Portrait - Behind the scenes with ADI Researchers

Patrick E. MacDonald, PhD

Assistant Professor of Pharmacology
Canada Research Chair in Islet Biology
AHFMR Scholar
CDA Scholar

Patrick MacDonald received his BSc with Honors in Physiology from the University of Western Ontario in 1998. His interest in medical research and endocrinology was kindled by his participation in an undergraduate research project investigating testosterone production. Patrick then pursued graduate research in Physiology at the University of Toronto in the laboratory of Dr. Michael Wheeler. In Toronto, home to groundbreaking work of Banting and Best, Patrick’s interest in understanding insulin production by the pancreas in health and diabetes took root. Patrick completed his PhD in 2003, publishing many scientific papers examining the control of insulin secretion islet electrical activity. For this work he won numerous awards, including the George I. Ellis Memorial Award, the J. Denis McGarry Prize, and prestigious studentships from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the National Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC).

Patrick’s PhD work led to several offers for postdoctoral fellowships to continue his research. Patrick accepted a position at Lund University in Sweden, where he moved with his wife Rhonda and newborn daughter Mae in 2003. Here Patrick held a CIHR postdoctoral fellowship and obtained his first independent research grant from the Novo Nordisk Foundation of Denmark. The group moved to a new laboratory at the University of Oxford in 2005, where Patrick’s son Jack was born in early 2006. Patrick was awarded the prestigious European Association for the Study of Diabetes Fellowship in Islet Biology. Patrick’s research in Europe resulted in several key research findings about how pancreatic islets produce insulin and another hormone called glucagon. This led ultimately to the offer of an independent faculty position at the University of Alberta back home in Canada after only three years of postdoctoral training.

Patrick joined the University of Alberta and the Alberta Diabetes Institute (ADI) in the summer of 2006, and obtained research support from the Alberta Diabetes Foundation (ADF) and CIHR and prestigious salary awards including Scholarships from the Canadian Diabetes Association and Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research, and the Canada Research Chair in Islet Biology. Patrick’s lab moved into the ADI facilities in the Li Ka Shing Centre in November of 2007. His group has grown to include 10-13 individuals ranging from undergraduate students to senior Research Associates (depending on the time of year). Research success has continued, as the MacDonald group consistently publishes significant scientific work in top journals examining insulin and glucagon production, and enjoys an international reputation as world experts in the field. Indeed, the MacDonald group’s expertise is consistently in demand by research collaborators around the world, including both academia and industry.

While his own research career and independent research group have had success, Patrick has been active in assembling a team of world-leading scientists at the ADI with the goal to study and understand human insulin secretion. His ultimate goal is to extend and promote research that leads to a better understanding of how insulin is produced (and how this process fails) in human health and diabetes. In this way, better approaches can be developed for the treatment and prevention of diabetes.

Please visit The Alberta Diabetes Institute - Patrick MacDonald for more information.