Dawn Bowdish

Dr. Dawn Bowdish is an Associate Professor at McMaster and a Canada Research Chair in Aging & Immunity. Dr Bowdish did her PhD at the University of British Columbia with Prof. Bob Hancock where she studied the anti-infective properties of antimicrobial peptides. She did her post-doctoral work with Prof. Siamon Gordon at the University of Oxford and studied how white blood cells called macrophages recognize the bacteria that cause tuberculosis. She started her lab at McMaster in 2009 where her team of post-doctoral fellows, undergraduate and graduate students study the process of macrophage phagocytosis, how macrophages influence the composition of the microbiome of the upper respiratory tract and how they recognize and destroy Streptococcus pneumoniae, the major cause of pneumonia in the elderly. She has won a number of early career awards including the Pfizer-ASPIRE award and the G. Jeannette Thorbecke Award from the Society of Leukocyte Biology. Her lab is funded by the CIHR, NSERC, the Labarge Optimal Aging Initiative and the Lung Association. When she’s not pushing back the boundaries of science she’s pushing back the boundaries of patience raising two strong-willed children.