LIMIT

Emilie Belley-Côté

Associate Deputy Director, Scientist

Emilie Belley-Côté is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine at McMaster University; she practices critical care cardiology in the cardiovascular intensive care unit and coronary care unit at the Hamilton General Hospital. Her research interests include perioperative cardiac surgery care, knowledge synthesis and guideline development. At this stage in her career, she has more than 120 publications, including articles in NEJM, Lancet, JAMA, as well as first-tier critical care journals.

She obtained her MD from Université de Sherbrooke in 2006. After internal medicine and cardiology training, as well as an MSc in Clinical Sciences, she completed a critical care fellowship at McMaster. In 2019, she completed a PhD in Health Research Methodology at McMaster University.

Mike Sharma

Senior Scientist

Mike Sharma is Professor of Medicine (Neurology) at McMaster University and a vascular neurologist at Hamilton Health Sciences. He holds the Michael G DeGroote Chair in Stroke Prevention and leads the Brain Health and Stroke Program at PHRI. He is the Medical Director of the Regional Stroke Program at HHS.

After neurology training at Western, a stroke fellowship at the Montreal Neurologic Institute and the University of Ottawa, he completed an MSc in Clinical Epidemiology. He founded the Stroke Program at the University of Ottawa and joined PHRI in 2013. Mike is the Past Chair of the Canadian Stroke Consortium and was the Deputy Director of Clinical Affairs and Policy at the Canadian Stroke Network. He has held leadership positions in trials of novel antithrombotic approaches to stroke prevention and imaging/cognitive outcomes in large trials of stroke prevention. He led the imaging substudies in COMPASS and NAVIGATE ESUS that explored the impact of interventions on covert vascular disease as well as cognitive outcomes. Building on these findings he has been heavily involved with the development of FXIa inhibitors for stroke prevention. He led the multinational Phase II dose ranging AXIOMATIC SSP trial that established a dose of the small molecule FXIa inhibitor milvexian for stroke prevention. He currently leads the pivotal efficacy trial OCEANIC STROKE that seeks to establish the benefit of Asundexian and FXIa inhibition in secondary stroke prevention. In addition to other ongoing research, he and Raed Joundi lead PROSPECT – an international cohort study examining the determinants of cognitive and functional decline in those with a recent stroke.

Aristeidis Katsanos

Scientist

Aristeidis Katsanos, MD, PhD is a Vascular Neurologist, Assistant Professor at the McMaster University and Investigator at the Population Health Research Institute, Hamilton, ON, Canada. His research focuses on emerging neurosonology applications and the evidence-based evaluation of novel therapies in acute stroke treatment and secondary stroke prevention.

He has published more than 250 papers in high-impact medical journals to date and currently serves as the Co-PI of two phase 2 randomized controlled clinical trials evaluating optimal blood pressure control after endovascular thrombectomy (DETECT; NCT04484350) and the use of colchicine for the prevention of vascular events after an acute intracerebral hemorrhage (CoVasc-ICH; NCT05159219).

He received the Young Investigator Award from the European Stroke Organisation, New Investigator Award from the Heart & Stroke Foundation Canada and the EJ Moran Campbell Award from the Department of Medicine, McMaster University. He serves as an Academic Editor for PLoS One, Associate Editor for Frontiers in Neurology, and Assistant Editor for Stroke. 

Jessica Vincent

Head of Operations

Jessica Vincent has more than 15 years’ experience in coordinating and managing large, international clinical trials. She holds an Honours Bachelor of Science Degree from Queens University, and a Master of Clinical Epidemiology Degree from the University of Newcastle.

Kate Brady

Associate Program Manager

Kate Brady has worked in clinical research since 2008 and joined PHRI in 2010. She has experience in coordinating large international clinical trials and observational studies with a focus on cardiac surgery. She has an Honour’s Bachelor Degree in Science with an Honours Specialization in Genetics from Western University and a post-graduate certificate in Clinical Research from Humber College.