection. She is also an instructor for an undergraduate course, where she teaches viral classification and biology and the social impacts of viral infections.
“The field of microbiology needs researchers and leaders to train upcoming microbiologists and prepare them for the new challenges ahead. This award has allowed me to connect research and teaching and help prepare future leaders in the field.”
Ashely Campbell, 2025 EPIC Future Leaders Prize recipient
Julien Couture-Senecal, U of T, Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering
While the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the effectiveness of mRNA vaccines to provide immunity against SARS-CoV-2 infections, further establishing their safety profiles and improving efficacy of the vaccines can broaden their applicability to other emerging threats.
To improve the effectiveness of mRNA vaccines, Julien Couture-Senecal and his supervisor Omar Khan, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, U of T, focused their research efforts on optimizing the chemistry of lipid nanoparticles. Lipid nanoparticles are the outer shell of mRNA vaccines and envelope the mRNA molecules to transport them into cells.
Collaborating with a diverse group of academic and industry scientists, Couture-Senecal designed novel ionizable lipids and showed that these lipids greatly enhanced the ability of LNPs to deliver mRNA inside cells and boost antigen production. These LNPs also worked as potent adjuvants and elicited a robust T-cell immune response, which had previously been modest with mRNA vaccines. Furthermore, they could be rapidly degraded, minimizing the time these lipids would stay in the body.
Outside of his lab work, Couture-Senecal has also demonstrated a knack for entrepreneurial undertaking, and he is the co-owner of Azane Therapeutics, a company focused on the commercialization of the ionizable lipids developed during his doctoral research.
Now a postdoctoral fellow in Bradley Pentelute’s lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Couture-Senecal is building on his doctoral research by developing LNPs capable of delivering vaccines to specific immune cells to improve the broad immune responses to mRNA vaccines. The findings of this research have implications in adapting mRNA vaccines to new and emerging infectious threats.
“Current vaccines are not designed to target specific immune cells. Building on my PhD work focused on enhancing mRNA vaccine efficacy, one of my goals during my postdoctoral research is to design synthetic peptides that enable more precise delivery of mRNA vaccines to immune cells.”
Julien Couture-Senecal, 2025 EPIC Future Leaders Prize recipient
Hongxian (James) Zhu, The Hospital for Sick Children, Temerty Faculty of Medicine
Salmonella is a gastrointestinal (GI) pathogen and the cause the foodborne illness salmonellosis. To establish infection, Salmonella enters GI cells by manipulating the outer membrane of the cell, also known as plasma membrane. However, the mechanisms by which bacteria cross the plasma membrane are not well known.
Working with John Brumell, professor of molecular genetics, Temerty Medicine, at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), James Zhu discovered a novel mechanism by which certain Salmonella proteins inactivate RAB10 – a key cellular protein involved in restructuring the plasma membrane. This disruption of membrane maintenance facilitates bacterial entry into host cells and helps explain how bacteria cross the plasma membrane barrier.
In his present role as a postdoctoral fellow in David Artis’s lab at Weill Cornell Medicine, Zhu is leveraging his research expertise to investigate the interactions between immune cells in the gut and breakdown products of microbial metabolism, called microbial metabolites and develop methods for the detection of pathogenic gut microbes.
Zhu is also recognized as a 2025 EPIC Future Leader for his commitment to promote Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) in science. He has served as a member of the LGBTQ+ committee of ASCB (American Society of Cell Biology) and promoted LGBTQ+ visibility and inclusion in STEM. He has also volunteered his time working with vulnerable minority communities towards preventing the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.
“The EPIC Future Leaders Award reinforces my commitment to exploring how balance and disturbance between the body and gut microbes shape health. I aim to uncover strategies to sustain this balance and enhance well-being.”
James Zhu, 2025 EPIC Future Leaders Prize recipient