Summer Student Poster Session. Every year, MoGen provides a 12-week summer research program for undergraduate students to gain hands-on laboratory experience. This program culminates with a poster session in which the students present a summary of their work. This year, the poster session was held on August 6th in the MSB stone lobby. The turn-out and quality of research presented was the best yet! The stone lobby was packed full of students and faculty and you had to squeeze your way through from poster to poster. Lively discussion could be heard all around. Click here to find out what the students had to say about the event!

Summer BBQ. The annual MoGen Summer BBQ took place on August 13th at the front lawn of the CIE. The GSA, led by vice-president Samantha Yammine, really stepped up their game this year. Armed with a trunk full of goodies from Costco, they provided not only hotdogs and burgers, but also freezies (these were a hit with both students and faculty alike), and watermelon. Special considerations were also made to include veggie, vegan and halal options. Everyone lounged picnic-style on the green grass, enjoying the beautiful day and good company. It was truly picturesque, with frisbees flying overhead and students jump roping. Of course, no GSA event is complete without beer, so after everyone’s stomachs were filled with food, the fun and games continued with a pub night at The Madison. It was a perfect way to celebrate the end of summer.

Student vs. Faculty Softball Game. On August 27th, the second ever student versus faculty softball game was held at King’s College circle. The weather could not have been more perfect and everyone was in high spirits, especially amongst the 10 professors that represented the faculty team. The competition was fierce and the faculty team really tried to hold their ground, however, youth and vitality won out in the end. No one suffered any serious injuries though, which is commendable! At the end, even though the professors suffered a crushing dignified defeat, everyone was all smiles and laughter, showing that even through difficult hardships and trials, professors and students always end up playing on the same side.

MoGen Retreat. The 2015 Molecular Genetics Retreat was once again held at Geneva Park YMCA, on September 23-25th. Attendance broke all records this year with 44 PIs, 94 graduate students, 14 post-docs/staff, 60 rotation students and 9 undergraduate MoGen specialists. The retreat was led this year by Michael Wilson and Jim Rini whose dedication and hard work made sure everything ran without a hitch.

The new cohort of first year students and faculty members headed up to Geneva Park on the first day for the inaugural dinner and Power-Hour. Implemented 5 years ago, the Power Hour tests the PI’s skills in condensing their research into only 2 minutes with one slide. Always entertaining, and we won’t go into embarrassing detail, but let us just say not all the PIs escaped unscathed. The first year students were thoroughly amused and it acts as a great ice breaker. The rest of the department joined the next day. To catch a glimpse of some of the highlights, including drones and a zombie apocalypse, click here.

September Career Development Workshop. Due to the success of last year’s Monthly Career Development Workshop Series, the MoGen Career Ambassadors were awarded one of three GSA Trainee-Organized Symposia awards from the Genetics Society of America to continue the series. Alongside a newly recruited team of grad students, we have already had two engaging workshops that received positive feedback from attendees. September’s workshop was titled, “Beyond Science: Careers in Start-Ups and Business” and featured a panel discussion with: MoGen alumnus Dr. Feroz Sarkari, Associate Manager for Patient Access – Corporate Affairs at Eli Lilly Canada; Dr. Tony Redpath, a MaRS senior fellow and advisor at Cleantech; Dr. Jason Moffat, MoGen Associate Professor and Co-founder of Northern Biologics; Miles Montgomery, MoGen student who is a Co-founder and President of the start-up Magniware; and Thomas HK Leung, Founder of the start-up Scinapsis. This workshop also featured a novel skills component in order to provide interested trainees with specific information about how to get started in this field. We were fortunate to have Andris Lauris, an entrepreneurial advisor for MaRS Health Innovation Hub, to speak for the skills component on how to make a lean start-up and business plan. We broke last year’s record with over 65 attendees, spanning from MoGen senior undergraduates, MSc and PhD students from MoGen and other departments in the faculty, and post-docs.

