Congratulations to Professor Alexio Muise who was awarded the Crohn’s and Colitis Canada 2020 Research Leadership Award. Professor Muise’s lab has been performing groundbreaking work into the genetic causes of Inflammatory Bowel Syndrome and has published several ground breaking studies in the past few years.
On Thursday October 22th Transcripts, in collaboration with Dnatured and the Biochem Department, is hosting an online Science Stand-Up Comedy Night. See the poster for details. 
Hot off the press: Nana Lee’s article on Virtual Connections published in the print edition of Canada’s national University Affairs, Fall 2020.
Hello all,
Welcome to the new graduate students!
I would like to start by congratulating and welcoming all who have signed on to our graduate program for 2020-21. I realize that this is a strange time to be starting graduate school but I would like to say on behalf of the entire department, that we’re delighted you’re here. Normally we would all be off at our departmental retreat at this time however […]
Message from the Chair, Justin Nodwell.
Hello all,
I hope that your returns (partial or otherwise) to lab work have gone as smoothly as possible. None of the ‘new normal’ is perfect and there are some nagging problems that are still being worked on at our various locations. But I think we all agree that it is good and necessary to have this work going again.
In the mean time here […]
In the latest CSMB Bulletin, Alex Palazzo and Trevor Moraes urge the Canadian Government to increase funding for basic research.
From the article:
Why must governments increase their support for science? Charities do support some science, but this tends to be in very focused areas and less exploratory in nature. As for the private sector, there is no incentive to engage in basic fundamental exploratory research, as it does not provide […]
In a new publication that was published in Nature Communications, the Stagljar lab describe a new technique, called Split Intein-Mediated Protein Ligation (SIMPL), where two test proteins are fused to two halves of intein, a protein that promotes “protein splicing”. When the two test proteins interact, the intein protein activates a splicing reaction, resulting in the fusion of the two test proteins. This technique can help to detect […]
Our esteemed colleague Lewis Kay has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences for his remarkable work on multidimensional NMR.
http://www.nasonline.org/news-and-multimedia/news/2020-nas-election.html
This is an enormous accomplishment and a rarity for scientists outside the United States (or inside the United States for that matter).
In the latest issue of Science, Professor John Rubinstein‘s lab reports the first high-resolution structure of a mammalian V-ATPase. These ATP-hydrolysis–driven proton pumps are essential for acidification of endosomes, lysosomes, and the trans Golgi network, as well as for acid secretion by osteoclasts, kidney intercalated cells, and some tumor cells.
ATP hydrolysis in the V-ATPase catalytic V1 region drives rotation of a central rotor subcomplex and leads to […]
Yesterday the Department had its first ever online student seminar. Nick Ostan from the Moraes lab presented his work on Lactoferin, LbpA and LbpB. This was followed by Richard Liu from the Kahr lab who spoke to us about structural studies on VPS16B and VPS33B. Despite a few technical difficulties, it was a success by all accounts.
Message from the Chair:
The Advisory Committee to the Chair (ACC) is now meeting on a weekly basis to discuss how to manage various student needs during this disruption.
The Department is purchasing an institutional subscription that will allow multiple, simultaneous Zoom meetings. Until then I encourage faculty to sign up individually and use this platform for lab meetings as Zoom is offering its services for free. Please contact Ayesha Glover if […]
In the latest issue of the Journal of Cell Biology, the Andrews lab acquired >1.2 million confocal micrographs of EGFP fusion proteins localized at key cell organelles in murine and human cells from which morphology and statistical features were measured. Machine learning algorithms they developed that use these features to permit automated assignment of the localization of other proteins and dyes in both cell types with higher accuracy […]
