As of July 10th Kaitlyn successfully defended her MSc thesis on nucleocidin biosynthesis. Kaitlyn has now moved on to a career at an exciting biotech start-up in Peterborough called Nobelgen. Well done Kaitlyn and good luck!
David Simon, a PhD student in the Oleschuk and Zechel labs, won the Bill Davidson Graduate Student Travel Award for his presentation at the 9th International Symposium on Enabling Technologies, held earlier this May in Ottawa. Well done David!
The special issue of Chemical Reviews dedicated to the unusual enzymology of natural product biosynthesis is now online. A comprehensive review on phosphonate biochemistry by DLZ and Geoff Horsman (Wilfrid Laurier U) has a prominent place in this review, and even shares a wee corner of the cover page!
Many thanks to PhD student Ana Ramos and the Molecular and Cellular Integrative Biology section of the Queen’s Department of Biology for inviting DLZ for a seminar on March 28th. After the seminar DLZ had the privilege of sharing pizza over lunch with graduate and undergraduate students. It should be noted that DLZ loves giving … More DLZ delivers seminar to Queen’s MCIB
On March 10th DLZ was thrilled to give a seminar to his alma mater in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Toronto. His fascination with enzyme mechanisms began during his undergraduate studies at U of T. A big thank you goes to Prof. Andrew Woolley for the invitation!
It is a pleasure to welcome Becky Lo as our new PhD student. Becky hails from Laurentian University in Sudbury where she completed an MSc in Chemistry studying the metal ion dependence of the anthrax lethal factor (!). She will be looking at less lethal enzymes involved in phosphonate catabolism for her PhD.
Our comprehensive review on ‘Phosphonate Biochemistry’ has been published online in Chemical Reviews, the premier review journal for chemical sciences. Many thanks to co-author Geoff Horsman of Wilfrid Laurier University for bravely diving into this huge project!
Ola Pasternak, a recently minted Queen’s Chemistry graduate, has joined the group as a MSc student. She will be investigating the biosynthesis of fluorinated natural products. Welcome aboard Ola!
PhD student David Simon is the lucky recipient of a R. Samuel McLaughlin fellowship. This award will support his studies on the effect of regulatory genes on the proteome and metabolome of Streptomyces calvus, the producer of the fluorinated molecule nucleocidin. Well done David!
MSc student Kaitlyn Pinkett is the recipient of a prestigious NSERC award. This award will support her MSc studies involving the biosynthesis of nucleocidin. Well done Kaitlyn!