Message from the Head
It is my pleasure to announce the appointment, effective December 1, 2025, of Dr. Amrit Singh as Vice Chair, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) for the Department of Anesthesiology, Pharmacology, and Therapeutics.
Dr. Singh is an Assistant Professor in the department, working at St. Paul’s Hospital / Heart Lung Institute. He received his Honours BSc in Biology and Mathematics from McMaster University and PhD in Experimental Medicine from the University of British Columbia under the supervision of Dr. Scott Tebbutt. Dr. Singh then pursued a post-doctoral fellowship with the PROOF Centre of Excellence with Drs. Bruce McManus and Raymond Ng. He was a principal statistical analyst at Bayer Pharmaceuticals prior to starting to joining our department in 2022. Dr. Singh leads a computational biology lab focused on biomarker discovery and developing methods and tools for multiomics data integration and visualization. Dr. Singh’s research focuses on the identification of biomarkers for heart and lung disease such as asthma and heart failure using high throughput biological (“omics”) datasets. Dr. Singh developed DIABLO, an integrative multiomics classification method as part of the mixOmics data integration project (mixomics.org). Through active collaborations with clinicians and wet-bench scientists, Dr. Singh’s research incorporates patient cohorts with model systems with single cell and spatial technologies dissecting molecular mechanisms of disease, for the eventual goal of drug repurposing.
Already an active member of the Respectful Environment, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (REDI) committee, Dr. Singh will take over leadership of the committee from his predecessor, Dr. Alana Flexman who has served as the inaugural EDI chair since 2021. We are grateful for her tireless efforts over these years to lead important discussion and develop meaningful policies around this critical aspect of our collective academic and clinical lives.The REDI committee was created to acknowledge and address systemic inequities that are present in our academic and hospital systems. Systemic discrimination encompasses a range of groups, including but not limited to discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, living with a disability, socioeconomic background, religion and other identities.
The REDI committee is committed to leveraging the lived experience, knowledge and expertise of its members to recommend and implement systematic changes to improve equity across the department. The committee welcomes a similar commitment from all our departmental members to enact meaningful change and have voice.
Congratulations to Dr. Singh, and we look forward to working with him in this role.
Dr. Hilary P. Grocott, MD, FRCPC
Professor and Head, Department of Anesthesiology, Pharmacology & Therapeutics