Wendy Robinson

Wendy P. Robinson is a Professor in the Department of Medical Genetics at the University of British Columbia Faculty of Medicine, and a Senior Scientist at the BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute. She holds the CIHR Sex and Gender Science Chair.

Research Interests: Genetics and epigenetics of early human development, placental function in pregnancy complications (fetal growth restriction, preterm birth), DNA methylation, non-coding RNA, sex differences, and polymorphisms. Her lab employs genomic and bioinformatic tools to study placental health and its impact on newborn outcomes.

Recent Publications (2025-2024) focus on X-chromosome inactivation patterns in placenta, cell-type specific DNA methylation, maternal socioeconomic effects on placental epigenetics, and modeling placental development with organoids. Key themes include sex-specific epigenetic regulation, maternal-fetal interactions, and human placental methylome.

Awards: UBC Faculty of Medicine Distinguished Achievement Award (2018), with trainees receiving the James Miller Memorial Prize and Mary-Jane Carroll Trainee Award.

Students & Collaborations: Supervised PhD/MSc students include Li Qing Wang, Icíar Fernández Boyano, Giulia Del Gobbo, Victor Yuan, and Magda Price. Collaborators span the Alex Beristain Lab and University of Toronto institutions.

Laboratory Activities: Regular team-building events like mountain hikes, climbing outings, and kayaking trips, alongside providing open access to epigenetic tools (e.g., Bisearch, SeqDoc) for the research community.