October Career Development Workshop. The October workshop, “Careers in Government and Not-for-Profit Organizations,” was also very well attended and was one of our best workshops yet. The panel featured Dr. Carla Arasanz, a Knowledge Translation Lead at the Ontario Brain Institute; Dr. Karen Lee, Vice President of Research at the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada; Dr. Roberto Melano, Molecular Microbiologst at Public Health Ontario; Dr. Michael Wortzman, a recent grad now acting as Assistant Director of Research at the Canadian Cancer Society; and, in from Ottawa for the evening, Dr. Danika Goosney, Director General at CIHR. Several of the speakers commented on the importance role models (such as Bill Nye the Science Guy and Dr. Marla Shapiro) had on their decision to step away from the bench and more into the public eye of science. They also gave advice on how our CVs need to be re-framed for careers in science outside of academia to focus less on papers and more on translation of skills. Dr. Danika Goosney was particularly insightful and hilarious, highlighting how she zig-zagged through academia, biotech and then eventually landed in government. One of biggest pieces of advice was to, “Take risks! Don’t be afraid to fail… but fail fast and fail cheap.”

Halloween Pub Night. On October 29th, the students and faculty of MoGen ditched their lab coats for ghostly face paint, cut up sheets, paper maché and other knick-nacks to celebrate Halloween! Held at the Marquis of Granby, the night was full of drinks, excitement, and karaoke (scientists are also surprisingly good singers)! As always, awards were given out for best costumes. The competition was intense. Everyone really showcased their creativity and humour. Alas, there could only be one individual and one group winner. This year, the winning costumes demonstrated that, even during Halloween, making fun of science always comes out first. The Best Individual Costume prize went to Boris Dyakov, who dressed up as a “western blot”, which was a merge of a cowboy and the protein assay (haha, get it?). The Best Group Costume was awarded to the Cowen lab whose members each dressed up as their favourite piece of lab equipment, including a bunsen burner, pipette, sterilization loop, centrifuge and more! If you missed the event, but are interested in checking out all the costumes, just head on over the GSA Facebook Page. If you did not win this year, have no fear. It’s never too early to start brainstorming your costume idea for next year!

Gairdner Awards Symposium. This year, the Gairdner Foundation hosted three distinct symposia on October 28-30th entitled: Global Preparedness for Pandemics: Lessons from Ebola, the 2015 Canada Gairdner Awardees Lecture – Minds that Matter, and RNA and New Genetics. Held at the Macleod Auditorium, an amazing panel of the world’s leading experts gathered to share their life’s research accomplishments.

Importantly, two Molecular Genetics faculty members were featured in this year’s Gairdner Awards Symposium. Dr. Janet Rossant, former SickKids Chief of Research, was awarded with the 2015 Canada Gairdner Wightman Laureate Award, one of the most prestigious research awards in Canada. This award is only given to one Canadian scientist a year who has demonstrated outstanding leadership in the biomedical sciences. During the Minds that Matter Symposia, Dr. Rossant gave a truly inspirational talk about how her whole career began because of her love of the blastocyst and the process of how it develops to a fully functional embryo. Dr. Rossant was officially presented the Gairdner Award later that night at the dinner banquet. The last day of the Symposium was devoted to recent groundbreaking discoveries in the field of non-coding RNA and their importance in the regulation of various biological processes in the cell. One of the invited speakers was none other than MoGen’s very own Dr. Benjamin Blencowe, who discussed his work on alternative splicing regulation, specifically in the identification of microexon splicing, which can have dramatic impact on the regulation of neurological development. Click here to learn more about the event and its impact.

Movember Bake Sale and Trivia Night. Organized by the GSA, the Movember Trivia Night this year took place on November 25th at the Duke of York. This event celebrated the culmination of a month of raising awareness for prostate cancer and allowed participants to showcase their cultivated ‘staches. This year, the award for Best Moustache goes to Kenneth Grisé, who affectionately refers to it as his “bristly lipholstery.” The GSA also held a Movember bake sale and raised an amazing $200, which was donated directly to the MoGen Movember team. Thank you to all the volunteer bakers that took the time to make hundreds of cupcakes, cookies, brownies and other decadent treats.

