Draft:Paola Marignani

Paola A. Marignani is a scientist and Full Professor at Dalhousie University in the Faculty of Medicine, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. She is best known for her research on the tumor suppressor kinase LKB1, and its role in regulating the chromatin remodeling protein SMARCA4 and modeling metabolic processes in breast and lung cancers.

Biography
Marignani completed her Hon BSc in Biology from the University of Windsor, followed by an MSc in Neurobiology from the University of Western Ontario. She earned her PhD in Cell Biology from McMaster University. Her postdoctoral training took place at Harvard Medical School in the Division of Signal Transduction followed by the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute and the Ontario Cancer Institute in Toronto, Ontario. She also holds an Executive MBA from the Ivey School of Business at Western University, and a Certificate from MIT Sloan School of Management in Artificial Intelligence in Health Care.

Scientific Career
The primary focus of Marignani’s research program is tumor suppressors. Marignani combines technologies such as single-cell transcriptomics and machine learning to interrogate disease processes within the framework of precision medicine discovery pipelines.

Marignani’s early research focused on understanding the molecular changes to signaling molecules resulting from polyunsaturated fatty acid incorporation into lipid membranes. She discovered that the integration of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) into lipid membranes altered diacylglycerol profiles in murine macrophages, which could lead to downstream changes in signaling events.

Marignani is involved in promoting diversity and inclusion in STEM fields. She is the Founder of Canadian Women in STEM, an organization aimed at building a national strategy for equity, diversity, and inclusion in Canada, and provides an accessible network that enables ease of communication among women in STEM.