CANSSI Ontario STAGE Welcomes PhD Trainee Kosar Teymouri

Kosar Teymouri Selected as a Trainee Under the CANSSI Ontario STAGE Program.

CANSSI Ontario STAGE is pleased to announce that Kosar Teymouri has been selected as a CANSSI Ontario STAGE Trainee with her project “Prediction of Schizophrenia Subtypes Using Omics Data.” Kosar, a PhD student in the Institute of Medical Science at the University of Toronto, is currently conducting her research under the supervision of Drs. James Kennedy, Daniel Felsky, and Vanessa Gonçalves.

Kosar’s research background is in examining the association of C4, a key player in the immune complement system, with treatment resistant schizophrenia (TRS), which deepened her knowledge and interest in the immune hypothesis of schizophrenia (SCZ). Now, through the CANSSI Ontario STAGE program, Kosar is conducting an innovative study that aims to further unravel the complexities of SCZ by integrating genomics and machine learning to classify its subtypes. Kosar started in the master’s program of the Institute of Medical Science at the University of Toronto, with a collaborative specialization in neuroscience and she transferred to PhD in her second year. She is also a recipient of a CANSSI Graduate Student Enrichment Scholarship from the Canadian Statistical Sciences Institute (CANSSI), the Cleghorn Award in Schizophrenia from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto and the Koerner Graduate Award from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

Schizophrenia is a complex disorder with diverse genetic, environmental, and clinical variations. While TRS and deficit schizophrenia are recognized subtypes, their underlying biological mechanisms remain unclear. Kosar’s CANSSI Ontario STAGE project aims to bridge this gap by identifying neuroimmune markers and using machine learning to refine classifications and uncover new patient clusters.

CANSSI Ontario STAGE is proud to support her research and looks forward to its impact on improving schizophrenia classification and enhancing personalized treatment strategies.