People

PhD (Concordia)
Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Diploma in Biotechnology and Genomics
Department of Biology, Concordia University

My research interests fall into two main axes. First, our laboratory is investigating biochemical and molecular aspects of the sulfonation reaction in relation to plant growth, development and adaptation to stress using Arabidopsis thaliana sulfotransferases as a model system. To date, we have characterized two sulfotransferases involved in the sulfation of brassinosteroids and hydroxylated derivatives of jasmonic acid, respectively. The biochemical function and the pattern of expression of these enzymes suggest that plants like mammals use the sulfonation reaction to modulate the biological activity of hormones and chemical messengers. Our second axis of research is the study of the structure function relationship of sulfotransferases in order to elucidate the mechanism of sulfonate transfer and to define the amino acids responsible for substrate binding and catalysis. Using site-directed mutagenesis of the flavonol 3-sulfotransferase, we mapped several amino acids required for catalysis and cosubstrate binding while the construction of chimeric proteins allowed to define the domain responsible for substrate specificity.

PhD (UBC), M.J. (UBC)
Assistant Professor
Department of Journalism, Concordia University

Dr. David Secko is interested in research that links across journalism, science and ethical issues to clarify and experiment with the roles of the public, experts and journalists in the democratic governance of biotechnology. This work takes two forms: (1) the development of new tools to help journalists to better communicate science (See: www.csjp.ca) and (2) the moderation, design and evaluation of deliberative public engagement events (See: pep.concordia.ca). David is particularly interested in genomics, synthetic biology and bioenergy topics, but also explores research on salmon, biobanking and personalized medicine. He is always interested in discussing cutting edge science.

David's background cuts across microbiology, journalism and applied ethics. His amazement at the speed at which an amoeba could crawl, led him to a Ph.D. (2004) from the University of British Columbia that focused on the soil amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum. However, upon finishing his PhD, he started writing about science for the likes of The Scientist magazine and Vancouver's Tyee. Now at Concordia University, David is the leader of the Concordia Science Journalism Project and active in the Canadian GE3LS community. David won a University Research Award for his research contributions in 2011, the Dean's Award for excellence as a new scholar in 2010 and was awarded the Hal Straight Gold Medal in Journalism from UBC's School of Journalism in 2006.

PhD (USA)
Associate Professor
Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry, University of Toronto

Research Interests: modeling and analysis of metabolic and regulatory networks, systems biology, metabolic engineering, bioremediation, bioenergy and bioprocess optimization.

Prof. Mahadevan's lab is focussed on developing methods and tools for computational representing cellular function such as metabolism. Our ability to query biological systems allows the identification of the key players in metabolism and their interactions. Such knowledge can be transferred into a mathematical model, which is then used to drive the rational design of cellular function analogous to the design of devices and machines in engineering. Our lab uses such a model-based approach to engineer cells to make fuels, chemical, electricity as well as clean-up ground water.

PhD (U of T)
Professor
Biochemistry, University of Alberta

At the beginning of his career Mike Ellison's interests were primarily centred on the structure and function of complex biomolecules. His current focus is on Synthetic Biology, an emerging discipline that sits at the interface between biology and engineering. The goal of this new field is to produce modular biological circuits of increasing sophistication using well-understood molecular components that can be reliably assembled into novel and useful forms of artificial life. As Synthetic Biology theme leader of the Bioconversions network, his current efforts are directed toward the creation of microbial systems with the capacity to produce high value chemical feed stocks from provincially available sources of biomass. In addition his lab is developing easier, faster and less expensive ways of to assemble genomic-scale DNA modularly.

PhD (U of T)
Canada Research Chair in Systems Biology, Ottawa Institute for Systems Biology
Assistant Professor of Cellular & Molecular Medicine
Assistant Professor of Physics, University of Ottawa

Dr. Kaern is a promising young scientist who has authored over 30 scientific publications collectively cited more than 1000 times. With expertise in yeast genomics, genetic engineering, dynamical systems theory and computational modelling, Dr. Kaern focuses on complex gene regulatory processes. This research aims at understanding fundamental properties governing cellular signal processing and transduction to facilitate advances in biotechnology, biopharmaceutical and biomedicine. He is the founder and senior advisor of the University of Ottawa Genetically Engineered Machines technology incubator.

