University of Toronto homepage
Photo of Landon Edgar

Landon Edgar

Assistant Professor

Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology

Orcid identifier0000-0001-6555-7609
  • Assistant Professor
    Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology
  • (416) 978-2730
  • University of Toronto, Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Department of Pharmacology & Toxicology, 1 King’s College Circle, Rooms: MSB4221 (Office) / 4222 (Lab) / 4226 (Lab) / 4382 (Lab), Toronto, ON, M5S 1A8, Canada

BIO

Dr. Edgar is a chemical immunologist with expertise in single cell analysis technologies. He completed both a BSc (chemistry and pharmacology, 2011) and PhD (chemistry, 2016) at the University of Toronto. As a graduate student, Dr. Edgar was a member of an interdisciplinary team that developed a series of chemical probes that enabled visualization of how cancer cells ‘breathe’ within a solid tumour. This technology allowed scientists to evaluate which individual cancer cells were potentially the most dangerous.

Following graduate school, Dr. Edgar engaged in postdoctoral work at The Scripps Research Institute in California. Here, he used technologies from a range of disciplines to probe the mechanisms through which immune cells communicate. This research resulted in the discovery that specific types of sugars on the surface of immune cells control how these cells recognize viruses and foreign proteins.

Dr. Edgar is now an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmacology & Toxicology at the University of Toronto. Here, his interdisciplinary team is harnessing methods from immunology, chemistry, and biochemistry to study and manipulate the immune system, with a specific focus on the roles of carbohydrates in health and disease. The lab’s broad research vision is to program synthetic immune responses by engineering the surfaces of immune cells. Technologies produced by the Edgar lab will provide the foundation for next-generation therapeutics that will benefit patients suffering from a variety of diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, cancer, multiple sclerosis, and diabetes.

ACADEMIC POSITIONS

  • Assistant Professor
    The University of Toronto, Pharmacology & Toxicology / Chemistry, Toronto, Canada1 Jul 2021 - present

DEGREES

  • Ph.D., Chemistry, Organic Chemistry & Chemical Biology
    University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada2011 - 2016
  • Honours B.Sc. with First Class (Highest) Distinction, Chemistry & Pharmacology
    University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada2007 - 2011

POSTGRADUATE TRAINING

  • NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow
    Scripps Research Institute, Molecular Medicine, San Diego, United States19 Sep 2016 - 4 Jun 2021
    Immunology and glycobiologyPostdoctoral FellowshipSupervised by Paulson JC

AVAILABILITY

  • Industry Projects
  • Collaborative projects
  • Media enquiries

INSTITUTIONAL STRATEGIC INITIATIVES

  • PRiME (Precision Medicine Initiative)
  • Institute for Pandemics (IfP)

TAGS