Matthew Pamenter, Ph.D.

Canada Research Chair (NSERC Tier 2) in Comparative Neurophysiology

Matt received his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto (2003-2008), where he studied neural mechanisms of anoxia-tolerance in turtle brain in the Buck lab. He then travelled to California to undertake a postdoctoral fellowship in the Haddad lab at UCSD (2008-2012), where he studied mechanisms of ischemic cell death in mammalian stroke models. In 2012, Matt began a second postdoctoral fellowship, split between the Powell lab at UCSD and the Milsom lab at UBC (2012-2015), studying neural plasticity in the hypoxic ventilatory response of rodents, including the naked mole rat.

Matt is broadly interested in how hypoxia-tolerant animals have evolved to survive in low-oxygen environments. His primary focus is on the underlying neural mechanisms of hypoxia-tolerance, with a specific interest in how brain cells survive with little to no oxygen and how neural networks control physiological responses to hypoxia.

Cécile Baldy, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Fellow

Originally from France, Dr. Baldy completed her Ph.D. in neurobiology in the Richard Kindead’s laboratory at Université Laval. Her dissertation examined the laryngeal chemoreflex in rat pups. At uOttawa, she is studying the neurophysiological mechanisms that protect African naked mole rats in their chronically hypoxic habitat.

Daniel Munro, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Fellow

Daniel completed his doctoral thesis on the mitochondrial determinants of animal longevity using the longest-lived metazoan, the marine clam Arctica islandica, in Dr Pierre Blier’s laboratory in Rimouski, Québec. He then continued to tackle the link between mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (ROS) and longevity for two years in the laboratory of Dr Jason Treberg at the University of Manitoba. Daniel is now interested in delineating the mitochondrial adaptations to hypoxia from those related to longevity. His work concentrates at the level of the architecture of the electron transport system and the metabolism of ROS (production and elimination), in a comparative approach using the naked-mole rat and other models.

Lisa Borecky

M.Sc. Student

Chau Nguyen

B.Sc. Student

Kenny Huynh

B.Sc. Student 

Amanda Zhu-Pawlowsky

B.Sc. Student 

Max Clayson

B.Sc. Student (2016-2017)

Project title: The role of carbonic anhydrase in modulating metabolic and ventilatory responses to hypercapnia in naked mole-rats

Chelsea Houlahan

B.Sc. Student (2016-2017)

Project title: The effects of hypoxia on the behavioural and thermoregulatory huddling responses of the naked mole rat

Sulaf Elkhalifa

B.Sc. Student (2016-2017)

Project title: Behavioural and thermal responses to hypercapnia in naked mole-rats

Aaron Ilacqua

B.Sc. Student (2015-2016)

Project title: Behavioural and thermal responses of individual naked mole rats to environmental hypoxia within their thermoneutral zone

Garrett Fairman

NSERC USRA student (summer 2016)

Sharn Gill

B.Sc. Student (2015-2016)

Project title: Exploring the role of glutamatergic receptors in the control of ventilatory responses to acute and chronic hypoxia in naked mole rats