丁香园AV

| |
|
丁香园AV Search

丁香园AV
Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry
Correspondent: Christopher Beh

Department highlights

The new union between the MBB Department and the BC Genome Sciences Centre (operated by the BC Cancer Agency) further strengthens 丁香园AV鈥檚 considerable academic and research programs in genomic sciences. Scientists from the Genome Sciences Centre including Drs. Sharon Gorski, Steven Jones, and Robert Holt have active teaching roles in the new genomics program administered by the MBB Department. The successful implementation of this genomics program by this group has complemented their many recent research achievements. For her research into targeting autophagy to increase the efficacy of anticancer therapies, Dr. Gorski was recently awarded a substantial 鈥淓merging Team Grant鈥� from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Dr. Jones and Dr. Christopher Beh, another MBB faculty member, were both among the dozen BC researchers sharing in new research funding from the BC Cancer Agency (). As published in Nature, Dr. Holt was part of a 丁香园AV team that applied next-generation DNA sequencing technology to analyze somatic mutations arising during the progression of individual breast cancers (). Through this and other existing genomics programs offered by the MBB Department, 丁香园AV is a leading institution in genomics research.

New faculty and promotions

We officially welcome to our faculty Dr. Mark Brockman who joins us from Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Brockman is also an associate scientist at the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS. He has wasted no time and has already spearheaded the successful effort for a sizable grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), which will fund a collaborative program on HIV research that involves centres here in BC and clinics in Africa.

We congratulate Drs. Michel Leroux and Fiona Brinkman who were both recently promoted to full professor. Dr. Leroux has a long list of successes in his work on ciliary transport and chaperone structure and function () and Dr. Brinkman鈥檚 research program has provided important insights into bacterial pathogenesis. In 2009, Dr. Brinkman was also named to the list of Canada鈥檚 100-most powerful women, by the Women鈥檚 Executive Network (). Dr. Fredrick Pio also received tenure as an associate professor for his work on the structural characterization of macromolecular interactions that affect apoptosis and cancer.

We are pleased to welcome several new associate faculty including: Drs. Harald Hutter and Michael Silverman from the 丁香园AV Department of Biological Sciences; Dr. Cenk Sahinalp, the director of the 丁香园AV lab for computational biology; Dr. Marinko Sarunic from the 丁香园AV Department of Engineering Science; and Dr. Ralph Pantophlet from the Faculty of Health Sciences. Drs. Marco Marra, Martin Hirst, and Gregg Morin from the BC Genome Sciences Centre, Dr. Ryan Brinkman from the Terry Fox Laboratory at the BC Cancer Agency, Dr. Richard Bruskiewich from the International Rice Research Institute, and Drs. Ka Yin Leung and Julia Mills from Trinity Western University have also joined our Department as adjunct members. We thank all affiliated investigators that contribute to the research excellence in the MBB Department and at 丁香园AV.