Bryan Stewart, University of Toronto

Research

Neuromuscular Junction Skeletal Muscle Tissue Engineering Disease Modelling Drug Development Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy Pluripotent Stem Cells Disease Model

Latest papers

Synaptic Electrophysiology of the Drosophila Neuromuscular Junction.
Cold Spring Harbor protocols · 2025 · senior author
Focal Recording of Synaptic Currents from Single Boutons at the Drosophila Larval Neuromuscular Junction.
Cold Spring Harbor protocols · 2025 · senior author
Recording from Drosophila Larval Body Wall Muscles: Passive Membrane Properties and Basic Features of Synaptic Transmission.
Cold Spring Harbor protocols · 2025 · senior author

All 17 publications

Latest funding

Evaluating the nerve-muscle connection as a Duchenne muscular dystrophy therapeutic target
CIHR · 2023 · Principal investigator
$925,650
Genetic Analysis of Neuromuscular Synaptic Structure and Function
NSERC · 2020 · Principal investigator
$192,000
Synaptic physiology and structure of human muscle in a 3D cell culture system: Application to Duchenne's Muscular Dystrophy
CIHR · 2019 · Nominated PI
$459,000

All 14 grants and awards

17 publications.

01

Synaptic Electrophysiology of the Drosophila Neuromuscular Junction.

Zhang B, Stewart B

Cold Spring Harbor protocols2025Senior author

DOI: 10.1101/pdb.top107820 PMID: 38519095

02

Focal Recording of Synaptic Currents from Single Boutons at the Drosophila Larval Neuromuscular Junction.

Zhang B, Stewart B

Cold Spring Harbor protocols2025Senior author

DOI: 10.1101/pdb.prot108133 PMID: 38519094

03

Recording from Drosophila Larval Body Wall Muscles: Passive Membrane Properties and Basic Features of Synaptic Transmission.

Zhang B, Stewart B

Cold Spring Harbor protocols2025Senior author

DOI: 10.1101/pdb.prot108131 PMID: 38519093

04

Voltage-Clamp Analysis of Synaptic Transmission at the Drosophila Larval Neuromuscular Junction.

Zhang B, Stewart B

Cold Spring Harbor protocols2025Senior author

DOI: 10.1101/pdb.prot108132 PMID: 38519092

05

Fabrication of Microelectrodes, Suction Electrodes, and Focal Electrodes for Electrophysiological Recording in Drosophila.

Zhang B, Stewart B

Cold Spring Harbor protocols2025Senior author

DOI: 10.1101/pdb.prot108134 PMID: 38519091

06

Electrophysiological Recording from a "Model" Cell.

Zhang B, Stewart B

Cold Spring Harbor protocols2025Senior author

DOI: 10.1101/pdb.prot108130 PMID: 38519090

07

Regulation of SH3PX1 by dNedd4-long at the Drosophila neuromuscular junction.

Wasserman SS, Shteiman-Kotler A, Harris K, Iliadi KG, Persaud A, Zhong Y, Zhang Y, Fang X, Boulianne GL, Stewart B, Rotin D

The Journal of biological chemistry2019

DOI: 10.1074/jbc.ra118.005161 PMID: 30518551

08

Imaging SNAP-29 in Drosophila.

Xu H, Stewart B

Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.)2019Senior author

DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4939-8760-3_26 PMID: 30317520

09

Second harmonic generation double stokes Mueller polarimetric microscopy of myofilaments.

Kontenis L, Samim M, Karunendiran A, Krouglov S, Stewart B, Barzda V

Biomedical optics express2016

DOI: 10.1364/boe.7.000559 PMID: 26977362

10

Phospho-regulated Drosophila adducin is a determinant of synaptic plasticity in a complex with Dlg and PIP2 at the larval neuromuscular junction.

