Dr. Sanam Shafaat Talab came to SFU from the University of Tehran, Iran’s premier university to pursue research in Molecular and Cell Biology. Recruited to Dr. Glen Tibbits’ lab, she joined a team of researchers investigating stem cells and cardiac function. Sanam visited Japan to study a technique where skin and blood cells are taken from patients to create stem cells. Bringing this technique back to Canada, Sanam Shafaat Talab was one of the first doctoral students to take skin and blood cells from a patient, turn them into stem cells, which were then reprogrammed into beating heart cells. The impact of this research and Sanam’s techniques have profound possibilities. 

Dr. Shafaat Talab has been busy. She has won numerous awards, has two papers from her dissertation published with positive reviews, and a video of beating heart cells that she made from blood cells reprogramed to stem cells and then differentiated into a specific type of cell received national and international press coverage.

Dr. Glen Tibbits, Sanam’s senior supervisor, is excited by Dr. Shafaat Talab’s work, stating, "The studies in Sanam Shafaat Talab's PhD dissertation required her to independently develop a myriad of technically challenging and cutting edge techniques. In a nutshell, I can state unequivocally that Sanam has almost single handedly moved SFU from the most stagnant of backwaters in stem cell research to the forefront of stem cell derived-cardiomyocyte science in Canada and is already being recognized internationally within a short span of 5 years in an extremely competitive and important field.”

Dr. Sanam Shafaat Talab is currently working as a postdoctoral research fellow at BC Children's Hospital Research Institute.