Congratulations...
The Biochemical Society, U.K. introduced a new award in 2011, to celebrate its first 100 years, which will be awarded annually. The first Centenary Award winner is our colleague, Dr. Nahum Sonenberg.
Nahum will present the Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins Memorial Lecture, which will be published in Biochemical Society Transactions at the Biochemical Society Centenary celebration event on December 15, 2011. This is an award of high distinction!!
Dr. Anne-Claude Gingras, Principal Investigator, Scientist, Mount Sinai Hospital and former graduate student from Dr. Sonenberg's lab, has been awarded Canada's Most Powerful Top 100 Women. One of only a handful of scientists to be included among the list of Canada's leading women in their fields. She is renowned for her studies of protein interactions that play a role in the development of cancer, drug resistance and immunity. Congratulations on her incredible success. 2011 Dec. 1.
The Canadian Cancer Research Alliance (CCRA) announced the recipients of its inaugural awards, which recognize contributions to cancer research in Canada. Dr. Philip E. Branton received the award for Exceptional Leadership in Cancer Research for his outstanding contributions to the development of the cancer research community and inter-agency research collaboration in Canada through the founding of the Canadian Cancer Research Alliance. Congratulations on this award, read more in Med-e News, 2011 Nov. 23
Congratulations to our Biochemistry Department colleague Professor Nahum Sonenberg, who has received the 41st Lewis S. Rosenstiel Award for Distinguished Work in Basic Medical Science, "for his transformative studies of the control of protein synthesis in mammalian cells". His research on the mechanism and control of protein synthesis has had and continues to have, a huge impact on our understanding of many fundamental biological processes underlying diabetes, cancer, viral infection, immunology, and memory, read more in McGill Newsroom, press release, 2011 Oct. 26.
The Symposium to celebrate the opening of the Cystic Fibrosis Translational Research Centre (CFTRc) on October 17, 2011, was very successful. The goal of the CFTRc is to find a cure for cystic fibrosis. The CFTRc provides a platform for basic CF research and the development of therapies targeting the basic defect that underlies Cystic Fibrosis and other protein trafficking diseases. It has been established with the support the successful CFI 6 application (The McGill University Life Sciences Complex (MULSC): “Disease to therapy initiative”, total value $26.5M, that paid for renovations and new equipment) and is located in the McIntyre Medical Sciences building. It is part of a larger McGill initiative on orphan and neglected diseases.
Operating support for CFTRc projects has been provided by the CIHR, Cystic Fibrosis Canada, Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Therapeutics (USA), GenomeQuebec, and by contracts and collaborations with pharmaceutical companies.
Thanks to funding from the E. Mackenzie Harpur Paediatric Fund and the BREATHE (RESPIRE) program of Cystic Fibrosis Canada, we have established a network of clinical collaborators in Quebec and the infrastructure needed to study airway cells obtained during lung transplantation and other procedures in the search for an effective therapy.
We expect the centre to grow as resources become available. Current members include; John Hanrahan, (founding Director); Gergely Lukacs; David Thomas; Jason Young; Michael Hallett; Simon Rousseau; Larry Lands; Dao Nguyen; Yves Berthiaume (CHUM- Hotel Dieu); Andre Cantin (CHUS- Fleurimont); Raymond Andersen (Dept. Chemistry, UBC).
Congratulations to Mathieu Flamand, from Dr. Thomas Duchaine’s lab, on being one of the top Ph.D. recipients of a Vanier Scholarship at McGill. This scholarship is administered by Canada’s three federal granting agencies: CIHR, NSERC and SSHRC. This prestigious award aims to attract and retain world-class doctoral students by supporting students who demonstrate a high standard of scholarly achievement in graduate studies and leadership skills. Another recipient, Long Nguyen, a former undergraduate in Biochemistry who worked in Dr. Kalle Gehring’s lab, won a Vanier Scholarship through the University of British Columbia. This award is a major accomplishment and Mathieu Flamand and Long Nguyen are to be congratulated for their excellent work. 2011 May 26
Dr. Philippe Gros, with his Research Team - Sandra Salem (Ph.D. candidate), Dr. Albert Berghuis and Dr. Anny Fortin - found two distinct disease-causing mutations and saved a baby girl, read more in McGill Newsoom, press release, 2011 May 11 and Faculty of Medicine Med-E News, 2011 May. Published article in N Engl J Med., 2011 Apr. 27.
Dr. Mirek Cygler, part of a team - Lighting up a protein called SPY, published article in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, 2011 Feb 13, v. 18, 262-269 and Physorg, 2011 Apr. 1.
Christine Laberge, Students Affairs Officer (Graduate Program/ Undergraduate Program Advisor), has won the 2009-2010 McGill Award for Excellence in Service to Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies. This award recognizes all the qualities of dedication, service, patience, help and professionalism that we know so well. Congratulations to Christine! 2011 Jan. 28
The CIHR-Institute of Infection and Immunity (III) has selected Dr. T. Martin Schmeing as its first laureate for the Bhagirath Singh Early Career Award in Infection and Immunity. This award was established to honour the outstanding work of III’s inaugural Scientific Director, Dr. Bhagirath Singh. To recognize the excellence of research being done in Canada, this prize is awarded annually to a new investigator in the field of Infection and Immunity. His research project entitled, Structural and Function Studies of Nonribosomal Peptide Synthetases, was highly ranked in the 2010 March competition, and proved to be the highest among both Open competitions of the year 2010 for new investigators. The project is very innovative and has the potential to find novel ways to synthesize new bio-active molecules that may impact infectious and immunological diseases. 2011 Feb. 22
Congratulations to Laurent Sansregret, a student of Dr. Alain Nepveu, for having discovered a new test to better predict breast cancer outcomes, published article in Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 2011 Feb 1, v. 108, 1949-1954 and McGill Newsroom, press release, 2011, Jan. 27.
Dr. Maya Saleh and her team just had a paper accepted in Nature. This paper investigates the functional network of innate immunity signaling in intestinal epithelial cells (towards understanding of the mechanisms involved in inflammatory bowel disease) using genome-wide RNA interference. Their analysis revealed that genes that control apoptosis were enriched in this process. Specifically, they have uncovered a novel role of one such gene (BID) in inflammation and immunity, which renders this player an important therapeutic target in IBD.2011 Feb. 26
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Congratulations to Drs. Jason Young and Gergely Lukacs on this great paper. Peripheral Quality Control. Protein misfolding diseases often lead to the retention and degradation of important proteins within the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). Strategies to reduce the stringency of ER quality control that allow the proteins to carry on through the secretory pathway to reach their destination at the cell surface have shown some promise. Science, 2010 Aug 13;329(5993):805-10. Epub 2010 Jul 1.; see the Perspective by Hutt and Balch
Okiyoneda et al. wanted to understand how, even if a protein reaches its destination, it may still be subjected to a second level of quality control and be cleared from the plasma membrane. Using functional small-interfering RNA screens in cells expressing the common cystic fibrosis mutation F508CFTR, the authors identified a pair of chaperones that promoted clearance of defective proteins from the plasma membrane. This peripheral quality-control step will also need to be overcome to increase the effectiveness of strategies to overcome protein misfolding disorders.