Category Archives: General

Bon Voyage…everyone?

In the next few months we’ll be seeing Mack, Anna, and Dr Baenziger head off for various temporary stays in France. Anna will sharpen her computational skills, while Mack and Dr B (on a skill-sharpening sabbatical) will work on cryo-EM structures of the nAChR.

Congratulations to Camille, PhD and valedictorian!

Camille successfully defended her thesis during the pandemic, but was finally able to celebrate at summer convocation, not just as a graduate, but as valedictorian and winner of the Governor General’s gold medal! The real achievement was uOttawa’s, for actually getting her to attend convocation.

The Governor General’s gold medal, which recognizes outstanding academic achievement in the field of Medicine, Health Sciences and Interdisciplinary Studies.
Giving the valedictory address
Oh no big deal just chilling with the Chancellor and Dean of Faculty of Medicine
With Dr Baenziger

Mack is on a Neuron paper

Big congrats to Mack, whose third author work on this paper has helped our lab break into the big workd of Cryo-EM structures and analysis, which is a new and very exciting field for us!

The paper uses cryo-EM to solve apo and agonist-bound structures of the Torpedo nicotinic receptor embedded in a lipid nanodisc, which gives an unprecedented “before and after” look at the nAChR in a lipid membrane!

I spy a Nature paper!

Congratulations to Camille on her new first author paper. “A lipid site shapes the agonist response of a pentameric ligand-gated ion channel” is now published in Nature Chemical Biology!

The paper looks into the role of a potential lipid binding site in the functional modulation as well as the desensitization of pentameric ligand-gated ion channels.

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