Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research

Nabeel Shah recognized with Donnelly Centre Research Thesis Prize

rahul.kalvapalle — Wed, 02 Oct 2024 14:07:36 +0000

Nabeel Shah recognized with Donnelly Centre Research Thesis Prize

Research & Innovation

rahul.kalvapalle Wed, 10/02/2024 - 10:07

Alumni

St. George

Department of Molecular Genetics

Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research

Temerty Faculty of Medicine

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(supplied image)

Syed Nabeel Haider Shah, a PhD graduate of the Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, has been recognized with the 2024 Donnelly Centre Research Thesis Prize.

The annual prize recognizes the quality, originality and significance of a PhD graduate’s work.

Shah’s research examined newly identified RNA binding proteins, two of which were found to have potential roles in cancer development and treatment. One of the proteins was found to be able to enhance the ability of cancer cells to develop into tumours, while the other was found to perform the reverse role by suppressing growth of tumour cells.

“Nabeel has had an extraordinary PhD career,” said his supervisor Jack Greenblatt, University Professor in the department of molecular genetics. “He published 25 peer-reviewed papers from research he conducted over the course of his studies, with lead authorship on 12 of them – and he continues to publish papers from his thesis work. Nabeel made the most of his PhD by contributing significantly and widely across biomedicine.”

Shah credits Greenblatt for being a supportive adviser who provided guidance while allowing him to work independently to develop research projects. “I believe if I was a PhD student in any other lab, it wouldn’t have been possible for me to accomplish as much as I did,” said Shah.

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Ulrich Braunschweig and Muhammad Rizwan win Research Excellence Awards

lanthierj — Fri, 15 Oct 2021 11:57:26 +0000

Ulrich Braunschweig and Muhammad Rizwan win Research Excellence Awards

Research & Innovation

lanthierj Fri, 10/15/2021 - 07:57

Students

St. George

Donnelly Centre Research Excellence Awards

Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research

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Ulrich Braunschweig (L) and Muhammad Rizwan

Ulrich Braunschweig and Muhammad Rizwan have received 2021 Research Excellence Awards from the University of Toronto’s Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research for their contributions to the fields of gene regulation and tissue engineering.

The annual awards recognize postdoctoral researchers working at the intersection of scientific disciplines in the Donnelly Centre to shed light on the molecular processes behind disease and to devise new treatments.

Ulrich Braunschweig, a research associate in Professor Ben Blencowe’s lab, is being recognized for developing a novel DNA-sequencing-based technology, Spar-Seq, to study gene regulation in cells. This allowed him to discover novel regulators of alternative splicing, a process used by the cells to diversify protein species, which has been implicated in neurological disorders such as autism.

Muhammad Rizwan, a research associate in University Professor Molly Shoichet’s group, received the award for engineering a biomaterial that can support growth of stem cell-derived liver bile ducts in a dish. His work holds potential for deriving lab-grown transplant tissue to offset the global shortage of donor livers for patients with bile duct diseases.

“I would like to offer my warmest congratulations to Ulrich and Muhammad,” says Charles Boone, a professor of molecular genetics and a former interim director of the Centre, who helped select the prize winners. “They developed novel technologies in their respective fields which allowed them to ask questions and gain insights that were not possible before. I can hardly wait to see what they will achieve next!"

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Marina Musa named 2021 Charles H. Best Fellow

lanthierj — Wed, 05 May 2021 15:23:02 +0000

Marina Musa named 2021 Charles H. Best Fellow

Research & Innovation

Academic Achievement

lanthierj Wed, 05/05/2021 - 11:23

Students

St. George

Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research

Insulin 100

Women in STEM

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(Photo courtesy of Marina Musa)

Postdoctoral researcher Marina Musa has been awarded the Charles H. Best fellowship for 2021.

The prestigious annual award recognizes an outstanding postdoctoral candidate in the University of Toronto's Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research whose research has the potential to benefit society. Established in 2001, the fellowship is awarded by The Charles H. Best Foundation in the memory of one of the discoverers of insulin at U of T.

Musa joined the lab of Andy Fraser, a professor of molecular genetics in the Donnelly Centre, to study the metabolism of parasitic round worms which infect the guts of around one billion people worldwide, mostly in poor countries where they have long-lasting effects on development and health. Meanwhile, a growing resistance among the parasites to the existing medications means that new drugs are urgently needed.

Musa is investigating how bacteria in the worm gut, or microbiome, contribute to infection. Her goal is to identify the chemicals produced by the bacteria that are essential for the parasites’ survival inside the host gut.

“What we are studying is essentially a biological puzzle with the host, the parasite and the microbiome all affecting each other, and there is a lot of variability and uncertainty, and this fellowship is a great encouragement to continue with research,” says Musa.

“I am very excited to see where this project takes us in the future.”

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Graduate student Jamie Wu receives Dorrington Award

lanthierj — Fri, 09 Apr 2021 13:25:58 +0000

Graduate student Jamie Wu receives Dorrington Award

Research & Innovation

Academic Achievement

lanthierj Fri, 04/09/2021 - 09:25

Students

St. George

Jennifer Dorrington Award

Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research

Temerty Faculty of Medicine

Graduate Students

Women in STEM

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Jamie Wu, a third-year PhD student in biomedical engineering, has been awarded a Jennifer Dorrington Graduate Research Award for 2021.