Along with the Movember festivities, Trivia Night also encouraged students and PIs to exercise their brains at non-science-related facts. Hosted once again by Trivia Master Luke Pettigrews, teams battled it out and at the end of the night, there was a three-way tie between The Argonautes, Deez Nuts and Jet Fuel Can’t Melt Steel Beams. In true graduate student fashion, the tie-breaker was decided by a drink-off. Proving that first year students should not be underestimated, team The Argonautes, consisting of Heather Gibling, Drew Mellow, Ryan Smith, Benjamin Piette, Tim Low, Amanda Charlesworth, Ellen Langille, Ashrut Narula and Karen Chiang, came out as the winner! Look out for the next Trivia Night in the Spring of 2016 for rematches!

Dr. Feroz Sarkari, Associate Manager, Patient Access (Corporate Affairs) at Eli Lilly and Company, shares his unique journey starting as a graduate student in Lori Frappier’s lab, to completing his MBA at Ivey Business School, to working as a consultant at Sixsense Strategy Group Inc. and finally, to his current corporate position at a pharmaceutical company. Feroz reflects on his experience as a graduate student in Molecular Genetics and the important impact it had on his career trajectory. Feroz also shares some valuable advice on how to obtain positions in business/consulting, and emphasizes the importance of always challenging yourself and developing many skill sets. Click here to read more.

Dr. Venus Lai, Executive Director at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, reflects on her career path starting with an internship with Johanna Rommens, to her graduate studies with Tony Pawson, to her current position where she leads a team of scientists aimed at increasing the speed at which therapeutics are developmed. Venus reminisces about coffee hours at Mount Sinai, imparts advice on how to obtain a job in industry, and recommends that you should always be in pursuit of your dream job. Click here to read more.

Computational Biology seeks to help understand biological systems using computational methods that can take advantage of large and complex data being increasingly generated by genomics technologies. Systems Biology studies biological systems as a whole, considering properties not apparent when examining one component at a time, and requires a combination of experimental and computational methods to map and understand these complex systems. Computational and Systems Biology are often combined and share the goals of understanding how biological systems work at the cellular and molecular level, how these systems may break to cause disease and how to fix these failures and develop useful therapies.

Amazing progress has been made in this field recently, taking advantage of exponentially increasing data measuring many aspects of biological systems. An entire cell has recently been simulated and hundreds of thousands of genomes are being used to map mutations causing thousands of diseases. Molecular Genetics researchers in Computational and Systems Biology have made major progress on understanding alternative splicing, discovered thousands of novel protein interactions and complexes, mapped new metabolic pathways, discovered mutations that underlie a range of human diseases, including cancer, found new pathways of therapeutic vulnerability in pathogens and created the first complete genetic interaction map of a cell, substantially improving our understanding of basic genetics.

Computational and Systems Biology are highly interdisciplinary fields that make use of the latest ideas from computer science, math and statistics (e.g. machine learning), engineering (e.g. robots that automatically perform genome-scale experiments), chemistry (e.g. vast libraries of chemical probes) and an ever-expanding set of genomics and proteomics technologies to apply to understanding biological systems. Computational and Systems Biology is highly interdisciplinary and researchers in this field are represented in all other Molecular Genetics fields.

Read our in-depth field spotlight to learn more about the world-leading research in Computational and Systems Biology currently underway in the Molecular Genetics department.

Research redefines how stem cells make blood. (Science 2015, Nov 5. pii: aab2116.). Stem-cell scientists led by MoGen professor Dr. John Dick have discovered a completely new view of how human blood is made, upending conventional dogma. In redefining the architecture of blood development, MoGen doctoral student and co-lead author Dr. Faiyaz Notta along with colleagues mapped the lineage potential of nearly 3,000 single cells from 33 different cell populations of stem and progenitor cells obtained from human blood samples taken at various life stages and ages. Their findings show that the blood system is two-tiered and changes between early human development and adulthood. This work has profound implications for unlocking a distinct route to personalizing therapy for people with blood disorders and diseases. To learn more, click here.

