Harvard Catalyst Profiles

University of Toronto	Ph.D	12/2016	Biomedical Engineering
McGill University	B.Eng.	06/2009	Chemical and Biomedical Engineering

Dr. Mark Blaser obtained his Bachelor of Engineering (Chemical Engineering – Minor in Biomedical Engineering, 2009) from McGill University. He completed his Ph.D (Biomedical Engineering, 2016) at the University of Toronto in the laboratory of Professor Craig Simmons, where he was a CIHR Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholar. During his Ph.D, he also spent time as a Michael Smith Visiting Scholar at the University of California - Irvine with Professor Arash Kheradvar. His doctoral dissertation was titled “The Role of C-type Natriuretic Peptide Signaling in Aortic Valve Disease”, and won the 2017 John Leyerle-CIFAR Prize for the best interdisciplinary research at the University of Toronto.

Mark joined the CICS in 2017 as a postdoctoral research fellow in Professor Elena Aikawa’s research group. He is working to identify insights into and treatments for calcific aortic valve disease, particularly in the context of congenital valve malformations that drive accelerated valvular pathogenesis.

• Heart Valve Diseases
• Vascular Biology
• Biomedical Engineering