The SCI Canada Awards celebrate excellence in the Canadian chemical industry. Since its formation in 1902, SCI Canada has supported innovation in Canada by recognising the achievements of the individuals and organisations who have made a significant contribution to the Canadian chemical industry.
2026 Canada Medal winner - Dr Donald F. Weaver, The University of Toronto
The Canada Medal, established 1939, is awarded to a business leader for outstanding service in a Canadian industry, who has had a clearly positive impact on their business, a business that is based on chemistry for its processes and/or services.
Donald Weaver MD, PhD, FRCP(C) currently holds the Krembil Chair in Alzheimer’s Disease Drug Discovery at the Krembil Research Institute, University Health Network, and is professor in the Departments of Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Toronto. Over the past 30 years he has worked primarily as a computational organic chemist dedicated to the design and commercialisation of novel therapeutics for neurodegenerative disorders, particularly Alzheimer’s Disease. He has concomitantly worked as a neurologist assessing patients with cognitive disorders. His research is focused on the design, synthesis and optimisation of drug-like molecules for the treatment of dementia with a focus on neuroinflammation.
He uses large scale in silico computer simulations to model receptors relevant to Alzheimer’s disease to enable rational drug design. He has had two compounds reach Phase III human clinical trials. One of these compounds, Tramiprosate, was one of the first drugs to be trialed as a disease modifying agent for Alzheimer’s dementia.
Weaver has also co-founded six start-up biotech companies. He has published more than 350 peer-reviewed publications and holds 47 issued patents in drug design and discovery. He has won multiple national and international awards for his work in computer-aided drug design.
2026 Canada International Award winner - Dr Orlando Rojas, University of British Columbia
The Canada International Award is presented to an individual in recognition of outstanding service and contributions in the international sphere to an industry that is based on chemistry, for its processes and/or services.
Professor Orlando Rojas is Canada Excellence Research Chair in Forest Bioproducts at the University of British Columbia and Scientific Director of the BioProducts Institute (BPI). He is internationally recognised for pioneering nature-inspired materials from biomass, transforming plant- and marine-derived polymers into high-performance, sustainable alternatives for applications ranging from advanced manufacturing to energy and environmental technologies. At BPI, Rojas provides strategic leadership for one of Canada’s largest interdisciplinary research institutes focused on bioproducts and the circular bioeconomy.
Rojas is the recipient of the Anselme Payen Award, the highest honour in cellulose and renewable materials research. He is an elected Fellow of the American Chemical Society, the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters, TAPPI and the International Academy of Wood Science. His recognitions include the TAPPI Nanotechnology Division Technical Award, selection as Distinguished Lecturer at the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology, and the award of a European Research Council Advanced Grant, among the most competitive and prestigious research grants in Europe.
Rojas serves on the Selection Committee of the Marcus Wallenberg Foundation (Sweden) and holds scientific advisory roles with organisations including the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, the VALUED program (Imperial College London, University of Bristol, and University of Cambridge), and the Materials Institute of the University of Santiago de Compostela (iMATUS). His research programme has attracted sustained multi-million-dollar funding from government agencies and industry. Rojas has been consistently ranked among the top 1% of researchers worldwide by citations.
2026 LeSueur Memorial Award winner - Dr Jason Hein, University of British Columbia
The LeSueur Memorial Award is presented to an individual for the development of technical excellence, in either a university/research institute or an industrial setting in Canada with a contribution to the Canadian industry through chemical creativity and innovation.
Jason Hein is a professor at the University of British Columbia and adjunct professor at the University of Bergen, Norway. He completed his PhD with Phil Hultin at the University of Manitoba in 2005, moving to become an NSERC PDF fellowship with Barry Sharpless and then senior research associate with Donna Blackmond at Scripps Research. In 2011 he started his independent research programme at the University of California, Merced, joining the University of British Columbia in 2015, where he was promoted to professor in 2024. His internationally recognised work in automated kinetic reaction analysis has advanced reaction discovery and optimisation, yielding key mechanistic insights into catalytic processes. His work has been recognized though the ACS Young Investigators Prize (2015), NSERC Discovery Accelerator (2021), the Killam Teaching Fellowship (2025), and the R. U. Lemieux Award (2025).
In 2020, Hein founded Telescope Innovations, a chemical technology company aiming to translate academic research into practical solutions. In 2021, he helped to found the journal Digital Discoveries, an innovative new journal with the Royal Society of Chemistry. In 2025 he was recruited as the only academic Associate Editor for Organic Process Research and Development, the premier journal for industrial process chemistry with the American Chemical Society. He is a founding member of the Acceleration Consortium based at the University of Toronto, driving advancements in self-driving laboratories and digital chemistry.
2026 Purvis Memorial Award winner - Dr Peter Zandstra, University of British Columbia
This award is presented to an individual for significant strategy development and successful implementation within the Canadian chemical industry.
