In Memoriam - Glen F. Tibbits

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Professor Glen Tibbits on Monday, November 10, 2025.

Glen was a Distinguished Professor at SFU with joint appointments in Biomedical Physiology and Kinesiology (BPK), and Molecular Biology and Biochemistry. He was also Co-Director of the Cellular and Regenerative Medicine Centre at the BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute, where his research lab was located, and an Adjunct Professor at the University of British Columbia in the School of Biomedical Engineering, and the Department of Cellular and Physiological Sciences. He served as Department Chair in BPK between 2011-2016, leading efforts to recruit new faculty, and further establish BPK as a leader in research and teaching.

Glen Tibbits was a larger-than-life character. He was an excellent professor in every sense: an incredible scientist, an amazing teacher, and a wonderful mentor and colleague. He was gregarious and fun-loving. He took great joy in hosting barbecues and regular excursions of his lab to Thai restaurants. He had a sharp wit and wicked sense of humour, but was also generous and caring to students, colleagues, and friends. Growing up in Montreal, he developed what became a life-long passion for playing hockey.

As a scientist working in the field of molecular cardiology, Glen was a visionary who set high expectations and worked tirelessly to drive the field forward. He inspired and expected trainees and other faculty to meet a high bar, while generously supporting and helping them to achieve success. He held continuous funding from NSERC and CIHR, collaborated with engineers and cardiologists, and supported numerous other faculty as a co-applicant on grants and as a research mentor. Glen also played prominent roles with the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada (HSFC), where he acted as a committee member, and chaired numerous scientific review sub-committees, ultimately becoming the Chair of the Scientific Review Committees, with consistent involvement with the foundation for almost 20 consecutive years (2003-2022). He also had numerous projects funded by the HSFC culminating in significant advances in our understanding of cardiac diseases. Between 2004-2018, Glen was a Tier I Canada Research Chair (CRC). He utilized the CRC to re-orient his lab in bold new directions for basic and translational research. He learned to reprogram skin cells into stem cells, and to then differentiate those stem cells into heart muscle cell (cardiomyocytes). By introducing sarcomeric protein or ion channel mutations in the stem cells, he examined the mechanisms of inherited arrythmias and tested new pharmacological treatments.

Glen had an incredible passion and dedication for teaching, especially his fourth-year elective in molecular cardiac physiology, which constantly received high enrollment and glowing student reviews. Students found him interesting, funny, and inspiring. He challenged students to be informed, rigorous, and creative. To Glen’s delight, students often rose to meet that challenge. 

We became aware in Feb 2024 that Glen was diagnosed with ALS. The manner in which Glen continued to pursue his work was amazing. He regarded his work - and especially training his graduate students - as a top priority. He continued to apply successfully to CIHR, publish papers, and supervise his graduate students to degree completion. Despite his illness progressing, he never stopped meeting and working with his students.

Glen will be sorely missed. But we were incredibly lucky to have him as a friend and a colleague, and to be touched by his excellence, his sense of humour, and his dedication. He truly was an exceptional and special guy.

Glen completed his bachelor’s degree at McGill and his MSc and PhD degrees at UCLA. During his time at UCLA, he developed a profound curiosity around the electrical and contractile properties of the heart. Supported with an American Heart Association Post-Doctoral Fellowship, he studied cardiac pharmacology in Niigata, Japan in year one, and cardiac biophysics at the UCLA School of Medicine in year two. He was then appointed as Assistant Professor of Pediatric Cardiology at UCLA. Two years later, he took a tenure track position at the University of Washington. When a faculty position opened at Simon Fraser University in 1985, he chose to return to Canada after an absence of 15 years. At SFU, he was appointed as full Professor in 1992 and a Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in Molecular Cardiac Physiology from 2004-2018. The field of personalized medicine of cardiac diseases was undergoing a complete metamorphosis in this period. Glen embraced and helped to pioneer transformative techniques to understand the genetic basis of cardiac disease. These included technologies for converting any somatic cell within the body to a stem cell (hiPSC); genome editing of these cells (using CRISPR Cas9) to replicate disease causing genetic variants; and conversion of stem cells to beating heart cells (hiPSC-CMs). For the last decade, his research focused on use of these and other cutting-edge technologies to better understand inherited cardiac arrhythmias and cardiomyopathies. Glen led the development and was Co-director of the Cellular and Regenerative Medicine Centre (CRMC) at the BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute, a state-of-the-art facility for generating and phenotyping hiPSC-derived cardiomyocytes and pancreatic beta cells. His leadership led to major advances by his research team, and by many others who utilize the CRMC, in the development of better diagnoses and treatments for patients with genetic variants that cause these life-threatening cardiac diseases.