He first held his pipette in the Hynes lab - and now, as of today, he’s a Master of Science! Let’s be real, he had mastered his work a long time ago. Today we celebrate (and bid farewell to) Jordan after a rigorous and thought-provoking MSc defence, which had the decency to hold its technical issues until after the defence (see our ‘post decision’ picture after the jump. Then, we all gathered so that Jordan could show his spicy food bona fides. It’s a little terrifying to think of how small the lab is getting… it’s high time our Sept cohort started joining us!

I asked Rabia what she would like to do to celebrate her latest paper acceptance (more on that once it appears in print, of course) - and she chose violence. Throwing Axes, Throwing Knives… should I be concerned? Maybe this is a normal reaction to working on a project that involves eukaryotes…

Yes, we all know the famous quote; opinions are like a…. (everyone has one). But once people start soliciting your opinion, things are fair game! A few months back Microbial Biotechnology reached out to solicit an opinion piece right up our alley, and Rabia put together this wonderful feature which just appeared today: Phage-Antibiotic Combinations for Pseudomonas: Successes in the Clinic and In Vitro Tenuously Connected

It’s been hectic enough that I didn’t even get a chance to highlight a recent publication from the lab - the first in 5 years in which my student is not a first author! In this case, Brad Cook (Cytophage Technologies Inc) approached me about his views on transduction and phage therapy, which aligned with mine on temperate phages. The credit goes to him for getting the ball rolling, and we put together what I think is a very tidy set of arguments highlighting the common reasons people discard a phage for therapy, and whether those criteria make sense (spoilers: some do. probably). It’s open access, so check it out here!

And the hits just keep coming. Gayatri nailed her talk (throwing up only once, and very subtly - I was looking for it and didn’t notice), and then was awarded the CSM Terry Beveridge Poster Award! We got tons of phage goodness spread across multiple sessions (Landon, also phage, won the Postdoc award), great group shots… what a conference! Throw in my laptop breathing its last on Thursday night… and we had some additional chaos just for fun.

Phage Canada, despite a last minute venue change and frantic rebooking, managed to gather on Thursday at the CSM. And from 20 RSVPs, a reservation for 30… and about 45 attendees, I think it was a roaring success. But don’t take my word for it - check out the pictures!

There’s so much going on this CSM, this is practically going to be a day-by-day. On Day 2, three of us presented posters, and Rabia delivered a phenomenal Armand-Frappier talk that for many was the highlight of the conference. The only reason I’m not featuring that as the image is because the one I’ve chosen is more unusual - Dr. Hynes presenting his first poster in 7 years, with the now trademarked “Jordan stance”. Click through for shots of Rabia (and Gayatri, and Jordan) all presenting! Oh, and I listed my house for sale.

I just returned from the Inaugural Danish Viruses of Microbes meeting, in Copehagen. It was an honour to be invited to give a keynote lecture, and humbling to see how quickly they’ve gotten this network of the ground and running an event of this magnitude! Hats off!

Those of you following the lab website closely (of which I’m sure there are many) may have had an inkling, given Gayatri’s ability to win awards presenting despite the nausea….In what has become a three-peat tradition, we gathered for a grad student baby shower/gender reveal. Here is the lab & family, at the Driving Park, gather ed to celebrate the “Mommy to Bee”, Gayatri. Out of my family, we were 6:1 in predicting a girl (see the pink fingernails, if you zoom in), but you only get to know if we were right by biting into one of Rabia’s delicious cupcakes. Click through for the (much smaller) lab group shot.

Gayatri was invited to give a talk at a research day largely themed around eco-toxicology. Which we had to look up. But it turns out, that’s what we’re doing all along… so it was a good fit. Gayatri was great, as always!

We only did a “mini” cleanup in January, but, surprisingly, that didn’t create too much backlog. Maybe it was our second “mini” cleanup a month back in anticipation of a Povost visit. That said, we’re back on schedule; some good down-on-our-knees scrubbing, spicy food (click through for the image), and a thorough tossing out of old stocks. The result? Well, in Ayesha’s words, here’s the picture Rabia made her take.

At today’s FHS Plenary award, Gayatri was awarded an Outstanding Graduate Student Award, and Ayesha took a prize in the Pecha-Kucha competition! I think that might make us the only lab ever to win twice in the latter… 2 points is a trend, right?

After a round 1 presentation I didn’t get to see at this year’s FHS plenary, Ayesha was invited to the finals - and that I could attend, and boy am I glad I did - she did superbly!

While Dr. Al-Anany came back to Hamilton for a visit, bringing her little one (and future little one) in tow, Christine brought one (hers, I have it on good authority). I really should have brought mine, but then the booking would have been too big for the place…

For the second time this week, we all donned our SciComm hats, and strutted our stuff. Jordan gave a stellar talk, both Sayna & Eve presented their first ever posters (wee!), Ayesha lost her voice answering so many questions, and Rabia snatched up a prize for best poster.

Today was the MedSci Research Day, and both Gayatri and Ayesha gave talks on either end of the morning session. With one opening the session on the subject of induction, the other on supressing induction… I couldn’t have asked for a better narrative structure. And it certainly helps that they both nailed their talks…

So, in mirroring the session itself - the picture here is of Gayatri’s talk, and click through for Ayesha’s!

MSc students have to present once at the Biochem Seminar Series… and it’s been a while since I’ve had an MSc take the stage! Jordan put together a great talk, really highlighting how dangerously close to graduating he is… we’ll be left in the lurch.

We braved the polar vortex (not really), to head out to an Escape Room as a lab. The picture you see is ‘how it started’ (not pictured, Eve or Ayesha), and… for how it ended, you’ll have to click through.

Apparently, we made it out with 5 minutes to spare. Which confuses my lab philosophy of failure somewhat…

Rabia’s mBio paper - long held up due to genbank shenanigans, finally hit print today. I won’t recap the whole impressive piece of work, but I think it’s worth highlighting two surprises hiding in there that aren’t necessarily the focus of the work; 1) How broadly effective Piperacillin is at synergizing with temperate phages. Maybe a reason PTZ is so effective clinically? (2) Our inability to correlate any likely predictors of tPAS to actual synergy. Check out the paper at this link

Always a touch anticlimactic, given the conclusion - when a student is this good - has been forgone for ages, and yet… still a lot of “feels” - far more than I expected, the third go around. I do get asked if in handing them a warhammer, I fear they might use it against me. Obviously not - not in public, anyway. My graduates are far too smart to get caught.