Biochemistry Research Day 2010

Fueling up with delicious fruit and pastries
before the sessions start

Huajin Wang, Joanne Hsieh and Vince Nadeau get together before the morning session

Everyone looks remarkably chipper despite the early hour

OK, enough coffee, Charles Calmettes, Nardin Nano, Majida El Bakkouri and Mailis Bietenhader are eager to get started.

Chair, Reinhart Reithmeier, welcomes everyone and
starts the morning with trainee presentations

Brad Poulsen (Deber Lab) gave a nicely polished presentation on peptide inhibitors of a small bacterial multidrug resistance protein

The session ended with a terrific talk by Sean Reichheld (Davidson lab) who was awarded the Beckman-Coulter
"Best Student Publication of 2009".
Sean presented his research entitled" "The induction of folding cooperativity by ligand binding drives the allosteric response of tetracycline repressor"
Reichheld, SE, Yu, Z and Davidson AR. PNAS (2009) 106:22263

This year's Hofmann Lecturer was Joanne Lemieux, University of Alberta, who took us on a structural tour of transmembrane proteases with a talk entitled "Making the cut: a structural study of rhomboid proteases"

Joanne Lemieux meets Theo Hofmann after her lecture

A rare shot of photographer, David Williams,
setting up for the group photo

Alex Marsolais and Agata Orlowicz enjoying lunch

Stan Pasyk and Steven Molinski tuck into those delicious wraps!

Mike Puchacz lends his supervisory talents as
Margaret Bejide puts up her poster

Postdoc Nilu Chakrabarti gets started....

A colourful masterpiece by Wilson Lau

Bring on the judges!...Edith Cheng is ready to go

Tracy Teodoro takes Cory Mulvihill through her poster

Johnny Tkach fields questions from judge Privé

Phil Ip ponders Gaussian convolution

Yaqi Hu takes Gong Chen on a tour
of the BTB domain interactome

Theo Hofmann and Reinhart Reithmeier
take a break between posters

Also enjoying a break after posters is Alex Marsolais,
Karen Rothfels and Jessica Vaisica

Phil Ip and Mustafa Kamani catch up during the break

Chris Yip shows how combinational microscopic
approaches can be used to map molecular interactions

An appreciate audience enjoys the faculty presentations

Picking winning posters is always a tough job for the judges but here they are.... Congratulations to all!

Lil Attisano with the Ph.D. poster award winners Lindsay Baker (Rubinstein), Gong Chen (Siu), Jay Yang (Brown), Angela Yu (Houry) and, not shown, Usheer Kanjee (Houry)