Wu’s research seeks to reveal how medication-carrying nanoparticles are transported from the bloodstream into tumours in a bid to enhance targeted tumour drug delivery. She is supervised by Professor Warren Chan, director of U of T’s Institute of Biomedical Engineering and an investigator in the Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research.

“If we can figure out what cell machinery is used to transport nanoparticles, we’ll know what targeting molecule to put on these nanoparticles for them to cross the blood vessel wall and enter the tumour in larger quantities,” says Wu. “These biological insights will allow us to design our particles better and get them into the cancer cells.”

Her lab previously showed that only a fraction of nanoparticles injected into the bloodstream reach tumours – and they undergo active transport across cells lining the blood vessels to enter the tumour, instead of leaking in passively as previously thought. Wu uses a combination of genetic approaches, in collaboration with Jason Moffat’s lab in the Donnelly Centre, as well as optical and electron microscope imaging to identify the cellular components involved in the transport.

“It’s a tremendous honour to win the Dorrington Award,” says Wu. “I’ve always looked up to my lab mates who previously won this award and it is both humbling and encouraging to be recognized in the same way.”

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Graduate student Jessica Knox receives Dorrington Award

lanthierj — Fri, 09 Apr 2021 12:58:58 +0000

Graduate student Jessica Knox receives Dorrington Award

Research & Innovation

Academic Achievement

lanthierj Fri, 04/09/2021 - 08:58

Students

St. George

Jennifer Dorrington Award

Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research

Temerty Faculty of Medicine

Graduate Students

Women in STEM

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Jessica Knox, a fourth-year PhD student in molecular genetics, has been awarded a Jennifer Dorrington graduate Research Award for 2021.

“I am very grateful for this award,” says Knox. “It’s very motivating and a big confidence boost, because it means I’m on the right track.”

Knox is working to identify new chemical compounds that can kill worm parasites that destroy crops and threaten global food supply. She is supervised by Peter Roy, a professor of molecular genetics in the Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research, whose team previously discovered several chemicals effective against the nematode worm C. elegans which they use as a model for these crop parasites.

Supported by a Burroughs Wellcome Fund travel award, Knox tested these compounds at the U.S. Department of Agriculture research centre in Corvallis, Oregon. She found that some of the compounds were more effective than existing pesticides in protecting the roots of tomato plants from the widespread and highly destructive parasite, Meloidogyne incognita. The chemicals are only toxic to worms and have no effect on other animals, such as fish, or on cultured human cells suggesting that they are harmless to humans.

Knox’s goal for the remainder of her PhD is to establish how the chemicals work at the molecular level so that they can be more easily turned into commercial products.

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Graduate student Shubham Gupta receives Dorrington Award

lanthierj — Fri, 09 Apr 2021 12:43:45 +0000

Graduate student Shubham Gupta receives Dorrington Award

Academic Achievement

lanthierj Fri, 04/09/2021 - 08:43

Faculty

St. George

Jennifer Dorrington Award

Temerty Faculty of Medicine

Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research

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Shubham Gupta, a fourth-year PhD student in molecular genetics and computational biology, has been awarded a Jennifer Dorrington Graduate Research Award for 2021.

Gupta’s research goal is to develop computational methods for identification of early biomarkers of diabetes years before symptoms appear. He is supervised by Assistant Professor Hannes Röst in the Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research.

Using machine learning and other advanced methods, Gupta is developing tools for tracking hundreds of protein species in blood plasma over long periods of time. Such methods would open the door to molecular diagnostics on a more granular level than what is currently possible with blood analyses that typically look at a handful of protein markers at a time.

Collaborating with personalized medicine pioneer Michael Snyder at Stanford University, Gupta has access to a unique dataset comprising a thousand blood samples collected from 100 prediabetic individuals every three months over five years, and is in the process of identifying early molecular signs of diabetes.

“The Dorrington award means a lot to me,” says Gupta. “It’s a great recognition for my work especially in this year of the pandemic when I didn’t get as much chance to interact with my co-workers and bounce off ideas.”

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Mojca Mattiazzi Ušaj and Shuailong Zhang win Donnelly Centre Research Excellence Awards

lanthierj — Fri, 30 Oct 2020 12:00:50 +0000

Mojca Mattiazzi Ušaj and Shuailong Zhang win Donnelly Centre Research Excellence Awards

Research & Innovation

lanthierj Fri, 10/30/2020 - 08:00

Students

St. George

Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research

Donnelly Centre Research Excellence Awards

Women in STEM

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Research associate Mojca Mattiazzi Ušaj and postdoctoral fellow Shuailong Zhang have received Donnelly Centre Research Excellence Awards for harnessing artificial intelligence for the advancement of cell biology research and regenerative medicine, respectively.

The annual awards recognize outstanding postgraduate researchers in the Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research whose projects cross scientific field boundaries.

