Farncombe
Phage

It really is that season, where good news seems to come so fast. Rabia (pictured), who will be starting with us in just a few weeks, was awarded an OGS Scholarship for her Master’s. Congratulations! I’ve also added her info to our “Team” page.

Jason Tran was also offered an NSERC CGS-M to pursue a Master’s - although I know that given how well his Med School interviews have gone, he may move on to greener pastures instead (aka the dark side?). All of us sincerely hope not, though!

This low-res picture, taken 9 years ago in Hamilton, was of a young Alex receiving an award at the CSM. Presenting in the Student Symposium was an amazing, formative experience. Nearly a decade later, I’m at McMaster (in a different capacity) and not one but TWO of my students have been selected to present in the student competitions - despite a far more competitive process. A well-deserved congratulations to Hiba (Poster Competition) and Jason Tran (Student Symposium). I can’t wait to see your presentations!

The Farncombe Research in Progress (RIP) talks are a big part of the trainee experience within the Farncombe Institute, but I know Anisha was dreading it. A lot. And yet, I don’t think anything so far has so well encompassed how far she’s progressed in the last (almost) full year since she joined the lab - she did a fantastic job. And every time we get to share our work and see that kind of engagement from the audience, I’m further reminded of just how [censored] cool what we do is.

Emotional rollercoasters. While a researcher’s career is full of them, few are as regular as those sparked by emails/messages like this one. And because we’re apparently sadists, we tolerate structures that invariably bury the lede, often force you to access another site for the actual decision, hidden behind a password you can’t possibly remember. Throw in the additional delay sparked by a few thousand people all loging in around the same time… and suspense is too mild a term.

However, when you get good news - like that resuling from this email (see how I buried the lede here too?) - well, I’m elated. I’m really excited about this project, and delighted to be able to bring on some new people to tackle it!

We’ve been extraordinarily fortunate this year, with 3 students awarded NSERC USRAs (out of 11 in the Faculty) to work with us over the summer; Janice Tai and Kevin Zhao will be sticking around, and newcomer Stephanie Scott will be joining us! In addition, Neeloufar Grami (Pictured) was awarded a Farncombe Studentship to have her first research lab experience with us over the summer. That CFI grant for equipment and infrastructure came at just the right time, as we’re scaling up rapidly.

I’ll be updating the lab website to reflect all the new faces shortly!

From March 19th (today) to March 29th - check out Visualizing Science! Jason was running around preparing for the exhibit’s grand opening today, and while I couldn’t attend that, I’ll definitely drop by the exhibit in the next few days!

These things take a while to trickle through the system and become official, but it is now! We’ve been granted a sizeable CFI-JELF to equip the lab, and that means that over the next few weeks, there’ll be quite a few new pieces of equipment making the way into the lab, increasing our capacity just in time for an influx of new students!

We haven’t had a chance to go out as a lab in a while, and so we celebrated a lab birthday party with all-you-can-eat sushi. It’s 9 h later, and I still feel no desire to eat any more.

Kevin Zhao got a chance to present his work from last summer, polished up and in poster format, at the local “Women and their Microbes” conference. This was his first poster, his first conference…. and since none of us had the foresight to take a picture at the time, instead we took this shot of him in the lab. Great work, Kevin!

Hiba presented her work at the MedSci Research day, getting a lot of good feedback (and some offers to help with the mouse model). In what’s becoming a trend, though, nobody has any photographic evidence of this. And for some reason, I’m the luddite?