Emanuela Pannia, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Program of Genetics & Genomic Biology
The Hospital for Sick Children

Dr. Emanuela Pannia has received interdisciplinary research training using pre-clinical models in the areas of Behaviour Genetics, Nutritional Sciences and Molecular Genetics from the University of Toronto. Her graduate studies were completed under the guidance of Dr. Harvey Anderson where she showed that inadequate intakes of methyl nutrients during pregnancy are modifiers of central (brain) and peripheral (liver, muscle) energy regulatory pathways in both the mother and offspring, thereby defining a novel concept of maternal and fetal programming by vitamins. In parallel to her graduate training, she worked at the Zebrafish Genetics and Disease Model Core Facility at The Hospital for Sick Children, which is directed and co-founded by Dr. Jim Dowling. Here, she collaborated to create zebrafish that accurately model a wide range of rare genetic diseases. As well, she pioneered the zebrafish model to advance the understanding of folate-gene interactions during embryogenesis. She is currently a second-year Post-doc in Dr. Dowling’s lab in the Program of Genetics & Genomic Biology at SickKids with a project focus on determining the environmental modifiers of liver disease in X-linked myotubular myopathy (XLMTM), a rare and fatal childhood muscle disorder that at present has no approved therapies. Specifically, she aims to understand how nutritional, pharmacotherapy and gene therapies can be combined to protect against liver disease in XLMTM patients, the findings of which may be extended for personalized treatment interventions to the entire rare and non-communicable metabolic disease community.