NMD4C Presents the 2025 Early Career Award Recipients
We are excited to announce the recipients of the 2025 NMD4C Early Career Awards! This is the third year of our annual award program, celebrating excellence and contribution to the neuromuscular field from early career investigators across both clinical and basic science streams. This year, the NMD4C awarded four awards as a part of this program: Early Career Biomedical Researcher of the Year, and Early Career Publication of the Year, and two Early Career Clinicians of the Year.
Early Career Biomedical Researcher of the Year award:
Dr. Kiran Polavarapu – Postdoctoral Researcher, CHEO Research Institute
Through exceptional research abilities and a desire to work on novel analysis methods in rare disease genomics, Dr. Polavarapu pushes analytic and scientific boundaries to make a difference to patients who remain without a diagnosis after standard diagnostic workup. His medical background and seven years of clinical experience in a neuromuscular clinic mean that he has a clinical understanding of neuromuscular phenotypes and presentations that are rare to find in a dry lab researcher. He combines this with a depth of expertise in medical genomics in his work with Dr Hanns Lochmüller’s team, solving many undiagnosed cases from this neuromuscular cohort.
Read more about Dr Polavarapu!
Early Career Publication of the Year:
Liver SMN restoration rescues the Smn2B/- mouse model of spinal muscular atrophy, published in the journal eBioMedicine
Dr. Emma Sutton – Postdoctoral fellow, The Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
Dr Sutton is the first author on a paper published at eBioMedicine entitled “Liver SMN restoration rescues the Smn2B/- mouse model of spinal muscular atrophy”. Through this research, Dr Sutton shows that liver pathology in Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a direct impact of liver intrinsic survival motor neuron (SMN) depletion, and demonstrates that the liver contributes to whole-body pathologies in SMA. This is significant because the importance of peripheral liver SMN is not yet known and could help further elucidate therapeutic targets for SMA.
Early Career Clinical Researcher of the Year award:
Dr Grayson Beecher – Assistant Professor, Division of Neurology, Department of Medicine, University of Alberta
Dr. Beecher is a clinician-researcher, mentor, educator, and leader in neuromuscular ultrasound (NMUS) clinical research and integration in clinical practice and education. Since 2017, Dr. Beecher has published 34 journal articles and a book chapter and his research has spanned diagnostic, therapeutic, and educational innovations.
Early Career Clinical Researcher of the Year award:
Dr Xavier Rodrigue – Associate Clinical Professor, Rehabilitation, Université Laval, Chief Physiatrist, Centre intégré universitaire de santé et de services sociaux de la Capitale-Nationale
Dr. Xavier Rodrigue has made exceptional contributions to the field of spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) care and research. In 2022, he co-founded the Quebec spinal muscular atrophy network (RQAS), uniting over 130 rehabilitation clinicians, researchers, and patient partners across the province to standardize evaluations and update outcome measures. His leadership in this area extends nationally as in 2021 he helped initiate a project with Dr. Colleen O’Connell to develop a national consensus for a Canadian SMA measurement toolkit, and was among the group of Canadian experts that helped update these recommendations in 2023.
Through these awards, the NMD4C provides a method of recognizing outstanding achievement by early career neuromuscular researchers and clinicians on behalf of the Canadian neuromuscular community. Recipients receive a tangible accolade to bolster their academic CVs in pursuit of future academic appointments and grant applications. This award program is a part of the network’s broader strategy to provide support for Canadian early-career neuromuscular investigators.
Congratulations to this year’s award winners and thank you to all those who submitted nominations for these awards; we look forward to hosting this competition again for the coming year. More information on the application process for 2026 will be available on our early-career awards page.
Read next...
NMD4C Website Updates: Resource & Training Hubs
We’re excited to share some updates to the NMD4C website! We’ve created two hubs, the Resource Hub and the Training Hub to make it easier for all our members to find e-learning tools, and research resources!
Scheduled Maintenance
Our websites and training platforms will be undergoing maintenance from December 22 – 26 and 29 – 31, 2025. During this period, access may be limited until the work is complete. We appreciate your patience while this maintenance is carried out. If you require assistance during these times, please contact our Communications Coordinator, Lola Owoeye.
Applications are now open for the 2026 NMD4C Basic Research Summer School!!!
Application Deadline: January 27, 2026 | We are excited to announce that applications are now open for our third Basic Research Summer School for neuromuscular research trainees! Led by Dr. Mireille Khacho, the 2026 NMD4C Basic Research Summer School will be held from June 8th to 10th at the University of Ottawa.