An acknowledged world thought leader and scientific authority on muscle stem cell function and their role in muscle regeneration. In a landmark 2007 Cell paper, Dr. Rudnicki was the first to define and characterize a subpopulation as bona fide multipotent stem cells in muscle tissue capable of both self renewal and regeneration, called muscle stem cells or satellite cells. Building on this seminal work, Dr. Rudnicki has established a continuous record of foundational findings and discoveries spanning a 25-year research career. In so doing, he has transformed the field’s understanding of the nature and role muscle stem cells play in the lifelong repair and growth processes of skeletal muscle, the body’s largest organ.

Of extraordinary significance, Dr. Rudnicki and his team made the breakthrough in identification of dystrophin’s signaling role in orienting muscle stem cells to divide asymmetrically to produce muscle progenitor cells (Nature Medicine 2015). This seminal discovery transforms the classical understanding of Duchenne muscle dystrophy as a disease of muscle fragility to a new paradigm in which defective muscle regeneration can be seen as a root cause of the progressive muscle loss experienced by patients living with Duchenne. These findings offer new hope for the development of an entirely novel therapeutic approach to treating Duchenne and possibly other incurable and fatal muscle disorders.

Currently, Dr. Rudnicki is the Scientific Director of the Canadian Stem Cell Network, Director of the Regenerative Medicine Program at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, a Professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Ottawa, and an Associate Editor of the Journal of Cell Biology. He has published more than 200 scientific articles and authored 14 patents. Dr. Rudnicki’s contributions have been recognized with numerous honours including being named a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair, a Fellow of both the Royal Society and the Royal Society of Canada, a past International Research Scholar of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and an Officer of the Order of Canada. Dr. Rudnicki received his Ph.D. at the University of Ottawa and trained at the postdoctoral level at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Whitehead Institute under Dr. Rudolf Jaenisch.