PharmSci grad’s experience opens doors across disciplines—from lab research to industry to health policy

Laura Bennett’s PhD research suggests Alzheimer’s-related protein could help relieve chronic pain.

During her PhD in the department of pharmaceutical sciences, Laura Bennett was primarily focused on her research related to neuroscience and pain, but her education at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy exposed her to a broad range of research and clinical areas that have helped prepare her for her scientific career.

“Doing graduate studies at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy has given me opportunities to branch out and meet people in all the different areas that science touches,” says Bennett, who is graduating from the Faculty this week. “I've been exposed to different facets from policy to academia, health care, and industry, and that alone has helped me so much in envisioning what's possible for my future career as a scientist.”

“I've been exposed to different facets from policy to academia, health care, and industry, and that alone has helped me so much in envisioning what's possible for my future career as a scientist.”

Originally from the Toronto area, Bennett completed her undergraduate degree in neuroscience at Dalhousie University in Halifax. She was attracted to the Graduate Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy because it offers the variety of research labs and expertise that she was looking for in a graduate program.

“I knew that the Faculty has an excellent research program, with experts in neurosciences and so many opportunities for students, from funding to networking,” says Bennett. “Plus, it’s right in the hub of medical research and the major hospitals in Toronto, so I knew there would be exciting opportunities there.”

After meeting Rob Bonin, associate professor at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, and learning about his group’s research and the project he had available, Bennett knew that she had found the research that she wanted to do.

Bonin’s lab studies the molecular mechanisms of pain and how the connections between cells in the nervous system can be rewired to contribute to or treat chronic pain. For Bennett’s PhD project, supervised by Bonin, she explored the clinical and cellular similarities between Alzheimer’s disease and chronic pain. Specifically, she examined whether a protein called amyloid-beta, which is important in the development of Alzheimer’s, could have therapeutic effects in chronic pain.

“The idea is that we can use what we know about one disease to potentially treat another,” says Bennett. “This protein is produced in our bodies, and though in one context it has a negative effect, maybe we can use it to our advantage in another context of chronic pain.”

Results from the project aren’t yet published, but Bennett’s early results found that amyloid-beta protein encapsulated in a nanoparticle delivery system and injected around the spinal cord reduced pain-related behaviours in animal models. The work provides early evidence of related pathways between Alzheimer’s disease and chronic pain and suggests a potential avenue for treatment of chronic pain.

“Laura showed that amyloid-beta was able to reprogram immune activity in the spinal cord, which was quite novel and surprising for us,” says Bonin. “Her work suggests that amyloid-beta may be part of a natural pathway for reducing pain after injury, and this is a new avenue of research we will try to tap into as a new approach for treating chronic pain.”

Opportunities outside of research helped develop critical soft skills

While Bennett’s research helped her develop her scientific skills, she was also gaining critical soft skills through participating in student groups and taking on opportunities outside of her lab. She was involved in various groups and committees at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, including the PharmSci Graduate Students Association, the organizing committee for the Graduate Research in Progress (GRIP) symposium, and the Women in STEAM Leading and Reading book club.

She was also able to participate in academic activities that focused on research areas very different from her research specialty. She participated in the Ontario Drug Policy Research Program events and the PRiME Next Generation Precision Medicine fellowship program in 2020, where she learned how to pitch interdisciplinary support for high-risk, high-reward drug discovery research projects. She also had a fellowship with the Toronto Centre for the Study of Pain, where she was able to learn from clinical pain researchers, clinicians, and people with lived experience and gain exposure to many different facets of pain research.

“Having the opportunities to be exposed to different areas and with that, the opportunity to practice communicating science to a variety of audiences, will be hugely important in my career going forward.”

“Having the opportunities to be exposed to different areas and with that, the opportunity to practice communicating science to a variety of audiences, will be hugely important in my career going forward,” says Bennett. “The soft skills we get from experiences like these are so important, and you can take them with you no matter what role you take on after your degree.”

With her PhD now complete, Bennett will be moving on from the Faculty and is looking forward to taking on new opportunities, particularly in communicating about research, and applying the skills she gained throughout her degree.

“I'm really excited about the opportunity to take part in scientific knowledge translation and use the skills that I acquired in my PhD to showcase the real-world impact of research,” she says.