People

Dr. Lharbi Dridi (Research Associate)

lharbi.dridi@mcgill.ca

Lharbi Dridi obtained a Ph.D. in Pharmacology at the University Paris XI in 2005, studying the role of the efflux in C. difficile. During his first postdoctoral fellowship at Laval University in Quebec (2006-2009) his research interests focused on Folate and AdoMet transporters in Leishmania and on the bacteriocin activity on C. difficile. From 2009 to 2014 he worked at Ste-Justine Research Center, in Montreal, first as Postdoctoral Fellow and after as associate researcher. He studied the effect of Neuraminidase 1 on the insulin receptor and worked on the characterization of a mouse model of MPS IIIC. In 2015, he joined the Castagner Lab at McGill University, as an Associate Researcher. He developed a metabolic labeling method to study the gut microbiota glycan metabolism. He is also studying the in vivo mechanism of inositol phosphate analogues in a mouse model of C. difficile infection. 

Reilly Pidgeon (Ph.D. Student)

reilly.pidgeon@mail.mcgill.ca

Reilly obtained his Honours Bachelor of Science at McGill University in the Department of Pharmacology & Therapeutics. His current graduate research project aims to discover dietary prebiotics (polyphenols or glycans) that modulate the gut microbiota to improve the response to immune checkpoint inhibitors in cancer. Once identified, he will employ chemical biology tools and next-generation sequencing techniques to understand how prebiotics affect microbial communities. He has received numerous scholarships throughout his undergraduate and master’s degrees. Most recently, he was awarded the Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarship – Master’s, an FRQS scholarship, and a CIHR Canada Graduate Scholarship doctoral award.

Justin Meneses (Ph.D. Student)

justin.meneses@mail.mcgill.ca

Justin obtained his Bachelor of Science (Honours) at Toronto’s Ryerson University in the Chemistry Co-operative program. As an undergraduate, Justin was involved in vaccine manufacturing and process improvement efforts at Sanofi Pasteur for over a year, where his project was awarded an NSERC Industrial Experience Award and the Sanofi Global Innovation Award: Gold Medal. Since then, Justin has gone on to work in research roles at the UCL School of Pharmacy and at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. His current graduate research project aims to design and synthesize inositol phosphate analogs to probe their role in viral assembly.

Catherine Prattico (Ph.D. student)

catherine.prattico@mail.mcgill.ca

Catherine obtained her Bachelor of Science, Honours Microbiology and Immunology at McGill University. She is currently obtaining a Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology in the lab of Dr. Corinne Maurice under the co-supervision of Dr. Bastien Castagner. Her graduate research project is to identify glycan consumers in the human gut microbiota via metabolic labeling paired with fluorescent activated cell sorting. She was awarded a CIHR Canada Graduate Scholarship – Master’s and a Doctoral Training Scholarships from the Fond de Recherche du Québec – Santé (FRQS).

Liam Keogh (Ph.D. Student)

liam.keogh@mail.mcgill.ca

Liam obtained is Bachelor of Science, Honours in Pharmacology at McGill University. He is exploring novel therapeutic approaches against Clostridioides difficile infection. He was awarded a CIHR Canada Graduate Scholarship.

Seyed Ehsan Vasegh (Ph.D. Student)

seyed.vasegh@mail.mcgill.ca

Seyed obtained his Honours Bachelor of Science with high distinction at McGill University in the Department of Pharmacology & Therapeutics. As an undergraduate, Seyed worked in the Department of Chemistry at McGill University, synthesizing thienopyrimidine amino bisphosphonates and antisense oligonucleotide therapeutics. In the Castagner lab, he will be designing and synthesizing inositol phosphate analogues to target C. difficile infection. He is a member of the NSERC CREATE-DFG IRTG Training Program in Polyelectrolyte (PE) Biosystems. He was awarded a NSERC Canada Graduate Scholarship and a McGill Centre de Recherche en Biologie Structurale (CRBS) Scholarship.

Arianna Giurleo (Ph.D. Student)

arianna.giurleo@mail.mcgill.ca

Arianna obtained her Bachelor of Science in Microbiology and Immunology at McGill University. She has previous experience working in the field of neuroimmunology at the Montreal Neurological Institute. In the Castagner Lab, she will be exploring the effects of polyphenols on microbial communities in the gut microbiota as well as characterizing their metabolism by gut bacteria. She was awarded a CIHR Canada Graduate Scholarship.

Zoe Dixon (M.Sc. Student)

zoe.dixon@mail.mcgill.ca

Zoe obtained their Bachelor of Science in Biology from The University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2022, after which they joined the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at UMass Amherst, as part of a year-long postbac research program. Their work explored using different therapeutic approaches to combat toxicant exposure. Primarily, Zoe focused on using polyphenol sulforaphane against perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) exposure.

David Slilaty (M.Sc. Student)

david.slilaty@mail.mcgill.ca

David obtained his Bachelor of Science, honours in biochemistry at Concordia University. His honours thesis work in Dr. David Kwan’s lab focused on glycoengineering immunotherapies, through flow biocatalysis, as well as yeast extracellular vesicles for drug delivery. For his graduate studies, he will be focusing on designing and synthesizing analogs of polyphenols to better study its interactions within the gut microbiome. In collaboration with Dr. Paul Kubes of Queen’s University, he is also designing and synthesizing inhibitors of GATA6+ macrophage-mediated peritoneal adhesion. He is a member of the NSERC CREATE-DFG IRTG Training Program in Polyelectrolyte (PE) Biosystems and was awarded a McGill Centre for Microbiome Research scholarship.

Lilli Wolfart (M.Sc. Student)

elisabeth.wolfart@mail.mcgill.ca

Lilli obtained her Bachelor of Science in Honours Biochemistry at McGill. She worked in nucleolar rDNA repair (Oeffinger lab, IRCM) and then in translational regulation in yeast (Vera Ugalde lab, McGill). She has joined the Castagner Lab as part of her first-year rotations for McGill’s graduate program in Biophysics. She will be investigating the effect of polyphenols on the human gut microbiome.