The Canadian Association for Neuroscience is very proud to announce Dr. Maria Ioannou, from the University of Alberta, has been awarded the CAN 2026 New Investigator Award for her innovative work that has revealed new mechanisms by which neurons expel, transfer, and detoxify peroxidized lipids, and how glia act as indispensable metabolic buffers that preserve neuronal viability. She is an outstanding early-career neuroscientist whose interdisciplinary research program has already yielded breakthrough mechanistic discoveries and opened new fields of inquiry. Dr. Ioannou demonstrates clear scientific leadership within the neuroscience community.
The brain is composed of 60% lipids, making it the fattiest organ in the body after adipose tissue. Yet we know relatively little about how lipids are regulated in the brain and their contribution to neural physiology compared to proteins. Dr. Ioannou’s research program has contributed to filling this knowledge gap by exploring the role of lipids in the healthy and diseased brain. Previously, it was thought that lipid flow was unidirectional from glial cells to neurons. In her postdoctoral work, Dr. Ioannou discovered an essential pathway through which neurons transport lipids to glia (Cell, 2019), challenging this long-standing dogma by showing that lipid flow is bidirectional. These transported lipids are damaged by reactive oxygen species and are therefore toxic, so clearing them from neurons is protective. But how neurons get these lipids out was unknown.
Since starting her position at the University of Alberta, Dr. Ioannou and her team discovered that neurons rid themselves of toxic lipids: i) by directly ejecting lipids stored in lysosomes by exocytosis (J Cell Biol, 2023) or ii) lipoprotein particles carrying ApoE that extract lipids directly from neuronal plasma membrane (Neuron, 2026). They further discovered that synthetic lipoprotein particles could be used as a potential biologic therapy to clear toxic lipids from neurons in preclinical models of Alzheimer’s disease.
Her team next defined how lipid metabolism is regulated in astrocytes (a type of glial cell) to coordinate their ability to degrade the incoming damaged lipids released by neurons (J Cell Sci, 2025). More recently, Dr. Ioannou started a new research direction stemming from the discovery that lipids promote the spread of misfolded proteins in Parkinson’s disease using extracellular vesicles called ectosomes (Nat Cell Biol, 2026).
Collectively, these studies place Dr. Ioannou’s team at the forefront of lipid research in the brain. Her research excellence is evidenced by being recognized as a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Brain Lipid Cell Biology, an Azrieli Future Leader of Canada Brain Research, a Sloan Fellow in Neuroscience, a ‘Cell Scientist to Watch’ by the Journal of Cell Science, her collaborations with industry, and invitations for 57 speaking engagements.
Maria’s research has already influenced multiple areas of neuroscience, including neurodegeneration, glial biology, lipid metabolism, and cell death mechanisms. Her work has changed how scientists conceptualize oxidative lipid damage, not as a passive metabolic byproduct, but as an actively regulated, circuit-level process governed by neuron–glia communication. This unifying perspective has broad implications for understanding disease mechanisms and identifying new therapeutic strategies.
-Dr James Olzmann, PhD, Doris H. Calloway Chair and Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology and Metabolic Biology & Nutrition at the University of California, Berkeley
In addition to excellence in research, Dr. Ioannou has demonstrated a strong commitment to scientific leadership within the broader neuroscience community. She is a dedicated and thoughtful mentor who has created a collaborative and supportive laboratory environment that prioritizes rigorous training, intellectual independence, and professional development. Her trainees consistently describe her lab as empowering and inclusive, and they are well prepared for diverse career paths in science.
Dr. Ioannou’s ability to take a creative and multidisciplinary approach to science is one of several reasons she excels as an independent researcher. The breadth of methods she employs in her projects range from biochemical and cell biology assays, RNA-sequencing, multiple types of electron microscopy, in vivo chemogenetic activation of neurons to models of stroke. She developed an imaging-based assay to quantify lipid transport between cells – this innovative imaging-based approaches makes her research program on lipid homeostasis in the brain unique.
Maria is an impressive and talented young scientist whom I believe has extraordinary potential. She is creative and collaborative; she is fearless in choosing the best methods to answer her question, and she has developed a new and innovative research program that will further our understanding of the brain in both health and disease.
Hugo J, Bellen, DVM, PhD, Distinguished Service Professor, Baylor College of Medicine
We are very proud to present Dr. Maria Ioannou with the 2026 CAN New Investigator Award.
Five most important publications
1. Jacquemyn J, Marriot B, Chang J, Lee NYJ, Rubio Atonal LF, Green C, Wong J, Chik K, Acevedo-Morantes C, Chen CXQ, Nicouleau M, You Z, Deneault E, Abdian N, Durcan TM, Jackson J & Ioannou MS* (2026). Glucosylceramide induced ectosomes propagate pathogenic α-synuclein in Parkinson’s disease. Nat Cell Biol. 28(3):492-506.
Highlighted by Dong, Zhang & Li (2026) Nature Cell Biology. 28: 385–386
2. Ralhan I, Do AD, Bae J, Feringa FM, Cai W, Chang J, Chik K, Gerry C, Lee NYJ, Kant RVD, Jackson J, Ricq EL & Ioannou MS* (2026). Protective ApoE variants support neuronal function by extracting peroxidated lipids. Neuron. 114(4):661-678.
Highlighted by Heffner & Di Paolo (2026) Neuron. 114 (4):556-558
Highlight by Yates (2026) Nature Rev Neurosci. 27: 155
3. Rubio Atonal LF, Chang J, Ralhan I, Jacquemyn J & Ioannou MS* (2025) Glutamate signaling decreases astrocytic lipid droplets and oxidative stress. J Cell Sci. 138(19):jcs263983
Highlight J Cell Sci (2025) 138 (19): e138_e1901.
Selected for journal cover image
4. Ralhan I, Chang J, Moulton MJ, Goodman LD, Lee NYJ, Plummer G, Pasolli HA, Matthies D, Bellen HJ & Ioannou MS* (2023) Autolysosomal exocytosis of lipids protect neurons from ferroptosis. J Cell Biol. 222(6):e202207130
Selected for Special Collection: Cellular Neurobiology 2023
5. Ioannou MS*, Jackson J, Sheu SH, Chang CL, Weigel AV, Liu H, Pasolli HA, Xu CS, Pang S, Matthies D, Hess HF, Lippincott-Schwartz J & Liu Z (2019) Neuron-astrocyte metabolic coupling protects against activity-induced fatty acid toxicity. Cell 177(6):1522-1535.
Highlight by Whalley, K. (2019) Nat Rev Neurosci 20, 378–379
Highlight by Mukherjee & Soham (2019) Trends Endocrinol Metab 30 (9), 573–575
The impact of this work is further evidenced by >830 citations