Philip Britz-McKibbin

Overview

Philip Britz-McKibbin is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at McMaster University. He is also an associate member of the Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine, the Centre for Medicinal Cannabis Research, and the Centre for Clinical Neurosciences, as well as a visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Biosciences at Keio University in Japan. His laboratory is an affiliate member of the Metabolomics Innovation Centre that serves as Canada’s national metabolomics facility. Dr. Britz-Mckibbin is a bioanalytical chemist with interests in developing high throughput analytical tools based on capillary electrophoresis, liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry for comprehensive characterization of the human metabolome in various biospecimens. His research program focuses on untargeted metabolite profiling (i.e., metabolomics) and biomarker discovery as required for new advances in clinical medicine, nutritional epidemiology and global health. His work was the first to report regional differences in iodine deficiency risk across Canada, a preventable cause of cognitive impairment worldwide. Philip has identified urinary biomarkers for non-invasive assessment of the omega-3 index that is a modifiable risk factor in sudden cardiac death impacted by oily fish intake. Philip’s research also deciphered treatment response variations to high-dose vitamin D3 intake that is relevant since vitamin D deficiency due to poor diet and inadequate sunlight exposure increases risk for dementia and Alzheimer’s disease in older persons. His research program is currently using metabolomics to validate urinary biomarkers of diet quality, as well as prognostic biomarkers of metabolic syndrome and cardiometabolic disease risk in diverse populations from 14 countries in the Prospective Urban-Rural Epidemiological (PURE) study.

Affiliations

• Member, McMaster Institute for Research on Aging (MIRA), McMaster University
• Professor, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, McMaster University
• Affiliate member, The Metabolomics Innovation Centre
• Adjunct member, Centre for Medicinal Cannabis Research, McMaster University
• MS Facility Director, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, McMaster University
• Associate member, Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine, McMaster University
• Molecular lead, Centre for Clinical Neurosciences, St Joseph’s Healthcare

Education

• BSc, University of Toronto
• PhD, University of British Columbia