Dr. May Griffith

Dr. May Griffith is an Associate Professor at the Departments of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, and Ophthalmology, University of Ottawa. She is also a senior scientist at the Ottawa Health Research Institute. Dr. Griffith obtained her PhD from the University of Toronto, and completed her postdoctoral fellowship in developmental cellular biology at the University of Alberta and Harvard Medical School, Boston, supported by a Fellowship award from the Medical Research Council of Canada.

Dr. Griffith’s research is in the area of tissue engineering. In Dec. 1999, Dr. Griffith and her collaborators developed the first functional tissue equivalent to human corneal tissue. This work was published in Science and had received public attention. The corneal equivalents have found applications that are of interest to the pharmaceutical and consumer products industries for use as animal alternative in testing. More recently, Dr. Griffith, Dr. David Carlsson from NRC and the other members of the tissue engineering team have further developed the prototype for use in transplantation, as a substitute for human donor tissues. The bio-synthetic corneas emerging from this work are currently being tested. Preliminary results indicate that these novel bio-materials developed are able to allow regeneration of host tissues.

Dr. Griffith’s research is largely funded by grants from NSERC and by an MRC university-industry grant. A large part of Dr. Griffith’s success has been a result of her ability to establish and coordinate scientific collaborations with other scientists, to develop a global team of researchers with diverse backgrounds working together to solve challenging problems. The cornea work has led to several major university-industry collaborations, and invited lectures including keynote addresses at international ophthalmology meetings. Major awards received include the Premier’s Research Excellence award, an NSERC Women’s Faculty Award, the University of Ottawa’s Young Researcher of the Year Award, and most recently, a Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 award.

Dr. Griffith also has an MBA and has also been successfully combining her business skills with her science background. She has been a consultant in technology transfer, R&D planning, and start-up assistance, to various organizations including the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Systems Networks of Centres of Excellence.

For further information, please contact Dr. May Griffith using the Email contact form or by phone at 613 737-8822