Dr. David Andrews is Director of and Senior Scientist in Biological Sciences at Sunnybrook Research Institute (SRI). He holds a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Membrane Biogenesis. His research comprises, the molecular mechanisms by which Bcl-2 family proteins regulate apoptosis, early stage drug discovery, high-content screening and development of new microscopes for fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM) and hyperspectral imaging. Dr. Andrews’ lab uses fluorescence spectroscopy and fluorescence spectroscopic microscopy to study interactions between proteins in membranes using purified proteins, and in live cells. To study cancer, they use primary patient cells grown as 3D organoids for drug screening. At SRI, he has established a facility for image-based high-content cellular analysis that includes instrumentation for automated imaging and analysis of cells in monolayer and 3D cultures, genome scale gene knockdown and screening of libraries of small molecules. In early stage drug discovery research, his lab has identified and characterized small molecules that have applications to cancer and regenerative medicine.

Dr. Andrews is active in the public and private sector. He is a member of several editorial boards, including BMC Molecular and Cell Biology and Cell Death and Differentiation. His lab has collaborated with a number of pharmaceutical companies including Abbott, ABBVIE, Celgene, Eli Lilly, Genentech, Johnson and Johnson, and Novartis. Dr. Andrews is developing a new generation of automated high-speed hyperspectral FLIM confocal and new AI driven software for automated analysis of fluorescence micrographs of cells. FLIM is used to measure protein-protein interactions in live cells. Automated microscopy and machine learning tools are being applied to develop new personalized medicine approaches for diseases including chronic lymphocytic leukemia, ovarian cancer and breast cancer.