What does it say that as soon as this fancy new plate reader got unboxed, the undergrads assumed it, too, was for Gayatri. Her lab bio does say she gets to play with all the coolest lab toys, but this one - this one is for you Ikram (*partly)!
And a picture is worth 1000 words. Even if it’s a picture of words.
A year and a half into my role as Faculty coordinator for RIP, it was my great pleasure today to be involved in the inaugural Farncombe Trainee awards. These four great students (left to right: Jessica Breznik, Patrick Schenck, Alexandra Clarizio, and Mercedes di Bernardo) had truly exceptional presentations this year and showed us what scientific communication looks like at its best. Congratulations!
Last year was the Hynes Holiday Hootenany, while this year the Solstice celebration. I’m a sucker for alliteration. Despite 6 members MIA due to a combination of illness, exams, travel and previous social committments, we still wound up with a potluck providing enough leftovers to last us until next year.
I’m glad someone thought to take a picture before the first few had to leave, although we’re not at our best! I think we had 3 camerapersons instead of the usual 1, and Janice was mid-critical phone call . But it’s authentic!
My students sent me this, insisting it deserves to be on the lab website. Yes, yes it does. Breanna (right) is our new pipette tip filling champion, marking the first upset since the title's inauguration.
Three people dared guess who their secret Santa was even before opening their present. One even got it right! And yes, that is me in an ugly blue christmas sweater, how nice of you to notice.
Earlier this week, we were treated to a visit by Jessica and Jan from Phage Directory. Thank you to David Speicher for lining this up (and the photo credit), the Biochemistry Department for their help hosting, and most importantly, to Jan and Jessica for what wound up being some very engaging discussion on the future of phages!
This time, it’s like Christmas in Decem… right. Well, in keeping with my Belgian nationality, for St. Nicholas’s day, we got this marvel. Thank you to Emma Allen-Vercoe for assistance with setup and training, with any luck we’ll have this up and running, and pumped full of phages, in no time.
Both Felix and I recently got to present some version of this story - a story near and dear to my heart. Me at McGill (thanks to QCBS for the invitation!) and Felix at the Biochemistry Graduate Seminar Series. Who did it best? Well, there’s only photographic evidence (to my knowledge!) of Felix, so I suppose that means he did. He did a fantastic job. And I lifted slides wholesale from him, so he deserves credit for my version too.
I’m posting this from Pearson, living vicariously through the pictures my students are sending me of Hiba Shareefdeen’s research-in-progress talk today. And, tantalizingly, there’s definitely some new data - I don’t recognize that plate picture! That’s what I get for not showing up…
This may look like a (snack infested) lab meeting, but it’s yet another board game evening. The main conclusion is that it’s not just me - Rabia is inherently suspicious. Or we seriously all have to talk some unconcious bias training - sorry Rabia!
At today NSERC USRA undergraduate research session, Kevin, Janice and Stephanie all got a chance to present their work - and Neeloufar joined them for this photo. Only missing Aaron from our summer undergraduate crew…
Ok, so we didn`t beat the Li lab - but that was never in the cards. We DID take 3rd place. You can tell how happy we are from the look on Sadness’s face.
A seriously amazing effort from everyone.
The lab is participating in the Halloween festivities in the Biochemistry Department. Here, a dedicated team of researchers showing off their artistic talents (I hope). The judging is going on as I type… but before that, I have to get in costume for that contest.
Hmm, the title of this post might give rise to rather a rather morbid tone. Especially given how close we are to Halloween. But no, Research-In-Progress (RIP) is a staple of the Farncombe Institute, and today Félix put together an exceptional presentation for the room - also managing to entice a record number of trainees to ask questions and engage with his research. Well done!
It’s one of my favourite days of the year - and we had 7 people from the lab presenting their work (6 shown, because 7 makes a lousy picture). Not only that, but Rabia (a month into her MSc) won runner-up for best Master’s poster, and Janice (a month into her Thesis) won first place for best undergraduate poster presentation! What a fantastic team, making me look good in front of all my colleagues…
It’s exciting… and terrifying. The lab is still growing rapidly (although hopefully not exponentially!), and as of this Monday, at 15 people. Getting us all in the same place at the same time is proving impossible, so one, Kevin, will be added in post.
There’s no way I could manage this logistically if these people weren’t exceptional, resourceful, independent and doing most of the intellectually heavy lifting for me!
Yesterday, two of the group got trained on this remarkable machine that just recently made its home in the CMCB. I wasn’t anywhere near, and I’m still bouncing from excitement at some of the new ‘toys’ we get to play with in the coming weeks.
It’s hard work and elbow grease, but absolutely worthwhile - especially if you want to get bacteriology labs to trust a phage lab! Our thrice-a-year lab cleanup day has the place looking as good as the day we moved in. Better, actually, by a considerable margin. And compared to last week? Well, you’ve only to scroll back to the last blog post to see it’s night and day.
With every incoming wave of students (5 this September) comes another 3 day intensive boot camp, bringing them up to speed on basic phage manipulation. And the students do look intense! This picture also gets to serve as a “before” picture, in anticipation of our big lab cleanup on Monday.
