MEET THE TEAM

Current Members

**Ashwini Pugazhendhi:** Bachelor of Health Sciences

**Samridhi Sharma :** Biomedical Discovery and Commercialization

**Ally Zhao:** Bachelor of Health Sciences

Ashwini is a 3rd year Bachelor of Health Sciences student in the Ratcliffe Lab. Her research project explores the expression of cannabinoid receptors in dopaminergic neurons in the fetal and early postnatal intestine. She is involved in several ongoing projects at the Ratcliffe Lab as a Lab Assistant.

Samridhi is a fourth-year thesis student in the Ratcliffe Lab. Her project explores the interaction between CB1 and enteric glial cells in adult gut tissues to inform developmental outcomes associated with prenatal cannabis exposure.

Ally completed her thesis with the FiNCH project and is working on this project over the summer. She is looking into developing a collection pipeline in looking at the feasibility of collection/analyzing biological samples for cannabis exposure.

Our Alumni

Maria Sunil

M.Sc. Candidate
Maria is a M.Sc. student in the Ratcliffe lab investigating the impacts of in utero cannabis exposure on the development of the GI endocannabinoid system and enteric nervous system. In addition to this, she is currently mapping out normal development of the endocannabinoid system in the gastrointestinal tract.
Kavina Uthayakumaran

Biomedical Discovery and Commercialization
Kavina is a fourth-year thesis student in the Ratcliffe Lab. Her research project explores the interactions between axon guidance molecules, namely netrin-1, and the endocannabinoid system in the developmental programming of the gut-brain axis. By better understanding these interactions, some of the observed neurodevelopmental defects from exogenous cannabis exposure may be explained.
Jasjeet Chhoker

Honors Biology
Jasjeet is a fourth-year thesis student. Her project will be exploring the expression of cannabinoid receptors in enteric glial cells in adult tissues and the developmental timeline of receptor expression in fetal/early postnatal tissues.

Mahnoor Adnan

Biomedical Discovery and Commercialization, McMaster University
Sophia Farcas

Bachelor of Health Sciences, McMaster University
Jennifer Ma

Integrated Sciences, McMaster University
Eileen Tang

Bachelor of Health Sciences