Farncombe
Phage

While of course I could put up great pictures of Hiba presenting her competition poster, Amany swamped while presenting her first ever poster, Felix in a throng of interested people… here’s something a little different. Joined by lab alumna Clara, a lab picture at the end of the Foresta Lumina!

I knew I was a star. There I am, in the same breath as Kawhi Leonard, right? Jason gave his CSM Symposium talk (an extremely rare honour for an undergraduate) to an audience of over 500 Canadian microbiologists. It’s hard to explain how nerve-wracking that is unless you’ve done it, but Jason did phenomenally. Not only was he swamped by adoring fans, but I, too, was bombarded by people expressing how impressed they were with him.

That calm pose! Here’s Anisha, after the FHS Plenary Awards Ceremony. As you can see, it’s not just her talks in the last few weeks that have caught the attention of judges - poster’s too! Congratulations!

I told you all, a few weeks back, that Anisha’s RIP was fantastic. Well, I wasn’t just blowing smoke; Anisha’s talk in the WISE "CREST” event last Friday won best talk - in the same category as PhD students and Postdocs. Extremely well-deserved, of course - not just for the (excellent) end product, but also how far she’s come in such a short time! This didn’t come naturally, it came through hard work and practice, and it’s paid off in a big way.

How in the blazes did this happen. The lab opened its doors January last year, and we're already at 13 people (one not pictured). I remember my postdoc supervisor telling me to aim for a Baseball team (9)… I’ve overshot. Perhaps we’ll do Rugby?

Day 3 of the FHS Plenary, and Anisha’s got her crack at impressing the poster judges with another mighty fine looking poster, and a fantastic ‘punchline’ too. Not content to rest on her laurels, she’s also presenting (a talk) at the WISE presentations tomorrow!

It’s the FHS Plenary, and three graduate students are presenting their work over the next 3 days. Here are Felix (Left) and Hiba (Right) presenting their posters - we’ve been experimenting with changing up posters a fair bit based on a video that has been making the rounds, and the students have, once again, out-done themselves.

I assume the embargo on this info is lifted, given my insitution announced it! This project will be challenging, multidisciplinary, and forcing me out of my comfort zone - but it’s also got huge potential ramifications and is extremely exciting.

https://dailynews.mcmaster.ca/articles/three-mcmaster-researchers-receive-grants-for-high-risk-fast-breaking-research/

I have to wonder… did they take the picture they have of me, print it, take a picture of it, print that, then scan it?

Our lab cleanup just wrapped up, and the whole place smells of … “Meadows and Rain”, according to the bottle. A full day lab shutdown feels like a lot, but it’s invariably worth it for that small victory against entropy (and the bulwark against contamination!).

Day two of the fourth iteration of the Phage Boot Camp! There’s even photographic evidence of me wearing a ‘nice’ shirt, but I may crop the picture a little further. So far, we have titres, we have BIMs, we have phage amplifications… delving into some PCR in the afternoon.