2022

Alexandra Brown

PhD Candidate, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Dalhousie University

"Investigating the molecular mechanisms of an oncogenic transcription factor"

Dr. Jan Johansson

Professor and Head, Department of Biosciences and Nutrition, Karolinska Institutet

Dr. Anna Rising

Professor, Department of Anatomy, Physiology and Biochemistry, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and Group Leader, Department of Biosciences and Nutrition, Karolinska Institutet

"Spider silk proteins for development of materials and biologic drugs"

Location
Microsoft Teams (Online)

Lauren Amos-Schapper

B.Sc. Honours Candidate, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Dalhousie University

"Biochemical Additives and Crosslinking Strategies for Core Sheath Polymer Fibers"

Location
Microsoft Teams (Online)

Dr. Nicholas Stavropoulos

Waksman Institute for Microbiology, Rutgers University

"Mechanisms underlying the control of sleep: building sleep circuits and relaying their signals"

Location
Microsoft Teams (Online)

Morgan Colp

PhD Candidate, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Dalhousie University

"Developing an experimental model system to study eukaryote lateral gene transfer"

Location
Theatre A, Sir Charles Tupper Medical Building (Halifax, NS)
Room 102, DMNB (Saint John, NB)

Sarah van der Ende

PhD Candidate, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Dalhousie University

"Investigating Candidate Genes for the Childhood blinding disease FEVR"

Location
Theatre A, Sir Charles Tupper Medical Building (Halifax, NS)
Room 102, DMNB (Saint John, NB)

PhD Thesis Defence - Simiao (Michelle) Lu

Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Dalhousie University

"Conformational Characterization and Classification of Intrinsically Disordered Amyloid-Beta (1-42) Through Molecular Dynamics Simulations"

Location
Room 3107, Mona Campbell Building

PhD Thesis Defence - Jeffrey Simmons

Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Dalhousie University

"From Soluble Protein to Anchoring Filament: Understanding the Structural and Mechanical Foundations of Pyriform Spider Silk"

Location
Room 3107, Mona Campbell Building

MSc Thesis Defence - Jordan Thompson

Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Dalhousie University

"An Investigation of the Nuclear Lipid Associated Promyelocytic Leukemia (PML) Structures (LAPS) Proteome Using Biotin Proximity Labelling"

Location
Room C264, Collaborative Health Education Building (CHEB)

MSc Thesis Defence - Laura McGary

Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Dalhousie University

"Investigations of Enzyme Active-site Architectures and Catalysis"

Location
Room C264, Collaborative Health Education Building (CHEB)

Picchione visiting scholar - Dr. Andre Hoelz

Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Division of Chemistry & Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology (CalTech)

"Structure and function of the nuclear pore complex"

Location
Theatre A, Sir Charles Tupper Medical Building (Halifax, N.S.)

MSc Thesis Defence - Jason Foster

Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Dalhousie University

"An Investigation of Nuclear Lipid Droplet Proteins and Nuclear Lipid Droplet Protein Dynamics"

Location
Room 2L7, Sir Charles Tupper Medical Building Link (Halifax, NS)
Room 218, DMNB (Saint John, NB)

Ronie Haro

PhD Candidate, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Dalhousie University

"Studying the dinoflagellate genome: retrogene redundancy and genome sequencing"

Location
Theatre A, Sir Charles Tupper Medical Building (Halifax, NS)

Gregory Seaton

PhD Candidate, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Dalhousie University

"Blastocystis: a comparative genomics approach to a common and understudied parasitic eukaryotic organism"

Location
Theatre A, Sir Charles Tupper Medical Building (Halifax, N.S.)

Shannon Sibbald

PhD Candidate, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Dalhousie University

"Insight into pelagophytes: 7 algal genomes and extensive strain level genome variation"

Location
Theatre A, Sir Charles Tupper Medical Building (Halifax, N.S.)

Laura McGary

MSc Candidate, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Dalhousie University

"Investigating active-site architectures using activity-based protein profiling"

Trilok Neupane

PhD Candidate, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Dalhousie University

"Investigating the mechanism of in vitro rhodoquinone biosynthesis"

Location
Theatre A, Sir Charles Tupper Medical Building (Halifax, N.S.)

Jordan Thompson

MSc Candidate, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Dalhousie University

"Identification of novel nuclear lipid droplet proteins using biotin proximity labelling"

Michael McPhee

PhD Candidate, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Dalhousie University

"Investigating factors regulating phosphatidylcholine synthesis and nuclear lipid droplet formation in an intestinal epithelial cell model"

Location
Theatre A, Sir Charles Tupper Medical Building (Halifax, N.S.)

Shelby Williams

PhD Candidate, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Dalhousie University

"Diverse genomes and mitochondrion-related organelles in a novel clade of metamonads"

Location
Theatre A, Sir Charles Tupper Medical Building (Halifax, N.S.)

Greg Fairn, Ph.D.

Professor, Department of Pathology, Dalhousie University

"Kinase-independent synthesis of 3-phosphorylated phosphoinositides by a phosphotransferase: Implications for Salmonella infection and gallbladder cancer"

Location
Theatre A, Sir Charles Tupper Medical Building (Halifax, N.S.)

PhD Thesis Defence - Aaron Woblistin

Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Dalhousie University

"The Role of NPC2 in Cholesterol Transport and the Endocytic System in Neuroblastoma Cells"

Location
Microsoft Teams (online)

PhD Thesis Defence - Logan Slade

Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Dalhousie University

"Transcription Factor EB regulates apoptosis, DNA repair, and cell proliferation in triple-negative breast cancer"

Location
Microsoft Teams (online)

Christian Landry, Ph.D

Professor, Department of Biology, Université Laval

"Impacts of gene duplication on cellular networks"

Location
Microsoft Teams (online)

Nicanor Gonzalez-Morales, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, Department of Biology, Dalhousie University

"Metabolic regulation of myofibril growth"

Location
Theatre A, Sir Charles Tupper Medical Building (Halifax, N.S.)

