District 3 Bio Stream Lead

Following more than a 30-year career in life-science and biotechnology; Maggie Bywater-Ekegärd now has an extensive experience in senior management positions; creating global markets; and implementing complex commercialization projects. Her knowledge of intellectual property portfolio management, quality product development and manufacturing is key to new technology introduction. She is co-founder of Inocucor Technologies now Concentric Agriculture, where she ran and coordinated the industrialization & commercialization process. Since Inocucor she has co-founded Morphocell a regenerative medicine company based in Montreal Canada. She is an adviser to the management team and a member of the Board of Directors.

Senior Coach, District 3 Healthcare Stream Lead

With a wealth of international experience in taking ideas to market—always at the dynamic intersection of where entrepreneurship and experiential learning meet—Edna Chosack, M.Sc., MBA, is the Healthcare Stream lead and Senior Coach at District 3. 

As the co-founder and VP, Strategic Marketing at Simbionix Inc., Edna co-built the company into an international surgical-simulation leader, becoming internationally recognized as one of a few experts who leverage medical-simulation experiential learning into business success stories. 3D Systems acquired the company for $120M USD.

In Montreal, she established and served as Director of CAE’s surgical-simulation business line. She was a member of the advisory committee at McGill University’s Steinberg Centre for Simulation and Interactive Learning. She held her consultancy services for private internationals in the US, Europe & China, as well as for Canadian customers such as the Canadian National Research Council.

Executive Director, District 3

Guided by his passion for advancing emerging technology, his career is rooted in strategic partnerships and community building. Proud of the incubator that he founded, District 3, and the 1000+ tech startups that have come through our doors in now 10 years. Xavier is committed to growing the bioeconomy in Quebec–which at this very second, is revolutionizing the world. Equivalent to what happened in IT 50 years ago, the same is occurring in biological engineering-“it’s going to change everything”. The next bioeconomy ventures are led by scientific entrepreneurs with deep expertise in their respective domains — fields like AI in biological engineering, healthtech, clean tech, agri-foods — are all key innovation drivers.

With over 10 years of combined experience in scientific research and clinical pathology laboratories, Gleice has extensive expertise in “in vitro” antimicrobial combinations against multidrug-resistant bacterias. Her work has contributed to several publications and the development of methodologies in this field.

Chief Scientific Officer 

Vincent Martin is an Associate Professor in Microbiology in the Department of Biology at Concordia University and holds the Canada Research Chair in Microbial Genomics and Engineering. He obtained a B.Sc. in Microbiology from McGill University (1989), an M.Sc. in Environmental Biology from the University of Guelph (1993) and a PhD in Microbiology from the University of British Columbia (1999) under the supervision of Dr. Bill Mohn, where he elucidated the metabolic pathway for plant diterpene biodegradation in Pseudomonas. His post-doctoral studies were performed with Dr. Jay Keasling at the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, where he engineered E. coli for over-production of isoprenoids. In 2003, he joined the Physical Biosciences Division of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The same year, with help from a $43 million grant from the Gates Foundation, he co-founded Amyris Biotechnologies where he currently serves as a scientific advisor. 

In 2004, he joined Concordia University as an Assistant Professor, Vincent Martin’s interests are focused on the metabolic engineering of microbes for the degradation of plant biomass and the production of commodity and high value chemicals. He is the project co-leader for a recently funded $13.6 million Genome Canada grant aimed at the commercial production of high-value plant metabolites in microbial fermentation systems. Vincent Martin is also the fermentation theme leader for the AAFC Cellulosic Biofuels and the NSERC Bioconversion Networks. He currently serves on the editorial board of the Canadian Journal of Microbiology, Bioengineered Bugs and the Water, Air and Soil Pollution journal.

Life Sciences Fellow & Biohub Manager, District 3

Mahzad Sharifahmadian is the Life Sciences Fellow and Biohub Manager at District 3. She empowers life sciences researchers to bring their research to market, and has built a network of research experts for collaboration and co-creation to solve societal and industry challenges. 

She holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry & Molecular Medicine from Université de Montréal, with expertise and publications on the design and development of novel drugs for antibiotic-resistant infections. While finishing her Ph.D., she co-founded Rubisco, a biotech company offering point-of-care diagnosis of pathogens (dissolved in 2018).