Dr. Stephanie Xie, Scientist at UHN’s Princess Margaret Cancer Centre (PM) and Assistant Professor in the Department of Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine, has been named the recipient of the 2026 Till & McCulloch Award for her research on the impact of repeated infections and stress on blood-forming stem cells.

The award recognizes the most impactful peer-reviewed article of the year by a stem cell or regenerative medicine researcher working in Canada. Dr. Xie received the award for her Nature publication titled, “Human haematopoietic stem cells remember inflammatory stress.”

In this study, Dr. Xie, also an Allan Slaight Scientist at PM, led a team examining how stress from long-term inflammation can drive the aging of blood cells and increase the risk of cancer.

Blood stem cells (hematopoietic stem cells, HSCs) in the bone marrow are responsible for continuously replenishing blood cells throughout life. However, repeated inflammation from infections and other stresses can gradually impair their function with age.

To understand how blood stem cells adapt and respond to inflammation, the researchers generated lab models of inflammation to analyze human HSCs. They identified a previously unrecognized subset of HSCs, called inflammatory memory stem cells (HSC-iM) that were distinct in their gene activity and retained a memory of previous inflammation. These cells retained molecular changes after inflammation had resolved, were associated with age-related blood cell changes, and passed inflammatory signatures to downstream immune cells.

These findings help explain why inflammatory experiences earlier in life may shape a person’s health decades later and provide new tools to investigate why aging and age-related diseases can differ between individuals.

Dr. Xie will accept the award at the 2026 Till & McCulloch Meetings in Vancouver.

To learn more about this study, see the Research at UHN news story.

For more details on this prestigious award and the Till & McCulloch Meetings, visit the website here.