Study charts a new protein map that reveals long-held secrets of the cell. (Cell 2015, 163:1484-99). The Toronto team was led by MoGen professor Dr. Laurence Pelletier and Dr. Brian Raught, and included MoGen students with Bahareh Mojarad as co-lead author and Yi Liu, Qianzhu Wu, and David Comartin. Together, they teased apart protein interactions that define the centrosome to reveal an extraordinary degree of molecular complexity. The centrosome coordinates moving cargo in the cell and separating chromosomes during cell division. The study identified 7,000 protein contacts between 1,700 distinct proteins, with many proteins having a major functional impact. This work has broad implications for understanding diseases that arise from centrosome malfunction, such as microencephaly, polycystic kidney disease and cancer. To learn more, click here.

Discovery of protein "tree of life" for diverse species spanning the animal kingdom. (Nature 2015, 525: 399-344). An international team led by MoGen professor Dr. Andrew Emili uncovered tens of thousands of new protein interactions, accounting for about a quarter of all estimated protein contacts in a cell. The landmark study gathered information on protein machineries from nine species that represent the tree of life: baker’s yeast, amoeba, sea anemones, flies, worms, sea urchins, frogs, mice and humans. The new map expands the number of known protein associations more than tenfold and gives insights into how they evolved over time. The researchers discovered that tens of thousands of protein associations remained unchanged since the first ancestral cell appeared one billion years ago, preceding all of animal life on Earth. Click here to learn more.

Research zeros in on best way to diagnose autism. (The Journal of the American Medical Association 2015, 314: 895-903). Team led by MoGen professor Dr. Stephen Scherer explore the merits of two genome-wide test, chromosomal microarray analysis and whole-exome sequencing, in diagnosis of individuals with autism spectrum disorder. The two genetic tests performed roughly equally well, though they identify markers for different kinds of autism. The best results were achieved by combining brain scans with both genetic evaluations. This work was featured in TIME. To read more click here.

New gene mapping reveals cancer's Achilles heel. [Cell 2015, 163:1515-26]. Toronto team led by MoGen professor Dr. Jason Moffat with MoGen student Megha Chandrashekhar as co-first author has mapped out the genes that keep our cells alive, creating a long-awaited foothold for understanding how our genome works and which genes are crucial in disease like cancer. By turning genes off in five different cancer cell lines, including brain, retinal, ovarian, and two kinds of colorectal cancer cells, the team uncovered that each tumour relies on a unique set of genes that can be targeted by specific drugs. The finding raises hope of devising new treatments that would target only cancer cells, leaving the surrounding healthy tissue unharmed. Click here to learn more.

Study sheds new light on mysterious fungus that has major consequences for human health. (PLoS Pathogens 2015, 11:e1005308). Toronto team led by Dr. Leah Cowen and MoGen doctoral student Sang Hu Kim examined fungi in the mucus of patients with cystic fibrosis and discovered how one particularly cunning fungal species has evolved to defend itself against neighbouring bacteria. They identified Candida isolates that could undergo shapeshifting from a round, single-celled yeast into a long stringy structure, even in the absence of cues that normal trigger the transformation. The team identified the mutations that caused this phenomenon, which were in a gene that encodes the brakes for shapeshifting. Click here to learn more.

Dr. Julie Brill named Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Election as an AAAS Fellow is an honor bestowed upon AAAS members by their peers. Dr. Brill is being recognized for her discovery of in vivo roles and regulation of phosphatidylinositol phosphates in cell morphogenesis during animal development. Click here to read more.

Dr. Anne Claude Gingras named Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. The fellowship of the Royal Society of Canada comprises distinguished individuals from all branches of learning who have made remarkable contributions in the arts, the humanities and the sciences, as well as in Canadian public life. Dr. Gingras is recognized for her cutting edge research in systems biology that has advanced the frontiers of understanding how protein interactions affect disease. Click here to learn more.

