2025-12-07. Keaton will present his research titled “Sex-Specific effects of maternal smoking during pregnancy on cell-free placental DNA methylation” at the Society of Toxocology of Canada Annual Symposium.
2025-09-10. Mel’s paper titled “Meta-analysis examining fetal sex-specific placental DNA methylation intensities and estimated cell composition post in vitro fertilization” was published in Molecular Human Reproduction.
2025-05-30. Kriesha will present her recent work titled “Investigating the differential DNA methylation of lipid-related genes in preeclampsia” at the Southern Ontario Reproductive Biology Meeting being hosted at McMaster University.
2025-05-28. Congratulations to our MSc student, Natalie, for being awarded a CGS-M for the 2025-2026 academic year!
2025-05-07. Mel will present her recent work titled “Investigating the association of fetal sex on hypertensive pregnancy outcomes across varying conception types: a retrospective cohort study” at RT Weaver Research Day.
2025-05-02. Congratulations to Mel for being awarded CGS-D for 2025 - 2028!
2025-05-01. Congratulations to Mel for successfully transferring to the Medical Science PhD program!
2025-05-01. Welcome back to Kriesha for joining our lab as a Co-op student!
2025-04-10. Congratulations to our MSc student, Keaton, for being awarded a CGS-M for the 2025-2026 academic year!
2025-04-09. Congratulations to our fourth year thesis students, Kriesha and Dina, for defending their thesis work at the Biochemistry Research Day!
2025-04-02. Congratulations to our undergraduate student, Kriesha Eyer, for being awarded an NSErC URSA for her research in the lab over the summer!
2025-01-06. Laiba’s paper titled “Distinct DNA Methylation Signatures in Maternal Blood Reveal Unique Immune Cell Shifts in Preeclampsia and the Pregnancy-Postpartum Transition” is now posted on biorxiv.
2024-12-09. Natalie, Mel, and Sam are authors on a new review in PLOS Genetics titled “Cell-free placental DNA: What do we really know?”
2024-08-22. Check out Mel’s interview on “The Science Pawcast”, where she discusses her work in the lab!
2024-08-09. Mel’s manuscript is posted on biorxiv! Examining Fetal Sex-Specific Placental DNA Methylation Intensities and Variability Post In Vitro Fertilization
2024-07-29. Welcome to our new Mitacs Intern, Sylvia Fan! She will be completing a 3 month internship in the lab.
2024-07-11. Melanie and Keaton will be presenting their most recent work at the upcoming International Federation of Placenta Associations Meeting in Montreal, September 2 - 6th, 2024.
2024-06-03. The lab has received a New Frontiers in Research Exploration Grant to develop cellular models of placental dysfunction using placenta-on-a-chip model in collaboration with Dr. Boyang Zhang and Dr. Sandy Raha.
2024-05-15. Congratulations to Mel for winning best oral presentation by a graduate student at this year’s R.T Weaver Research Day!
2024-04-12. Melanie and Keaton will be presenting their recent work at the upcoming RT Weaver Research Day on May 15th 2024.
2024-04-11. Congratulations to Ananya for successfully defending her 4th year thesis project looking at sex differences in cell-free DNA!
2024-04-10. Congratulations to Keaton and Natalie for being accepted the the Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program. They will be starting their Graduate work in the lab this fall!
2024-04-01. Congratulations to Melanie for being awarded a Canadian Institutes of Health Research Masters Student Award (CGS-M)!
2024-03-19. Melanie will be presenting her work investigating the relationship between placental DNA methylation changes and IVF at McMaster University’s Medical Science Research Day.
2024-03-16. Sam will present Laiba and Keaton’s work at the 2024 Society of Reproductive Investigation Meeting in Vancouver Canada. The poster presentation is titled “Maternal Immune Cell Composition Differs with Preeclampsia.”
2024-03-01. The lab has received a CIHR Operating Grant: Data Analysis Using Existing Databases and Cohorts to investigate sex-specific predictive models of preeclampsia using cell-free DNA.
2024-02-28. Congratulations to our Undergraduate Students, Keaton Smith and Spring Wang, for defending their honours theses!
2023-11-23. The lab has received a SickKids-CIHR New Investigator Research Grant to investigate tissue-specific DNA methylation profiles in cell-free DNA in association with preeclampsia.
2023-11-16. Sam will be giving a talk title “Non-invasive epigenomic methods and characterization of placental dysfunction” at the upcoming Canadian Epigenetics, Environment, and Health Research Consortium Network Meeting in Banff, Canada.
2023-10-16. The lab’s work was featured by McMaster as part of a new “Office Hours” series. Learn about the work in our lab here
2023-10-03. The lab has received a SEED grant from the Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society to investigate the impact of preimplantation genetic testing on subsequent placental development.
2023-09-22. The lab has received funding from the J.P Bickell Foundation to investigate changes in immune cell composition in preeclampsia!
2023-09-18. Welcome Melanie, Ananya, and Spring to the Lab! Melanie is joining us as our very first graduate student, and Ananya and Spring are starting their 4th year theses. Check out the team page for details about their research.
2023-08-24. Keaton will be presenting at the September Canadian Placental Seminar Series. His talk will focus on his recent work assessing the effects of maternal cigarette smoking on the placenta.
2023-05-16. Sam will be presenting at the IFPA 2023 meeting, September 5th - 8th in Rotorua, New Zealand, as part of the Integrated approaches to detecting pregnancy pathologies workship. Her talk is titled “Second trimester cell-free placental DNA methylation profiles in preterm birth subtypes.”
2023-05-01. Welcome to the new Wilson Pregnancy Lab members! Keaton and Simon will be joining the lab as coop students, and Natalie will be continuing in the lab as a coop student. Laiba will be joining the lab for the summer to gain computational skills for her indpendent learning course. Check out the team page to learn more about their projects.
2023-04-14. Congratulations to Mehroop for winning best thesis presentation in her session at the Biology Undergraduate Research Day!
2023-04-13. Ahmed and Mehroop present their fourth year theses at the Biochemistry Undergraduate Research Day and Biology Research Day, respectfully.
2023-03-24. Sam will be a speaker at the Society of Birth Defects Research and Prevention Meeting that will be in Charleston, SC, USA, June 24 - 28th, 2023. Her talk is titled “Epigenomic Techniques and Machine Learning Approaches to Predict Pregnancy Complications.”
2023-03-23. Sam is co-author on a paper titled “Characterization of methylation profiles in spontaneous preterm birth placental villous tissue”
2022-09-19. New students, Ahmed Berih, Mehroop Randhawa, and Nataie Yuen join the lab.
2022-09-19. The “Sensitive and reproducible cell-free methylome quantification with synthetic spike-in controls” publication is now available online at Cell Reports Methods
2022-08-19. The Wilson Pregnancy Lab has received funding from the Preeclampsia Foundation Vision Grant for the study “Non-invasively assessing placental aging and oxidative stress as markers for preeclampsia”. The press release for the grant can be found here.
2022-07-01. The Wilson lab has officially opened at McMaster University in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. To kick off the lab, the official Wilson Pregnancy Lab logo is here!