News & Events

A homogeneous split-luciferase assay for rapid and sensitive detection of anti-SARS CoV-2 antibodies

30 April 2021|

The Stagljar lab has developed an innovative and cost-effective COVID-19 serological called SATiN (for Serological Assay based on split Tripart Nanoluciferase).

SATiN is an example of an innovative, Canadian-made COVID-19 serological test with the potential to make a significant contribution to the fight against COVID-19. It has excellent sensitivity, specificity, operability and quantifiability, as well as great scientific and commercial possibilities. The assay is performed directly in the liquid phase of patient sera, making […]

Degrees of Success

30 April 2021|

Reinhart Reithmeier was a member of an Expert Panel convened by the Council of Canadian Academies on “The Labour Market Transition of PhD Graduates”.  The key findings include:

  • PhD graduates bring valued skills to a wide range of sectors, although these skills are often not fully recognized outside academia
  • The number of PhD graduates in Canada is increasing, yet lags behind other OECD countries who have more robust R&D investment

    • […]

Appointment of Prof. Liliana Attisano as Interim Chair, Dept. of Biochemistry

23 April 2021|

This message is being sent to the Department of Biochemistry on behalf of Dr. Trevor Young, Dean, Temerty Faculty of Medicine and Vice Provost, Relations with Health Care Institutions.   

Dear Colleagues,

I am pleased to announce that the Agenda Committee of the Academic Board has approved the appointment of Professor Liliana Attisano as Interim Chair and Graduate Chair, Department of Biochemistry, effective May 1, […]

Awardees from SickKids

SickKids-led researchers receive numerous grants from the Canada Foundation for Innovation

27 March 2021|

Professors Julie Forman-Kay, Simon Sharpe, P. Lynne Howell and John Rubinstein were awarded new CFI funds to help bring new technology to SickKids.

Professors Julie Forman-Kay, and Simon Sharpe, received more than $1.6 million to build on the SickKids Structural and Biophysical Core (SBC) facility. These new funds will support critical enhancements to cutting-edge research, knowledge creation, and training across biology and biophysics, including immunogen design for improved […]

Liliana Attisano portrait

Latest Platform Support Grant to the Attisano Lab to make advanced brain models

27 March 2021|

Together with the Krembil Foundation, Brain Canada awarded a Platform Support Grant (PSG) to a team spearheaded by Professor Liliana Attisano. She will be receiving $1,425,000 to support the Applied Organoid Core (ApOC), an organoid production platform for modelling human brain development and disorders.

Functional cooperativity between the trigger factor chaperone and the ClpXP proteolytic complex

12 March 2021|

Rizzolo K, Yu AYH, Ologbenla A, Kim SR, Zhu H, Ishimori K, Thibault G, Leung E, Zhang YW, Teng M, Haniszewski M, Miah N, Phanse S, Minic Z, Lee S, Caballero JD, Babu M, Tsai FTF, Saio T, Houry WA.

In this manuscript, Walid A. Houry’s group identified a potential co-translational degradation pathway in Gram negative bacteria. A functional association […]

Undergraduate science education continues even during a Global pandemic

6 March 2021|

BCH377, our advance laboratory course for specialist students in Biochemistry, Immunology and Molecular Genetics, is an applied biochemistry techniques course. Our hearty and resilient group of students joining from; out of the city, province and country this semester. How could we maintain the objective of teaching practical biochemistry during the COVID fall semester of 2020?

Well the answer was to take equal parts outstanding, and I mean outstanding, specialist students, and […]

Dr. Nana Lee’s Global Outreach Continues

1 March 2021|

Dr. Nana Lee continues to highlight her expertise on graduate professional development, mentorship, leadership, and equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) at multiple speaking engagements in 2021. She brings her enthusiasm, charisma and innovative multiple, interactive tools through the virtual learning space to provide an inclusive, engaged audience.

Some of her speaking events the past two months include sharing her “Students as Partners” model with […]

Development of antibiotics that dysregulate the Neisserial ClpP protease

1 March 2021|

In this highly collaborative effort, the groups of Walid A. Houry, Emil F. Pai, Robert A. Batey, and Scott D. Gray-Owen describe the generation and characterization of novel antibiotics targeting the bacterial ClpP protease.

Evolving antimicrobial resistance has motivated the search for novel targets and alternative therapies. Caseinolytic protease (ClpP) has emerged as an enticing new target since its function is conserved and […]

A strong case for increasing federal funding for basic research

20 February 2021|

Professors Palazzo and Moraes co-authored an OpEd, “Dwindling Funding for Canadian Science”, that appeared in The Future Economy.

They point out that Canada now spends less of its GDP on science than any other G7 country except for Italy. As a result, many scientists do not have funding to conduct the work they were hired to do.

They strongly urge that the Canadian government increase its investment in research, especially […]

New Tricks for Phages

18 February 2021|

In the latest issue of Molecular Cell, the Maxwell, Davidson and Moraes labs identify and characterize Aqs1, a multi-purpose DMS3 phage protein. Aqs1 binds and inhibits LasR, which is required for quorum sensing and the release of several anti-phage defenses in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. But that’s not all. Aqs1 also binds PilB, and thereby blocks pilus assembly. Since the bacterial pilus helps phage to infect, Aqs1 prevents further […]

Phase separation of macromolecules in health and disease

28 December 2020|

It is very hard to understand the effects of disease mutations that are prevalent in intrinsically disordered protein regions (IDRs). In a Perspective published in the December 23, 2020 issue of Cell, a collaborative Toronto team from the groups of Julie Forman-Kay, Alan Moses and Steve Scherer put forward both general and specific hypotheses for how IDR mutations lead to pathology in complex diseases, particularly in autism spectrum […]