Christine Allen

Christine Allen is a Professor and the inaugural Associate Vice-President and Vice-Provost Strategic Initiatives at the University of Toronto. She completed her doctoral research in the Department of Chemistry at McGill University and post-doctoral research in the Department of Advanced Therapeutics at the B.C. Cancer Agency. She joined the University of Toronto in 2002 and has established a leading research group focused on the design of innovative materials and drug delivery technologies with over 140 peer-reviewed publications in her field. She has over 20 years of experience in the drug delivery field and has significant expertise in the design, development, and evaluation of advanced drug delivery systems. Christine’s research laboratory is located within the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy building at University of Toronto St. George campus. She is co-founder of Nanovista Inc., a company developing multi-modal visualization agents for high precision image-guided cancer therapy. In 2021, she was appointed CEO and Scientific Director of the Nanomedicine Innovation Network (NMIN), as well as Interim Director of the Precision Medicine initiative at University of Toronto (PRiME).

Christine Allen’s research focuses on developing advanced drug delivery formulations for the treatment of a wide range of indications including cancer and osteoarthritis. The research is broadly divided into several project areas including oncology (encompassing the identification of novel drug combinations for cancer therapy and the design of thermosensitive liposomes), the development of implantable drug carriers for sustained release, as well as determining the therapeutic potential for a range of formulated cannabinoid compounds for different indications. The Allen lab is committed to driving these technologies from bench to bedside in collaboration with several startup companies in the Toronto area and beyond.