Celebrating our achievements

Department of Anatomy & Cell Biology

The following students won a $500 travel award to attend an international conference:

  • Danielle Brewer (PhD Candidate, Wilson/Owen labs)
  • Sarah Chadwick (MSc Candidate, Lajoie lab)
  • Jessica Esseltine (Postdoctoral Fellow, Laird lab)
  • Nadia Ivanova (MSc Candidate, Cechetto lab)
  • Vanessa Lee (MSc Candidate, Penuela lab)
  • Andrea Loutitt (MSc Candidate, Schmid lab)
  • Nina Weishaupt (Postdoctoral Fellow, Whitehead lab)

Congratulations to Lori Lowes, PhD, and Alison Allan, PhD, for having their study entitled, “Central, But Not Peripheral, Circulating Tumor Cells are Prognostic in Patients Undergoing Resection of Colorectal Cancer Liver Metastases” published in Annals of Surgical Oncology.

Congratulations to Natalie Kozyrev, postdoctoral fellow, for having her study entitled, “Chronic Contusion Spinal Cord Injury Impairs Ejaculatory Reflexes in Male Rats: Partial Recovery by Systemic Infusions of Dopamine D3 Receptor Agonist 7OHDPAT” published in Journal of Neurotrama.

Congratulations to Sonya Van Nuland for being elected as the Student Director on the American Association of Anatomist Board of Directors for 2016-2018.

Congratulations to the following trainees and postdoctoral fellows for giving recent conference presentations:

  • Jessica Esseltine (Laird lab) presented an oral presentation entitled, "Modeling Cx43-linked pathologies in the human context".
  • Julia Abitol (Laird lab) presented a poster entitled, “The Roles of Pannexin1 and Pannexin3 in the Auditory System”.
  • Katanya Alaga (Laird lab) presented a poster entitled, “Examining the role of Connexin43 and Connexin26 in Skin Health and Cancer Onset and Progression”.
  • Meghan Jelen (Laird lab) presented a poster entitled, “Cardiovascular characterization of Cx40Panx1-/-, Cx40-/-, and Panx1-/- mice”.
  • Eric Press (Laird lab) presented a poster entitled, “A Cx26 mutant alters epidermal homeostasis in a novel Cx26CK14-S17F/+ mutant mice”.

Department of Biochemistry

Congratulations to Matthew Maitland, Karen Dunkerley and Sam Fess who successfully defended their MSc degrees.

Charles Ishak, PhD Candidate, was awarded the WORLDiscoveries Scholarship for Commercialization/Entrepreneurship for his project on the development of novel cancer biomarkers. Charles is a fifth-year trainee in the lab of Dr. Fred Dick. Charles’ PhD project centres on the molecular changes associated with loss of the Retinoblastoma (Rb) tumour suppressor. This scholarship is generously supported by funds from WORLDiscoveries with the goal of fostering opportunities for entrepreneurship and/or commercialization. Charles is pictured below with Lisa Cechetto, executive director of WORLDiscoveries, and Chris Brandl, professor in the Department of Biochemistry.

Charles Ishak

Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics
Congratulations to MSc Candidate Dr. Hon Leong for receiving the Prostate Cancer Canada  and Movember Foundation Fund 2016 Rising Star Award, as well as for being the first researcher to win the award twice. Read More.

Department of Microbiology and Immunology

Congratulations to Mateusz Rytelewski (Koropatnick lab) on receiving the 2015 John A. Thomas Award. Mateusz was recognized by the graduate studies committee of the Department of Microbiology & Immunology for his excellent accomplishments including nine published papers, multiple scholarship awards including CaRTT, Banting & Best CGS-D, and the Macklin award from the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry. Mateusz recently defended his doctoral dissertation and will be starting work as a postdoctoral fellow at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas in spring 2016.

Congratulations to Brennan Dirk (Dikeakos lab) on receiving a $2,000 Institutional Community Support travel award from CIHR. He will travel to the Keystone Symposium on HIV Vaccines and Pathogenesis in Squaw Valley, California in March.

Congratulations to Carolina Batista (DeKoter lab) and Ryan Shaler (Haeryfar lab) for winning first place travel award prizes ($1,000 each) in the graduate student and postdoctoral categories to attend the 2016 Canadian Society for Immunology meeting in Ottawa from April 1-4.