Dr. Amit Bhavsar

Dr. Bhavsar is an associate professor in the Medical Microbiology & Immunology Department at the University of Alberta and a Canada Research Chair in Pattern Recognition Receptor Pathophysiology. His laboratory examines what happens when these receptors are turned on when they shouldn’t be. Current projects are focused on making cancer treatment safer for kids and understanding how bacteria hijack your defence systems. Dr. Bhavsar grew up in Ontario and went to McMaster University to get an undergraduate degree in Biochemistry, while still being able to go home and do laundry on the weekends. He enrolled in the co-op program and did placements at a biotech company in Laval, Quebec and at an academic lab/start up in Hamilton, Ontario. Through these experiences, he learned that the jobs he wanted required a graduate degree. He completed his PhD in Biochemistry at McMaster and moved to UBC to do postdoctoral research. He became a research associate at the BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute because rent is expensive in Vancouver. He opened his laboratory at the University of Alberta in 2017.