Wang SJ, Tsai A, Wang M, Yoo S, Kim HY, Yoo B, Chui V, Kisiel M, Stewart B, Parkhouse W, Harden N, Krieger C

Biology open2014

DOI: 10.1242/bio.20148342 PMID: 25416060

Evaluating the nerve-muscle connection as a Duchenne muscular dystrophy therapeutic target

Principal investigatorCIHR2023Project Grant

Principal investigators: Gilbert, Penney M; Stewart, Bryan A

Keywords: Disease Modelling; Drug Development; Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy; Neuromuscular Junction; Pluripotent Stem Cells; Skeletal Muscle; Tissue Engineering

$925,650

Genetic Analysis of Neuromuscular Synaptic Structure and Function

Principal investigatorNSERC2020Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Principal investigators: Stewart, Bryan

$192,000

Synaptic physiology and structure of human muscle in a 3D cell culture system: Application to Duchenne's Muscular Dystrophy

Nominated PICIHR2019Project Grant

Principal investigators: Stewart, Bryan A

Keywords: Disease Model; Duchenne'S Muscular Dystrophy; Neuromuscular Junction; Pluripotent Stem Cell; Skeletal Muscle; Tissue Engineering

$459,000

Genetic Analysis of Neuromuscular Synaptic Structure and Function

Principal investigatorNSERC2018Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Principal investigators: Stewart, Bryan

$32,000

Environmental Chambers for Insect Circadian Studies

Co-investigatorNSERC2012Research Tools and Instruments - Category 1 (<$150,000)

Principal investigators: Levine, Joel

$52,597

Genetic Analysis of Synaptic Structure and Function

Principal investigatorNSERC2012Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Principal investigators: Stewart, Bryan

$200,000

Microarray scanner and hybridization system

Co-investigatorNSERC2009Research Tools and Instruments - Category 1 (<$150,000)

Principal investigators: Westwood, Timothy

$83,573

Environmental chambers for insect research

Principal investigatorNSERC2008Research Tools and Instruments - Category 1 (<$150,000)

Principal investigators: Stewart, Bryan

$105

Fluorescence microscope

Principal investigatorNSERC2007Research Tools and Instruments - Category 1 (<$150,000)

Principal investigators: Stewart, Bryan

$51,294

Genetic analysis of neural-synaptobrevin function

Principal investigatorNSERC2007Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Principal investigators: Stewart, Bryan

$219,300

From CIHR, NSERC and SSHRC funding decisions: CIHR since 2008, NSERC since 1991 and SSHRC since 1998, including their latest published competition results.

Frequent collaborators

Chemical and Physical Sciences
Cell Biology
Developmental and Stem Cell Biology
Other

Co-authors at University of Toronto, colored by department. Thicker lines mean more shared papers; select anyone to open their profile and their own map.

Virginijus Barzda

Chemical and Physical Sciences

5 shared papers, latest 2016

Daniela Rotin

Cell Biology

2 shared papers, latest 2019

Gabrielle Boulianne

Developmental and Stem Cell Biology

1 shared papers, latest 2014

Write to this professor

A short, specific email works best. This draft uses one of their recent papers; replace the parts in brackets with your own details before sending.

Applying for

Paper to mentionMention their CIHR grant from 2023

Subject: Prospective PhD student: Neuromuscular Junction Dear Professor Stewart, My name is [your name], and I am a [your current degree or role] at [your institution]. I am applying for a PhD position starting in [term and year]. I read your paper "Synaptic Electrophysiology of the Drosophila Neuromuscular Junction." (2025), and it connects closely to my own work on [your research topic]. [One or two sentences on what you did and what you learned.] I also saw your CIHR-funded project "Evaluating the nerve-muscle connection as a Duchenne muscular dystrophy therapeutic target" (2023), and I would be glad to contribute to work in that direction. Are you accepting new PhD students for [term and year]? I have attached my CV and transcripts, and I would be glad to talk at a time that suits you. Thank you for your time. Kind regards, [your name]