PhD (U of A)
Associate Professor
Molecular Biology & Biochemistry, Simon Fraser University
Department of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia

Research Interests: 1) Synthetic biology work focuses on developing laboratory methods for constructing large DNA molecules, engineering whole microbial genomes and exploring microbial genome interaction. 2) the latest DNA sequencing technologies are used in the study of T-cell repertoire (immunogenetics), tumours (metagenomic sequencing), identification of spectrum of somatic mutations in various cancers (cancer genomes) and study of neurobiolocigal disorders.

PhD (Harvard University)
Tenured Professor
Department of Medicine, Université de Montréal

Director of the Research Centre and the Laboratory of Molecular Biology of the CHU Sainte-Justine
Chairholder of the Canada Research Chair in Genetics of the Nervous System
Chairholder of the Jeanne-et-J.-Louis-Lévesque Chair in Genetics of Brain Diseases
Director of the Centre for excellence in neuroscience of Université de Montréal
Director of the Réseau de Médecine Génétique Appliquée - FRSQ

Over the last 20 years, Dr. Guy Rouleau and his team have focused on identifying the genes causing several neurological and psychiatric diseases, including autism, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, hereditary neuropathies, epilepsy and schizophrenia, as well as providing a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms that lead to these disease symptoms. Among Dr. Rouleau's main achievements are his contribution to the identification of over 20 disease-causing genes and his discovery of new mutational mechanisms.
Dr. Rouleau has published over 500 articles in peer-reviewed journals and has been quoted more than 20 000 times. He has supervised nearly a hundred students at the Masters, PhD and Post-doctoral levels in addition to receiving numerous awards for his contribution to science and society.

PhD (U de Sherbrooke)
Professor
INRS-Institut Armand-Frappier

Dr. Jonathan Perreault graduated with a B.Sc. from the Université de Sherbrooke in 2001 he then got his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the Université de Sherbrooke in 2007. After a post-doctoral fellowship at Yale in the laboratory of Dr. Ronald Breaker, he joined INRS-Institut Armand-Frappier as a professor in 2011.

All his main research interests revolve around noncoding RNAs. In particular gene regulation in bacteria by noncoding RNAs and also selection of synthetic functional RNAs through the use of new methods developed in his laboratory.

PhD (Concordia University)
Professor
Department of Electical and Computer Engineering, Concordia University

Dr. Kahrizi completed his PhD in 1985 in the field of applied solid state physics. Dr. Mojtaba Kahrizi, is a professor in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at Concordia University. He is director of the Micro Devices and Micro-fabrications in that department. Dr. Kahrizi's research and teaching spans a wide spectrum under the umbrella of Material Sciences, Solid State Devices, and Nano-science and resulted in numerous high quality journal and conference articles related to material sciences, and fundamental issues related to micro- and nano- structures. At present, his main interest is focused on the application of nanotechnology to develop sensors to detect greenhouse gases and biological molecules, the design and fabrication of water purification filters, flexible conductors, and solar cells. He has been involved in collaboration with Professor Luc Varin from the Biology Department at Concordia to design and fabricate sensors for the detection of antibody and ADDL molecules. He is the chair of IEEE, EDS, Montreal chapter and a member of Professional Engineers of Ontario. Dr. Kahrizi is also a member of the Center for Applied Research on Polymers and Composites. He is an editor of the book "Micromachining Techniques for Fabrication of Micro and Nano Structures".

PhD (John Hopkins)
Assistant Professor and Canada Research Chair in Cellular Science & Human Health
Co-Director of the Centre for Microscopy at Concordia
Department of Biology, Concordia University

We are interested in understanding the genetic circuitry that controls membrane trafficking in the endocytic system of eukaryotic cells (S. cerevisiae, immortal cell lines, and mammalian neurons). This dynamic network of mobile organelles is critical for determining when and where cargo proteins responsible for cellular communication (e.g. receptors) are added or removed from the surface of cells, as required for interaction with the environment or with other cells in the body to drive numerous physiological processes. Abnormal rerouting of these surface proteins underlies many human disorders, from cancer to diabetes, and my lab is particularly interested in defects underlying neurodevelopmental disorders, such as attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, autism spectrum disorders and rare forms of X-linked mental retardation. We aim to rewire the "traffic signals" within cells to correct these defects and treat these disorders. Our work will also result in new systems that may improve the surface display or compartmentalization of protein components necessary for extracellular molecular detection or metabolic pathway reconstitution within cells.

