Fast Five: Meet Dr. Marjorie Brand

Fast 5 features quick, personal profiles of our research team members. This week, it’s Dr. Marjorie Brand, Senior Scientist, Sprott Center for Stem Cell Research, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute; Professor, Department of Medicine, University of Ottawa

1. What are you reading for pleasure right now?
I’m re-reading the journal of Julien Green, an American writer who wrote mostly in French.

2. What is the most worthwhile non-monetary investment you’ve made?
Adopting an older dog from a shelter. Seeing him overcome his issues is the most rewarding thing.

3. What advice would you give your younger self?
Get training on how to manage people.

4. What prompted you to get into regenerative medicine?
It’s a useful system to address some of the most fascinating questions in biology, such as transcription regulation and cell fate decision.

5. If you could buy one new toy for the lab right now – if money was not an issue – what would you get and why?
I would buy a Hyperion system to do spatial mass cytometry, and (although I don’t think it is commercially available yet) but I would buy an instrument to do high-throughput single cell spatial transcriptomics such as MER-FISH or Seq-FISH.