'A moment of genuine opportunity': Leading researcher in drug discovery set to join UTM

Professor Michelle Arkin, a world-leading researcher in drug discovery, is set to join the University of Toronto Mississauga as its first Eddie Goldenberg Research Chair of Canada, with plans to develop therapeutics that target cancer, neurodegeneration and infectious diseases. 

Arkin will be joining UTM’s department of chemical and physical sciences in July 2027, where she will lead her research program from the Centre for Medicinal Chemistry. 

Arkin is currently a professor in pharmaceutical chemistry, executive director of the Small Molecule Discovery Center and the vice dean of research technology and entrepreneurship at the School of Pharmacy at the University of California, San Francisco.

She will join UTM as part of the Eddie Goldenberg Research Chairs of Canada program — formerly called Canada Impact+ Research Chairs — named after the distinguished public servant whose leadership helped shape Canada’s modern research and innovation landscape.

Designed to help institutions attract leading researchers whose work delivers economic, societal and health benefits for Canadians, the program launched nationwide late last year with a dual emphasis on research excellence and tangible impact. 

Chairs receive long-term funding and institutional support to advance ambitious, transformative projects in Canada’s strategic priority areas, which include everything from advancing digital technologies, health and clean tech, to climate resilience, manufacturing and defence.

Arkin, who will be the Eddie Goldenberg Research Chair of Canada in Chemical Biology, is among several incoming chairs across U of T who are advancing world-leading research in those critical fields.

“We are delighted to welcome Professor Arkin next year,” says Alexandra Gillespie, UTM's vice-president and principal. 

“Her decision to bring her research here speaks to the strength of our faculty and students, the excellence of our academic and entrepreneurship programs and the depth of our connections across the university and Mississauga community.”

At the Centre for Medicinal Chemistry, Arkin “will gain the space, resources and networks needed to advance her research, support emerging colleagues, trainees and partners, and deliver health innovations that improve the lives of Canadians," Gillespie says.

Arkin’s research is oriented around a grand challenge: important medicines do not yet exist for many serious diseases because the proteins underpinning them provide no obvious foothold for small molecules. 

Over nearly three decades, she has built a research program aimed squarely at this challenge, developing the chemical strategies, screening technologies and translational infrastructure needed to transform previously inaccessible disease proteins into starting points for new medicines. Her lab has pioneered technologies that have opened entire new classes of drug targets to therapeutic intervention.

“I have been deeply committed throughout my career to building the infrastructure, community and culture that makes excellent drug discovery possible at scale,” says Arkin, who has developed four biotechnology companies, each translating research into novel therapeutics spanning oncology, neurodegeneration, inflammation and liver disease.

“These ventures represent a model of academic entrepreneurship in which fundamental discovery and translation ambition reinforce each other — a model I am eager to bring to Canada’s growing biomedical innovation ecosystem.”

Her work has led to drugs in use by patients, companies now developing new medicines and a generation of trainees leading their own programs in academia and industry. 

“We are thrilled to have Professor Arkin join our faculty,” says Joshua Milstein, chair of the department of chemical and physical sciences. “Her approach to designing these new molecules, utilizing high-throughput and biophysical techniques, complements our departmental strengths in the quantitative biosciences perfectly.”

Arkin will greatly enhance UTM’s programs in medicinal chemistry and chemical biology, Milstein says. “Our students will have the opportunity to learn directly from a leading expert who is defining the next generation of therapeutic discovery,” he says.

Professor Amanda Hargrove, the director of the Centre for Medicinal Chemistry, says Arkin “brings decades of innovation in drug discovery and a deep commitment to training the next generation of scientists.” 

“In the CMC, labs share a passion for developing new approaches to previously undruggable targets,” she says. 

“I look forward to what our labs can build together, alongside our CMC colleagues, to advance new therapeutic strategies and address some of humanity's most pressing medical challenges.”

UTM offers the ideal setting for such work. Situated in Mississauga, at the heart of Canada’s pharmaceutical industry, and closely connected to Toronto’s life sciences and biotech corridor, the campus offers Arkin’s research the room and resources to grow. 

Over the last five years, nearly half of Canada’s life sciences foreign direct investment has been invested in Mississauga, which has secured more than $1.2 billion in research and development. There are also opportunities for researchers to collaborate with Trillium Health Partners, Canada’s largest community hospital system.

With the announcement of Arkin’s arrival, UTM’s department of chemical and physical sciences has launched a search for a Canada Impact+ Emerging Leader, a position tied directly to Arkin’s chair appointment. The successful candidate will become an assistant professor and join the Centre for Medicinal Chemistry alongside Arkin.

“Canada’s strategic investments in artificial intelligence, health research infrastructure, and biotechnology have created a moment of genuine opportunity,” says Arkin. 

“UTM’s Centre for Medicinal Chemistry, embedded within a world-class interdisciplinary research ecosystem, is precisely the environment where my research can achieve its greatest scale and impact.”