PhD (York University)
Professor and Director of the Centre for Structural and Functional Genomics
Department of Biology, Concordia University

Adrian Tsang is a professor of the Biology Department and the Director of the Centre for Structural and Functional Genomics at Concordia University in Montreal. He received his BSc in genetics from the University of Alberta and his PhD in biology from York University. Dr. Tsang pursued his post-doctoral studies at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in the United Kingdom. Prior to joining Concordia University, he had been a faculty member at York University and McGill University. His present research uses genomics and bioinformatics approaches to elucidate the transcriptional and metabolic networks of filamentous fungi as well as searching and characterizing fungal enzymes for the effective hydrolysis of plant-derived biomass. The knowledge gained from the network analyses is being used by his research team to engineer fungal strains in the production of extracellular proteins and secondary metabolites in relatively pure form. He is also interested in the development of thermophilic fungi as platform organisms.

I did my undergraduate degree at Dalhousie, and my PhD at the University of Alberta in Genetics on an NSRC 1967 Scholarship. I then did post doctoral work at Harvard with Jack Szostak, first on an AHFMR fellowship, and then after the lab’s move to Mass General on a Harvard Fellowship. In 1985 I moved to Dave Thomas’ group at the NRC Biotechnology Research Institute, initially in space rented at the Royal Victoria Hospital, and then at the new building on Royalmount Ave. While in Dave’s group, with the help of some amazing colleagues, we were able to provide a number of key insights into the signaling pathway that controlled mating in the yeast S. cerevisiae. We identified the genes for the beta and gamma subunits of the heterotrimeric G protein that coupled the pheromone receptor proteins to downstream components, we found Ste20, the initial member of the PAK family of kinases, and we showed how the G protein uses physical linkage to activate the downstream kinase cascade. More recently we have switched our primary focus to the genomics of the pathogenic fungi C. albicans, which forms the majority of the effort in our new labs in the Genome Center at Concordia. Our synthetic biology work focuses on manipulating protein modules to modulate signalling pathways in fungi. We have built artificial adapter proteins that link kinases to membranes and activate them.

Ph.D. Biomedical Engineering (University of Toronto)
M.Sc Chemistry (University of Ottawa)
B.A.Sc Electrical Engineering (University of Toronto)

Microfluidics and Synthetic Biology: Microfluidics (also called 'lab-on-chip') has been touted as a means to miniaturize biology and chemistry on tiny, hand-held devices (see picture). There are numerous advantages with microfluidics that include reduced reagent consumption, automation, and parallelization of screening samples. In the Shih laboratory, we hope to combine microfluidics and synthetic biology to solve major challenges in the health and energy fields.

Ph.D. (University of Cambridge)

Enzymes in synthetic biology: Enzymes are extraordinary biocatalysts –they are the machinery within cell factories crafted by Nature over aeons of evolution. The aims of my research are focused upon using techniques in synthetic biology as a means of exploiting enzymes, developing them as tools in industrial biocatalysis, as well as targeting them within pathogenic microbes to disable them with specific inhibitor drugs as therapeutics to treat infectious diseases.

Enzyme engineering: Using techniques like directed evolution, we can engineer enzymes to optimize them towards our desired activities by mimicking the natural selection process in the laboratory. To this end we are pursuing research towards discovering and engineering enzyme biocatalysts for the production of anticancer anthracycline glycoside drugs and other therapeutic drugs from the same class of natural products for use in a wide range of health applications. We also aim to establish, using synthetic biology, new methods for producing biorenewable hydrocarbons as alternatives to petroleum products and to engineer, through directed evolution, efficient enzyme biocatalysts for doing so.

Screening enzyme inhibitors as antimicrobial drugs: We aim to develop and apply high-throughput enzyme activity-based methods for discovering drugs against Mycobacteria tuberculosis using an in vitro reconstituted biosynthetic pathway of mycobacterial cell wall components by which to assay enzyme inhibitors.