Pere Santamaria

Dr. Santamaria holds both an MD and PhD from University of Barcelona, Spain, and completed post-doctoral studies at the University of Minnesota prior to joining the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Calgary as Assistant Professor in 1992. He is an internationally recognized immunologist specialized in type-1 diabetes and Julia McFarlane Diabetes Research Chair and Professor at the Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary. Dr. Santamaria has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals, demonstrating that Navacims can reprogram disease- or tissue-specific cells to enhance the regulatory functioning of the immune system in pre-clinical in vivo models of a variety of autoimmune diseases. He has received many honors and awards, including the Canadian Diabetes Association Young Scientist Award, the Outstanding Leadership in Alberta Technology Award and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation Gerold & Kayla Grodsky Award. In 2017, he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He has published over 190 publications, many in high-impact journals, and he is a regularly invited speaker at national and international forums. He sits on the editorial board of a number of journals and numerous national and international grant review panels.