Philip Nickerson portrait

Dr. Philip Nickerson

Biography

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.

Positions

Faculty of Arts and Science - Biology and Chemistry and Geography - Biology and Chemistry

Education

Publications

Ortin-Martinez A, Yan N, Tsai EL, Comanita L, Gurdita A, Tachibana N, Liu ZC, Lu S, Dolati P, Pokrajac N, El-Sehemy A, Nickerson PE, Bremner R, Wallace VA. Transfer of intracellular material between neurons is mediated by Rho GTPase-regulated neurite extension. EMBO. IF = 13.78 

Gurdita A*, Nickerson PE*, Pokrajac N, Ortín-Martínez A., Tsai ELS, Comanita L, Dolati P, Tachibana N, Liu ZC, Chen D, Pearson J, Bremner R, Wallace VA. InVision: An optimized tissue clearing approach for three-dimensional imaging and analysis of intact rodent eyes. iScience – Cell Press. IF = 6.107 

Delplace V, Nickerson PEB, Ortin-Martinez AO, Baker A, Wallace VA, Shoichet MS. Non-swelling, ultra-low content inverse electron demand Diels-Alder hyaluronan hydrogels with tunable gelation time: synthesis and in vitro evaluation. Advanced Functional Materials. IF = 19.92 

Tsai ELS, Ortin-Martinez A, Gurdita A, Comanita L, Smiley S, Nickerson PE**, Wallace VA**. Modeling of photoreceptor donor/host interaction following transplantation reveals a role for Crx, Müller glia and Rho/ROCK signaling in neurite outgrowth (2019). Stem Cells. IF = 6.277 

O’Sullivan CO*, Nickerson PEB*, Krupke O, Christie J, Chen L, Mesa-Peres M, Zhu M, Chow RL, Howard PL. ARS2 is required for retinal progenitor cell S-phase progression and Müller glial cell fate specification (2018). Biochemistry and Cell Biology. IF = 3.73 

Nickerson PE, Ortin-Martinez A, Wallace VA. Material exchange in photoreceptor transplantation: updating our understanding of donor/host communication and the future of cell engraftment science (2018). Frontiers in Neural Circuits. IF = 3.492 

Tassew NG, Charish J, Shabanzadeh AP, Luga V, Harada H, Banerjee P, Vigouroux R, Ellaban A, Nickerson PE, Wallace VA, Koeberle PD, Wrana JL, Monnier PP. Exosomes Promote Axonal Regeneration in the Injured Central Nervous System (2017). Cell Reports. IF = 9.995 

Ortin-Martinez A*, Tsai S*, Nickerson PE*, Bergeret M, Lu Y, Smiley S, Comanita L, Wallace VA. A re-interpretation of cell transplantation: GFP transfer from donor to host photoreceptors (2016). Stem Cells. IF = 6.277 

Campbell C, Beug S, Nickerson PE, Peng J, Mazerolle C, Bassett E, Ringuette R, Jama F, Morales C, Wallace VA. Sortilin is a Negative Regulator of Sonic Hedgehog Processing and Anterograde Trafficking in Neurons (2016). Journal of Cell Science. IF = 5.235 

Smiley S, Nickerson PE, Comanita L, Daftarian N, El-Sehemy A, Tsai S, Matan-Lithwick S, Yan K, Thurig S, Touahri Y, Dixit R, Aavani T, De Repentingy Y, Baker A, Tsilfidis C, Biernaskie J, Sauve Y, Schuurmans C, Kothary R, Mears A, Wallace VA. Establishment of a cone photoreceptor