Honours Student Research Presentations Day 2 

Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Dalhousie University

4:05 - 4:15 pm Lyra Zheng (supervisor Dr. Claudio Slamovits)
Measuring Transcriptional Regulation of DVNP Between Stationary and Exponential Growth Phase in Oxyrrhis marina

4:20 - 4:30 pm Esther Bonitto (supervisor Dr. Kerry Goralski)
Investigating Birch Bark Oil Protection Against Inflammatory Skin Conditions in a Human Keratinocyte Cell Culture Model

4:35 - 4:45 pm Moxuan Wang (supervisor Dr. Claudio Slamovits)
Assessing Approaches for In Vitro Expression of the Dinoflagellate Viral Nucleoprotein (DVNP)

4:50 - 5:00 pm Katie Halliday (supervisor Dr. Neale Ridgway)
Investigating the Role of Choline/ethanolamine Phosphotransferase in Autophagy

5:05 - 5:15 pm Mika Park (supervisor Dr. Graham Dellaire)
Investigating the Role of Promyelocytic Leukemia in Lung Adenocarcinoma

5:20 - 5:30 pm Jonathon Krupski (supervisor Dr. Claudio Slamovits)
Investigation of mRNA Transfection as an Alternative Mode of Gene Delivery in Dinoflagellates

Location
Sir Charles Tupper Medical Building, Room 3-H

Honours Student Research Presentations Day 1

Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Dalhousie University

4:05 - 4:15 pm Meghan Hamilton (supervisor Dr. Stephen Bearne)
Exploring the Catalytic Activity of a Putative ‘Unidirectional’ Asp/Glu Racemase

4:20 - 4:30 pm Karim Abdelgabar (supervisor Dr. Barbara Karten)
Neuron-Specific gene silencing using miRNA-based viral vectors

4:35 - 4:45 pm  Nik Brask (supervisor Dr. Claudio Slamovits)
Isolation and In-silico Structural Characterization of Dinoflagellate Viral Nucleoprotein (DVNP)

4:50 - 5:00 pm Skylah McLeod Van Wagoner(supervisor Dr. Jan Rainey)
Structural Evaluation of Thermal and Chemical Denaturation of Pyriform Silk Protein

5:05 - 5:15 pm Olivia Kerr (supervisor Dr. Jamie Kramer)
Examining Trithorax Target Genes Using Recombineering to Create Tagged Protein Transgenes in Flies

5:20 – 5:30 pm Raymond He (supervisor Dr. David Langelaan)
Characterization of the Structure and Function of Zebrafish PLEX9A

Location
Sir Charles Tupper Medical Building, Room 3-H

Graduate Student Symposium

Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Dalhousie University

12:45 PM - Login and Brief Introductions

1:00 PM - Amanda Black
De novo protein design by deep network hallucination

1:15 PM - Lara Virgilio
Exercise plasma improves memory and reduces neuroinflammation

1:30 PM - Maggie Pickard
Oxygen no longer the sole mammalian terminal electron acceptor

1:45 PM - Adithi Pisapati
ATG9A facilitates lipid movement from its storage organelles

2:00 PM - Joshua Hayden
Potential for a new antibiotic class to treat multidrug-resistant gram-negative baterial infections

2:15 PM - Break

2:30 PM - Emma Ferguson
Ribosomal frameshift and SARS-COV-2

2:45 PM - Alexander Mora Collazos
A global overview of the trophic structure within microbiomes across ecosystems

3:00 PM - Anu Jose
GPR180 is a component of TGFB signalling that promotes thermogenic adipocyte function and mediates the metabolic effects of the adipocyte-secreted factor CTHRC1

3:15 PM - Stanley Ibeh
A large-scale nanoscopy and biochemistry analysis of postsynaptic dendritic spines

3:30 PM - Closing Remarks

Location
Microsoft Teams (Online)

Deniz Top, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Dalhousie University

Candidate Presentation - Assistant Professor

"Distinct Transcription Regulatory Mechanisms Converge Across a Neuronal Network to Govern Behaviour"

Location
Microsoft Teams (Online)
Contact bioc@dal.ca to receive the link

John M. Archibald, Ph.D.

Professor and Arthur B. McDonald Research Chair of Excellence
Director, Institute for Comparative Genomics (formerly CGEB)
Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Dalhousie University

"Gene flow in microbial eukaryotes: highways and bike paths"

Location
Microsoft Teams (Online)
Contact bioc@dal.ca to receive the link

Lori Borgal, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, Department of Biology, Mount Saint Vincent University

"Understanding mechanisms allowing mitotic spindle formation in stem cells"

Location
Microsoft Teams (Online)
Contact bioc@dal.ca to receive the link

Matthias Bierenstiel, Ph.D. - Cancelled

Professor, Department of Chemistry, Cape Breton University

Location
Microsoft Teams (Online)

Lucie Gallot-Lavallee, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Dalhousie University

"Massive intein content in three Anaeramoeba genomes reveals new aspects of intein mobility in eukaryotes"

Location
Microsoft Teams (Online)
Contact bioc@dal.ca to receive the link

Tyson MacCormack, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, Mount Allison University

"Intracellular taurine supports cardiac function and metabolism in non-model organisms"

Location
Microsoft Teams (Online)
Contact bioc@dal.ca to receive the link