Advancing Personalized Healthcare
Thursday, October 15 from 7 – 8 p.m. ET – virtual session on Zoom
About the Speaker
Leyla Soleymani is a professor of Engineering Physics at McMaster University, Canada Research Chair in Miniaturized Biomedical Devices and a recipient of the prestigious Dorothy Killam Fellowship. She is a globally recognized researcher in miniaturized biosensors, wearable health technologies, and advanced medical diagnostics. Her work focuses on developing rapid, accessible tools that can monitor health and disease in real time, helping clinicians make faster, more personalized treatment decisions. Through extensive collaborations across engineering, health sciences, industry, and clinical settings, she has successfully translated research discoveries into practical technologies, startup ventures, and innovations with direct patient impact.
One of Soleymani’s most significant recent initiatives is the development of rapid diagnostic technologies for therapeutic drug monitoring in mental health care. Backed by $1.2 million in NSERC funding, her team is creating the world’s first point-of-care diagnostic tools for psychotropic medications, including a handheld finger-prick blood test and a wearable microneedle-based device capable of delivering laboratory-quality results in minutes rather than weeks. In July 2026, she was appointed Lead, Engineering Innovation at NexusHealth, where she will help accelerate the translation of research into health solutions and foster interdisciplinary collaborations that bring new technologies from the laboratory to the communities and patients who need them most.