Dr. Marc-Olivier Deguise is a neonatologist currently in the Royal College Clinician Investigator Program at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) and The Ottawa Hospital. He earned his MD/PhD, followed by residency in Pediatrics and fellowship in Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine at the University of Ottawa. During his doctoral work with Dr. Rashmi Kothary, he framed spinal muscular atrophy as a systemic disease, a theory that was previously felt unlikely. Today, he pursues his post-doctoral research alongside Dr. Bernard Thébaud to translate cell therapies, specifically mesenchymal stromal cells, from the laboratory to the bedside. He focuses on bronchopulmonary dysplasia, a chronic lung disease of extreme prematurity that leaves affected newborns with few therapeutic options. Dr. Deguise is driven by a single goal: giving the most fragile newborns the best possible start in life. During REACH, he will be supported by a CIHR Canada Postdoctoral Research Award.