Assistant Professor
University of Toronto
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Dr. MacDonald is an Assistant Professor at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine in the Department of Physiology at the University of Toronto. She completed her PhD in Human Health and Nutrition at the University of Guelph. She then moved to Joslin Diabetes Center/Harvard Medical School (HMS) for postdoctoral training with Dr. Sarah Lessard and became an Instructor in Medicine at HMS during a subsequent postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Stephan Kissler. During these training periods, she studied the effects of hyperglycemia on skeletal muscle and pancreatic islet function during T1D and T2D, and developed expertise in glucose metabolism, tissue remodelling, stress kinases and stress signalling pathways.
She started her independent group in 2024 to continue studying muscle, islets and their crosstalk with other endocrine organs during T1D and T2D. The lab is currently focused on understanding the molecular relationships that connect cell metabolism to cell maturity to cell function, and how these processes become disrupted in complex multi-cellular organs during diabetes. Her group uses in vitro cell methods and in vivo mouse models to measure molecular mechanisms, and they often assess outcomes related to glucose metabolism, specifically. The lab is supported by grants from the BBDC, NSERC, Stem Cell Network and Breakthrough T1D.
Disclosure(s): I do not have a relationship with a for-profit and/or a not-for-profit organization to disclose
DCS5 - Pancreatic Islet Stress
Thursday, November 27, 2025
10:30 - 11:45 Toronto