The Team
The lab openened its doors January 2nd 2018, and here are (front to back) Hiba, Clara, Jason and Anisha making media. Lots and lots of media.
Hiba Shareefdeen, Research Assistant (RA2)
Hiba started work on phages in Dr. Surette's lab as a project student, and, upon finding out there'd be a dedicated phage lab, applied to join up before I'd even set foot in my lab. She started off as a research assistant to help get the lab up and running, but now that it's doing just that, she's applying to start an MSc through the department of Medicine in May. In the meantime, she's my lifeline for "borrowing" supplies, using equipment and exploiting the expertise of the Surette lab. Her work involves tracking phage populations through fecal microbiota transplants.
Clara Fikry, Co-op student
Clara Fikry is a University of Waterloo undergraduate, here on her first co-op term. She's head of a waterloo iGEM team, competing in SciNapse, and runs a youtube channel for science education. Her parents tell her she has a few months to decide she's going to be a doctor, but given her current undertakings, Dr. Hynes is sure they mean PhD kind. Right? Her project involves creating, manipulating and completing lysogens to characterize the positive effects phage infection can have on a host. Her Co-op is supported in part by the Student Work-Integrated Learning Program "BioTalent".
Anisha Nandy, Research Assistant (RA1)
Anisha overcame the beginnings of a career in industry to return to academia, following an interest sparked in her during her B.Sc. at Brock University. She also holds a B.A. in Dance and Performing Arts, and is a speaker for first generation imigrants to Canada. While volunteering in our shared labspace, she heard of phages and now she's hooked. She's working as a research assistant until she begins an MSc in the department of Biochemistry in May. Her project's objectives are to systematically probe lysogens with compounds from the McMaster HTS lab to find out what, exactly, bacteriophages can sense. I can't help but hope caffeine induces lysogens - the paper would practically write itself.
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Jason Tran, Volunteer
Joining us as a volunteer to get a feel for the lab before starting his thesis project in the Fall, Jason is a third year BDC student who is working on some slightly weirder of Dr. Hynes's ideas, mostly involving some under-investigated aspects of the CRISPR-Cas system. In his free time he fingerpaints - check out some of his impressive work!
Félix Croteau, PhD Student
A graduate of Université Laval and veteran of the Moineau lab, he followed Dr. Hynes to his new home at McMaster, to pursue a PhD. In addition to that solid pedigree, he's a winner of the Canadian Society of Microbiologists Undergraduate Award. He's also a talented musician, baker, and - as evidenced by our own logo proudly displayed on this site, graphic designer. He starts his PhD in May through the department of Biochemistry, hunting for new phages of model bacterial populations, in order to precisely manipulate them.
Tirth Patel, Summer Student
Tirth starts with us in May, for a summer studentship supported in part by the Farncombe Studentship.