Dr. Philip Nickerson

Having completed a PhD at Dalhousie University in Anatomy and Neuroscience, I have trained cost-to-coast within Canada, and have occupied positions in Academic, Institutional and Private Industry environments. Following my PhD, I occupied a sabbatical replacement position at the rank of Assistant Professor for one year (Statistics and Neuroscience), before moving to a Postdoctoral Fellowship with Dr. Bob Chow (Developmental Biology), and then Dr. Perry Howard (Biochemistry) at University of Victoria (BC). Moving to a Research Associate position in the Division of Neurosurgery (Halifax, NS), I developed and ran a research program in CNS injury, and established the first industry partnership in the Life Science Research Institute, including an appointment as a Senior Scientist with a local biotech company. Moving to Toronto to work with Dr. Valerie Wallace, I oversaw the photoreceptor transplant team, and occupied a senior role within the lab. Our team made significant contributions to the to the field of transplantation and neural development, and spearheaded the growth of imaging infrastructure (I.e. Light sheet and multiphoton microscopes) through grant writing, training personnel and developing new techniques. I maintain scientific memberships and perform peer review for a number of neurobiological journals. As a scientific liaison within the Ontario scientific community, I work with Foundation Fighting Blindness and other philanthropic agencies and participate in public talks and vision science education. Throughout my PhD, postdoc and recent positions as an RA, I have acquired considerable expertise in the development and deployment of live and fixed specimen imaging techniques. I developed modernized approaches for tissue clearing that are compatible with brain, spinal cord and retinal tissues, and have adapted these preparations to light sheet, multiphoton and confocal imaging instruments in the Wallace lab. Most recently, I occupied a teaching-intensive position at the Assistant Professor level at Nipissing University in the Department of Biology. This role allowed me to develop and teach courses in Molecular & Cellular Biology, Regenerative Medicine, Biostatistics, Immunology, Human Biology and Biochemistry, and Vertebrate Zoology.