Dr. Daniel Durocher named Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. The fellowship of the Royal Society of Canada comprises distinguished individuals from all branches of learning who have made remarkable contributions in the arts, the humanities and the sciences, as well as in Canadian public life. Dr. Durocher is recognized for his pioneering work in sensing and signalling DNA damage repair. Click here to learn more.

Dr. Henry Krause's research into detection of the harmful side effects of pharmaceutical drugs using zebrafish is featured in the Toronto Star. To learn how genetically modified zebra fish whose organs glow fluorescent green will help pharmaceutical researchers test new products, click here.

Dr. Derek van der Kooy's research on an injectable gel that makes inroads against blindness and stroke is featured in The Globe and Mail. To learn more about how this gel improves the survival and integration of stem cell progeny following transplantation, click here.

MoGen faculty members Dr. Cowen, Dr. Andrews, Dr. Boone, and Dr. Moffat are featured in this year's Faculty of Medicine Dean's report. Read about their research here and scroll down to the Facts and Figures to see how we are performing.

Dr. Daniel Schramek was appointed to the Department of Molecular Genetics as an Assistant Professor on July 1, 2015, and is located in the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute node. He trained in Europe, Australia and the US, receiving a BA and an MSc in Molecular Biology, a PhD in Genetics and an Executive MSc in Technology Management. For the last four years, he was a postdoctoral fellow and Emerald Foundation Young Investigator at the Rockefeller University (NY). His research focuses on leveraging functional genomics to make major advances in treating human cancers in a personalized and highly specific manner by identifying and characterizing why a tumour develops.

Dr. Xi Huang was appointed to the Department of Molecular Genetics as an Assistant Professor on July 1, 2015, and is located in the SickKids Research Institute node where he is part of the Developmental & Stem Cell Biology program. He trained in China and the US, receiving a BSc in Biology and a PhD in Cell and Developmental Biology. Most recently, he was a Damon Runyon Postdoctoral Fellow at University of California, San Francisco/Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His research investigates the function of ion channels in brain development and cancer, using multi-disciplinary approaches including those in Drosophila genetics, mouse genetics, xenograft modeling, cell biology, and electrophysiology. His lab strives to define the mechanisms that ion channels utilize to regulate neural development and tumorigenesis.

Dr. Eric Campos was appointed to the Department of Molecular Genetics as an Assistant Professor on September 1, 2015, and is located in the SickKids Research Institute node where he is part of the Genetics & Genome Biology program. He has trained in Canada and the US, receiving a BSc and a PhD in Experimental Medicine. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, New York University School of Medicine. His laboratory focuses on the mechanisms of epigenetic inheritance: self-perpetuating changes on chromatin that influence gene expression independently of DNA sequence. His team aims to understand the spatiotemporal regulation of epigenetic factors that cells utilize to maintain a transcriptional ‘memory’ through cell division. Emphasis is not only placed on the biochemical characterization of histones, histone chaperones and the protein complexes that help perpetuate epigenetic information under normal circumstances, but also on how the process goes awry in a number of childhood cancers.

Dr. Philip Awadalla was appointed to the Department of Molecular Genetics as a Professor on September 1, 2015, and is located in the OICR node. He is a Senior Investigator at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, Professor of Population and Medical Genomics at the University of Toronto, and is a Principal Investigator of the Canadian Partnership for Tomorrow Project and biobank. He is also the Director of the Genome Canada, Canadian Data Integration Centre. Dr. Awadalla was trained at the University of Edinburgh, and his team focuses on the development of next-generation genomics approaches, model-based tools and population-based approaches to study mutation rates, genome biology, and cancer. His team’s research also focuses on systems and population genomics approaches to capture signals in population-based samples or families as well as tools to capture rare or de novo variants, potentially critical to disease phenotypes. Dr. Awadalla’s main research interests include identifying genetic determinants of blood disorders and cancers; and genomic epidemiology of age related disorders in population cohorts.

