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I received my MSc in Integrative Biology from Laurier, and my PhD in Biology from the University of Waterloo, under the supervision of Stephanie DeWitte-Orr, and my HBSc in Molecular Biology and Genetics from McMaster University. After my PhD, I was an industrial research scientist with a local biotechnology company.
My areas of expertise lie in immunomodulation using nanotechnology, and cancer biology at the cellular level.
My research program falls into two streams. Stream (1): Non-immune cells play a role in our immune response against pathogenic attack, as nearly all cells in our body are capalabe of recognizing and responding to pathogens. The extent of their involvement is not well understood as these cells have not been well-studied due to their lack of responsiveness in vitro. We use nanoparticle to enhance immune stimulating pathogen associated molecular patterns in the lab to help us elucidate these pathways in healthy, noncancerous cells.
Stream (2): Despite the recognition of the role of innate immunity in clearing cancerous cells, the current body of research lacks perspective and information on the cancer cell-mediated immune response. We can determine the most optimal targets for cancer therapies by understanding the basic underlying immunological mechanisms within cancer cells. My research program explores the broad question: What immune pathways are intact in cancer cells?
My research program includes graduate students, undergraduate thesis students, and third- and fourth- year directed studies students. Students have opportunities to complete wet-lab based or literature-based research projects. To ensure that interested students have equal opportunities to be considered for these opportunities, I use an application-based process.
Graduate students
I am not currently accepting graduate students for the Fall 2025 academic year.
Undergraduate students
Available Directed studies/Fourth-year honours thesis
2 Lab-based positions - exploring innate immune pathways in human cells using nucleic acid nanocarriers
For more information about the thesis program (HE490) or directed studies (HE450) please see the course offerings page.
If you are interested in doing a 4th year thesis project, or a one term 0.5 directed studies project starting September 2025, please submit the following documents in an email to spoynter@wlu.ca by March 14th, 2025:
1) What type of lab involvement you are interested in (directed studies or thesis, and lab- or literature- based)
2) A short report (less than 1 page) asnwering the following: (i) why you want to do research and why with my team, (ii) any research experience you have thus far, (iii) any specific circumstances I should know regarding your application package
2) A CV or resume
3) A copy of your unofficial transcript (there is no grade cut-off to apply for these positions)
4) If you feel comfortable doing so, please indicate if you belong to an equity-deserving group (those that identify barriers to equal access, opportunities and resources due to disadvantage and discrimination and actively seek social justice and reparation)
I will be contacting students by March 25th. If you haven't been contacted, unfortunately we won't have a position for you this year. We generally get a large volume of inquiries for a small number of positions and it is a challenging decision.
All undergraduates will be paired with a graduate student mentor. You will be given your own project that will be contribute to a larger research aim within the lab. Any data generated by you while working in the lab that contributes to a paper will earn you authorship on that paper.
- Jadaa, N., Aldor, N., Jenik, K., Oberhoffner, S., Butkowsky, C., Tran, A., Lewis, A., DeWitte-Orr, S.J. and Poynter, S.J. Evaluating cationic nanoparticles as carriers of antiviral nucleic acids. Intracellular Pathogens: Methods and Protocols. Innate Antiviral Immunity. Humana Press, New York, NY.
- Aldor, N.L., Jadaa, N., Miller, S.Y., Vladimir, K. and Poynter, S.J. Cationic polystyrene latex nanocarriers for immunostimulatory long double-stranded RNA delivery to ovarian cancer cells. Journal Biomedical Materials Research: Part B. 112 (1): e35487
- Jenik, K., Poynter, S.J., Herrington-Krause, S.L., Samms, K.A., Diaz, N.S. and DeWitte-Orr, S.J., 2024. Examining rainbow trout vig-3 expression patterns in vitro following treatment with type I IFN, poly IC or viral infection. Comparative Immunology Reports, p.200135.
- Lewis, A., Tran, A., Aldor, N.L., Jadaa, N.A., Feng, T., Moore, E., DeWitte-Orr, S.J. and Poynter, S.J. Phytoglycogen-dsRNA nanoparticles demonstrate differential cytotoxicity and immunostimulatory potential in two ovarian cancer cell lines. Journal of Nanoparticle Research, 25(6), 104.
- Butkowsky, C., Aldor, N. and Poynter, S.J. Toll‐like receptor 3 ligands for breast cancer therapies. Molecular and Clinical Oncology, 19(2), 1-8.
- HE303/BI317: Introduction to Immunology
- HE432/BI470: Biomedical Virology
- HE431/BI416: Pathophysiology
- HE440S: Cancer Biology