Dr Peter Zandstra is Vice-President for Research & Innovation at the University of British Columbia (UBC). He graduated with a BEng degree from McGill University in Chemical Engineering, obtained his PhD degree from the University of British Columbia in Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, and continued his research training as a Post-Doctoral Fellow in Bioengineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In July 2017, Zandstra joined UBC as the Founding Director of the School of Biomedical Engineering and as the Director of the Michael Smith Laboratories. In these roles, he is building programmes that apply technological innovation to biology and help to educate the next generation of biotechnology leaders.
Zandstra has received broad recognition for his work, including being named a Member of the Order of Canada and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in Engineering. In addition to his academic roles, Zandstra has been involved in founding a number of biotechnology companies, including ExCellThera and Notch Therapeutics. Zandstra’s research focuses on understanding how functional tissue forms from stem cells, and how this information can be applied to the design of novel therapeutic technologies based on living cells.
Kalev Pugi Award winner - Dr Patrick Gunning, The University of Toronto
The Kalev Pugi Award acknowledges exceptional achievements in research and development by an individual or team, which is of benefit to Canada.
Patrick Gunning is a full professor of Chemistry at the University of Toronto Mississauga, a Canada Research Chair in Medicinal Chemistry, and a leading figure at the intersection of academic discovery and biotechnology entrepreneurship. Trained in chemistry at the University of Glasgow, where he completed his PhD, Gunning undertook postdoctoral research at Yale University, experiences that shaped his long-standing focus on medicinal chemistry and chemical biology. Since joining the University of Toronto in 2007, Gunning has built an internationally-recognised research programme centered on protein–protein interactions, an area long viewed as one of the most challenging frontiers in drug discovery. His work has produced novel small molecule protein inhibitors implicated in aggressive and hard to treat cancers, resulting in the generation of more than 100 peer-reviewed publications.
Beyond his academic contributions, Gunning is recognised as a serial biotech entrepreneur. He is the Founder and Chief Scientific Director of the Centre for Medicinal Chemistry at University of Toronto and has co-founded multiple biotechnology companies translating academic science into therapeutics. These include Dalriada Drug Discovery, Janpix Inc. (now part of Centessa Pharmaceuticals) and Dunad Therapeutics, collectively attracting tens of millions of dollars in private investment. Several of these companies are advancing drug candidates toward clinical development, underscoring the translational impact of his work. Gunning’s achievements have been recognised with numerous honours, including Canada’s Top 40 Under 40, major national research awards, and innovation prizes from the University of Toronto. Through his dual commitment to scholarship and commercialisation, he has played a pivotal role in shaping Canada’s medicinal chemistry and biotech innovation landscape.
2026 Julia Levy Award winner - Dr Carl Hansen, AbCellera
The Julia Levy Award, established 2006, is presented to an individual to recognise successful commercialisation of innovation in Canada, specifically in the field of biomedical science and engineering.
Dr Carl Hansen is the founding CEO of AbCellera. He is a scientist, inventor, teacher and entrepreneur whose work is represented in over 90 peer-reviewed manuscripts and abstracts, and more than 75 patent applications. Hansen is the recipient of numerous awards, including EY Canada’s Entrepreneur of Year and the 2021 Bloom Burton Award, and was profiled in Forbes magazine. Under his leadership, AbCellera was a contractor for the Pandemic Preparedness Program of the Defense Advanced Research Program Agency (DARPA) and developed two therapeutic antibodies against COVID-19 that were administered to two million patients in the US. Before AbCellera, Hansen attained the rank of Full Professor at the University of British Columbia, jointly appointed in the Michael Smith Labs and the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Carl received his PhD in Applied Physics (specialty in biotechnology) from Caltech and obtained a BSc in Engineering Physics and Honors Mathematics from the University of British Columbia. 2025
Outreach Award winner - Dr Lucio Gelmini, MacEwan University
The Outreach Award recognises a Canadian organisation, individual or team that has demonstrated sustained effort engaging the public in learning about chemistry and its impact on society.
Dr Lucio Gelmini is a faculty member at MacEwan University whose academic background is in organometallic chemistry, with additional experience in bioinorganic chemistry. His teaching focuses primarily on general and inorganic chemistry, where he is widely recognised for his engaging classroom demonstrations and commitment to science education. A passionate advocate for science outreach, Gelmini has spent decades bringing chemistry to life for students and the public across Alberta. He has served as Chair of the Alberta Science Network and Chair of the Edmonton Science Outreach Network, helping to promote hands-on science engagement throughout the province.
He has also been extensively involved with the MacEwan University Science Roadshow, delivering dynamic chemistry demonstrations to audiences ranging from kindergarten students to community groups and public events. Collectively, his outreach activities have reached more than 300,000 people. Gelmini’s contributions to public science education were recognised through the prestigious AsTech Award for Science Outreach, awarded in partnership with the Alberta Science Network. In addition to his outreach leadership, he has been active with the Chemical Institute of Canada, Edmonton Section, supporting chemistry education and professional engagement within the scientific community.
Congratulations to all of our 2026 award winners.
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