Basil Hubbard

Basil (Baz) Hubbard is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Toronto and an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Alberta.

Hubbard received his Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry from the University of Ottawa, graduating first in his class. He performed his doctoral training in the lab of David Sinclair at Harvard Medical School. There, he discovered the mechanism by which small-molecules are able to enzymatically activate the SIRT1 longevity factor. He pursued his post-doctoral training at Harvard University in David Liu’s lab, where he worked on improving the specificity of gene editing tools using phage-assisted continuous evolution (PACE).

Prof. Hubbard’s research focuses on early-stage drug discovery work, the development of gene editing technologies and other macromolecular therapeutics, and applied synthetic and xenobiology. Hubbard's research has appeared in prestigious journals including Science, Nature Methods, and Nature Communications, amongst others. He holds 6 patents and is the primary inventor behind multiple commercial biotech products, and a co-founder of several biotech startups. In 2019 he was awarded the Canadian Society for Pharmacology and Therapeutics (CSPT) Junior Investigator Award.