Working with geneticists, cell biologists and computational scientists, Mattiazzi Ušaj has created an automated pipeline for extracting from microscopy images hundreds of measurements of internal organelles from individual cells to assess how genetic mutations or drug compounds affect cellular health.

“In research you have more downs than ups so this recognition is very motivating,“ said Mattiazzi Ušaj, who works in the labs of Charles Boone and Brenda Andrews, both professors of molecular genetics. “I’m very fortunate to have had great colleagues and collaborators contributing to my research, and amazing support from my advisers.”

Zhang, who has an engineering background, has teamed up with stem cell scientists and bioengineers to develop AI-powered microrobots that can find and collect the stem cells from brain tissue for applications in regenerative medicine.

“This award is important to me because it recognizes my contribution in developing this technology,” says Zhang, a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Aaron Wheeler, a professor of chemistry. “But the award is not just for me – it is also for everyone else on our team working on this project.”

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Three University Professors elected members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences

lanthierj — Thu, 14 May 2020 18:23:29 +0000

Three University Professors elected members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences

Research & Innovation

lanthierj Thu, 05/14/2020 - 14:23

Faculty

St. George

Faculty of Arts & Science

Faculty of Medicine

Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research

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(L-R) Lewis Kay, Brenda Andrews and Spencer Barrett

Three University of Toronto professors have been elected international members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

The U.S. National Academy of Sciences is a society of distinguished scientists, which was established by an Act of Congress and signed by American president Abraham Lincoln in 1863. They provide independent and objective advice to the U.S. government on matters related to science and technology.

Election to the academy represents one of the highest honours awarded to a scientist worldwide and is in recognition of distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. Just 26 international researchers received the recognition this year, joining a total of 501 scientists from countries outside the U.S. to hold the honour.

Each of the three new members from U of T holds the title of University Professor, a distinction that recognizes outstanding scholarly achievement and pre-eminence in a particular field of knowledge. They are:

University Professor Brenda Andrews, the Charles H. Best Chair of Medical Research in U of T’s Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research and a professor in the department of molecular genetics in the Faculty of Medicine
University Professor Emeritus Spencer Barrett of the department of ecology and evolutionary biology in the Faculty of Arts & Science
University Professor Lewis Kay of the departments of molecular genetics and biochemistry in the Faculty of Medicine and the department of chemistry in the Faculty of Arts & Science

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Three graduate students receive Jennifer Dorrington Award

s.anderson — Mon, 24 Feb 2020 13:23:46 +0000

Three graduate students receive Jennifer Dorrington Award

Research & Innovation

s.anderson Mon, 02/24/2020 - 08:23

Students

St. George

Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research

Graduate Students

Faculty of Medicine

IBBME

Jennifer Dorrington Award

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Sanna Masud, Nil Sahin and Benjamin Kingston (photo of Kingston by Qin Dai)

Graduate students Sanna Masud, Nil Sahin and Benjamin Kingston are the winners of the 2020 Jennifer Dorrington Award, which recognizes outstanding students in the Faculty of Medicine who are doing research in the Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research.

“These three winners are doing some of the most innovative research in biology, which has already revealed important new insights and has the potential to improve patient lives,” says Gary Bader, a University of Toronto professor of molecular genetics and computer science, and the chair of the award committee.

Masud’s research is shedding new light on the cellular basis of Barth syndrome, a rare genetic disorder for which there is currently no treatment. Sahin is developing AI-powered computer vision tools to reveal gene function from cell microscopy images. And Kingston is mapping tumours in three dimensions to help the development of targeted therapies.

Established in 2007 by the Dorrington family, the annual award is named after Jennifer Dorrington, who carried out pioneering work on ovarian physiology in U of T’s Banting and Best department of medical research, which was later integrated into the Donnelly Centre.

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Zheng Luo named 2020 Charles H. Best Fellow

lanthierj — Wed, 12 Feb 2020 16:42:38 +0000

Zheng Luo named 2020 Charles H. Best Fellow

Research & Innovation

lanthierj Wed, 02/12/2020 - 11:42

Students

St. George

Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research

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Zheng Luo has been named the 2020 Charles H. Best Fellow – a prestigious appointment awarded annually to an outstanding postdoctoral student in the Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research.

Named after Charles H. Best, who co-discovered insulin in 1921 as a young graduate at the University of Toronto, the fellowship provides support for postdoctoral researchers who have the potential to become leaders in their fields.

“It’s a great privilege to be recognized by the Best fellowship committee,” says Luo. “The award will help me fulfill my research goals and it’s a great boost at this stage of my career.”

Luo joined Professor Ben Blencowe’s lab in April 2019. His work, which focuses on alternative splicing, a process allowing cells to generate vastly more protein variants from a limited number of protein-coding genes, could lead to new therapies for autism, schizophrenia and other brain disorders.

“While we and others have worked on the splicing code for many years, the rules governing the fidelity of this process remain poorly understood,” says Blencowe. “Zheng is applying a new approach to this problem that I believe holds tremendous promise.”

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