Michael Rudnicki, O.C., FRSC

Dr. Michael Rudnicki is a Senior Scientist and the Director of the Regenerative Medicine Program and the Sprott Centre for Stem Cell Research at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute. He is Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Ottawa and CEO and Scientific Director of the Canadian Stem Cell Network (SCN). Under his leadership, SCN catalyzed 12 clinical trials, enabled 11 start-up companies, trained over 1,800 highly qualified personnel, incubated several international and Canadian research networks and organizations (e.g. CCRM, Medicine by Design, CellCan), and established the Till & McCulloch Meetings, Canada’s premier stem cell research event.

Dr. Rudnicki is an internationally recognized thought leader in molecular genetics and regenerative medicine whose research has transformed our understanding of muscle development and regeneration, and fueled the development of novel molecular and stem cell based approaches to the treatment of muscular dystrophy and other neuromuscular disorders. With over 200 publications, 13 patents, and an h-index of 79, Dr. Rudnicki’s work has been cited more than 29,000 times. Dr. Rudnicki’s key discovery was the identification and characterization of muscle stem cells. This work pivoted the field towards the study of adult regenerative myogenesis and set the stage for novel molecular and stem cell based approaches to the treatment of muscular dystrophy and other neuromuscular disorders.

Dr. Rudnicki is a member of the editorial boards of Cell Stem Cell, Journal of Cell Biology, and Stem Cells. He is a founding Co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal Skeletal Muscle. Dr, Rudnicki has also organized many international research conferences and was a founding director of the Society for Muscle Biology. He has led large collaborative projects including the Stem Cell Genomics Project ($10M), the International Regulome Consortium ($5.4M), and Novel Therapeutics for Regenerative Medicine ($3.1M) and currently leads an E-Rare-2 Project with investigators from Spain and France. Dr. Rudnicki is a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair, an International Research Scholar of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute for two consecutive terms, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and an Officer of the Order of Canada.

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