Welcome to the Graduate Class of 2015! MoGen warmly welcomes the class of 2016 to our Graduate Program. This year's class has the distinction of being the largest entering class in our Departmental history, with 64 students. This enthusiastic group hails from across Canada and around the world, making it our most diverse group of students as well. Join us in wishing our new students a successful start to their graduate career!

MoGen Trainees Awarded a GSA Trainee-Organizes Symposia grant. PhD candidates Amanda Veri and Samantha Yammine have secured funding from the Genetics Society of America to help fund the Department of Molecular Genetics' monthly Career Development and Skills Workshop Series. Veri and Yammine are the tireless co-organizers of this series, which provide students with opportunities to network, develop skills and explore career options. To read more, click here.

Molecular Genetics Webinar Series. New this year is a Molecular Genetics Graduate Program Webinar presented by Dr. Julie Claycomb, Assistant Graduate Coordinator, and Dr. Gary Bader. Organized by the Graduate and Life Sciences Education (GLSE), this 40-minute video can be found on the Molecular Genetics website and describes pretty much everything you would need to know about joining the department. This is an amazing new resource that can be forwarded to any prospective student who would like a comprehensive description of the admission process and what it is like being a MoGen graduate student. Click here to watch the webinar.

Gabriela Krivdova (Dick Lab) wins the Norman Bethune Award. John Dick received the award on his student's behalf. The Bethune award is a result of an honorarium given in 1988 to Mr. Frederick Kahan, a Senior Scientist in Exploratory Biological Research at Merck Sharp and Dohme for his contribution to the development of the antibiotic "Primaxin". Mr. Kahan wished that the money be given to his alma mater, the University of Toronto, and wished the prize to be named in honour of Dr. Norman Bethune. The award is available on a competitive basis to a graduate student in the first two years of a Ph.D. program. The aim of the award is to recognize and encourage young, talented researchers on the threshold of their careers.

Andrew Schacker (Brumell Lab) wins the Norman Pakula Award. The Roman Pakula Award is offered on a competitive basis to the best acclaimed all-round M.Sc. student registered in the Department of Molecular Genetics. The award honours the late Dr. Roman Pakula, a Professor and Acting Chair from the former Department of Microbiology.

Amanda Veri (Cowen Lab) wins the L. W. Macpherson Award. The Department offers the Macpherson award on a competitive basis to the best acclaimed all-round registered M.Sc./Ph.D. student working in the broad area of Microbiology. The award honours the late Dr. Lachlan W. Macpherson, a Professor and Acting Chair from the former Department of Microbiology and Parasitology.

Daira Wojtal (Cohn Lab) wins the Eric Hani Fellowship. Ronald Cohn received the award on his student's behalf. This fellowship is awarded to outstanding first, second or third-year graduate students in the Faculty of Medicine on the basis of financial need. Preference is given to students undertaking research in microbiology.

Yoomi Oh (Caudy Lab) ties for 1st place in the senior student poster competition at the MoGen retreat. Her poster was entitled: "Identification and Validation of the Regulators of Riboneogenesis."

Abigaile Rachele Mateo (Derry Lab) ties for 1st place in the senior student poster competition at the MoGen retreat. Her poster was entitled: "CEP-1 is pro-choice for reproductive health in C. elegans."

Ernest Radovani (Greenblatt and Hughes Labs) ties for 1st place in the senior student poster competition at the MoGen retreat. His poster was entitled: "Gene regulation by the human C2H2 zinc finger proteins."

John Laver (Lipshitz and Smibert Labs) ties for 1st place in the senior student poster competition at the MoGen retreat. His poster was entitled: "Systematic analysis of protein-RNA interactions in Drosophila."

Jonathan Volpatti (Dowling Lab Lab) wins the junior poster prize. His poster was entitled: "Characterizaton of the mtm1 mutant phenotype in zebrafish as a novel model for
myotubular myopathy."

Julian Kwan wins the T-shirt design competition.