Photos by Vikram Mulligan & David Williams


A beautiful, sunny day at the Old Mill Inn set the tone for a terrific Research Day. Here, Carol Gordon and Anthoula Vlahakis (right) are up early to register attendees.
Brenda Bradshaw greets Grant Brown (left) and Trevor Moraes		Grad Coordinator Lil Attisano keeps track of the poster judges
Fueling up with delicious fruit and pastries before the sessions start		Jim Rini (left) and Grant Brown take advantage of the pre-session caffeine top-up
Breakfast was the perfect opportunity to catch up with friends		Kevin Foley (left) and Allen Volchuk chat over coffee
Huajin Wang, Joanne Hsieh and Vince Nadeau get together before the morning session	back to top	Everyone looks remarkably chipper despite the early hour
OK, enough coffee, Charles Calmettes, Nardin Nano, Majida El Bakkouri and Mailis Bietenhader are eager to get started.		Chair, Reinhart Reithmeier, welcomes everyone and starts the morning with trainee presentations
The first session featured trainee oral presentations selected from submitted abstracts...
Our lead-off student presentation came from Phil Ip (Chakrabartty lab) who's outgoing style caught everyone's attention as he discussed the unfolding kinetics of ALS mutants of superoxide dismutase		Brad Poulsen (Deber Lab) gave a nicely polished presentation on peptide inhibitors of a small bacterial multidrug resistance protein
Avi Persaud (Rotin lab) followed up with a compelling presentation on the interaction between hNedd4-1 and hFGFR1		The session ended with a terrific talk by Sean Reichheld (Davidson lab) who was awarded the Beckman-Coulter "Best Student Publication of 2009". Sean presented his research entitled" "The induction of folding cooperativity by ligand binding drives the allosteric response of tetracycline repressor" Reichheld, SE, Yu, Z and Davidson AR. PNAS (2009) 106:22263
The Old Mill Inn provided the perfect atmosphere to hear about research highlights from the past year
Ahhhhhh.......more COFFEE!!		Jim Rini and Julie Forman-Kay take advantage of the break to discuss order and disorder in that order
Wioletta Glowacka and Philipp Alberts enjoy the break	back to top	Angus McQuibban entertains Alan Davidson and Sean Reichheld
Getting ready for round 2....
Our Annual Theo Hofmann Lecture rounded out the morning
This year's Hofmann Lecturer was Joanne Lemieux, University of Alberta, who took us on a structural tour of transmembrane proteases with a talk entitled "Making the cut: a structural study of rhomboid proteases"		Joanne Lemieux meets Theo Hofmann after her lecture
Julia Barette and Julie Forman-Kay enjoy some sunshine while gathering for our group photo		A rare shot of photographer, David Williams, setting up for the group photo
Still growing...and growing...another outstanding turnout for Research Day. Click here for a hi-res photo suitable for printing (4.3 Mb file)
Cliff Lingwood (left) and Lewis Kay enjoy the sun before lunch		When not asking the toughest seminar questions, David Pulleyblank can often be seen behind his camera
	back to top
The Old Mill is well known for its food...and our lunch was no exception...a great mix of wraps, salads and fruit.
Alex Marsolais and Agata Orlowicz enjoying lunch		Stan Pasyk and Steven Molinski tuck into those delicious wraps!
Posters...posters.....POSTERS!! A record 86 posters were presented by our grad students and postdocs this year!
Antionette Bugyei-Twum discovers the intricacies of hanging a poster		Mike Puchacz lends his supervisory talents as Margaret Bejide puts up her poster
Charles Calmettes puts on the finishing touches		Postdoc Nilu Chakrabarti gets started....
A colourful masterpiece by Wilson Lau		And so it begins...visting 86 posters takes some planning!
Bring on the judges!...Edith Cheng is ready to go		Tracy Teodoro takes Cory Mulvihill through her poster
Johnny Tkach fields questions from judge Privé	back to top	Phil Ip ponders Gaussian convolution
Not much gets by Harry Schachter as he has a close look at Majida El Bakkouri's work
Counting up the subunits...Usheer Kanjee (right) explains his results		Grace LI describes the details of her molecular dynamics simulations
Yaqi Hu takes Gong Chen on a tour of the BTB domain interactome		Theo Hofmann and Reinhart Reithmeier take a break between posters
Yet even more coffee...! Not a problem for Gil Privé, Annie Cunningham and Bryan Eger		Also enjoying a break after posters is Alex Marsolais, Karen Rothfels and Jessica Vaisica
Phil Ip and Mustafa Kamani catch up during the break	back to top	Larry Moran (left) and Alex Palazzo chat between sessions
Faculty presentations rounded out the afternoon....
Christine Bear describes how efforts from the chemical and biological fronts can generate strategies to prevent cystic fibrosis		Chris Yip shows how combinational microscopic approaches can be used to map molecular interactions
An appreciate audience enjoys the faculty presentations Picking winning posters is always a tough job for the judges but here they are.... Congratulations to all!
Lil Attisano presents M.Sc. poster awards to Dustin Little (Howell), Eric Zholumbetov (Trimble) and Alan Wong (Rini) The Postdoctoral Award went to Yoshito Kakihara (Houry)		Lil Attisano with the Ph.D. poster award winners Lindsay Baker (Rubinstein), Gong Chen (Siu), Jay Yang (Brown), Angela Yu (Houry) and, not shown, Usheer Kanjee (Houry)
Outstanding Teaching Assistant Awards

This year's awards for outstanding TA went to....(left) Eden Fussner (BCH371), (right) Sian Patterson (BCH210) and (not shown) Patrick Walsh (BCH210). Congratulations to all three outstanding teachers and many thanks for such exceptional work!!
Best all-round graduate student(s)....the David A. Scott Award
		Our annual David A. Scott award for best all-round graduate student is awarded on the basis of performance at seminars, readiness and willingness to assist fellow graduate students and staff, abilities as teaching assistant, etc. This year, we had two exceptional candidates and it was decided to make a rare joint award to Sian Patterson (Reithmeier lab) and Eden Fussner (Bazett-Jones lab) Congratulations Eden and Sian! Apparently, winning top TA awards is just the tip of the iceberg!