Today, we celebrated Amany’s defence - the first out of the Hynes lab. A great defence with plenty family present, a trip to the Pheonix to sign ‘The Book’, and, after sundown, we ate, we drank, and were merry. Oh, and a warhammer.
One of the last of her cohort to have to give 3 BBS seminars - as they’ve changed the rules around MSc-to-PhD transfers, Rabia finished off strong, of course. At least, so I’m told - I was away (again), but Christine assures me this was “queen behaviour” - whatever that means.
Things haven’t really quieted down, but right now I’m in SoCal, at the lab’s first ever Gordon Conference. It’s a subject area out of my comfort zone - highlighting some gaps in knowledge - and this has been a lovely experience, and a delight to be challenged intellectually in new ways. Gave an invited talk yesterday, and… and I think I nailed it, if I say so myself. How’s this for an opener:
"Since most of you do not know me, and I still don't know most of you, I'm going to try and win over your trust by telling you all in advance that I'm going to lie to you three times in this talk""
Closing off one hell of a week for the lab (5 website entries in a week? And that doesn’t cover it all), Rabia gave the Bordeleau Memorial Scholarship talk at the end of this year’s BBSRS symposium. She was brilliant, of course, getting a chance to showcase some of her newest data, and it definitely hit me that this story is… well, PhD defense ready.
Another facet of the BBSRS - in addition to Jordan’s great poster - was that this was the first time I was in this room since the BBSRS in 2020, days before the pandemic. And it felt a little like the world had fast-forwarded - the background the same, but so many of the people changed - as is usual, of course, for academia - but 4 years hit me all at once.
Told you all it was one impressive week. It’s not even done yet, but we’ve got something else to celebrate - Felix’s thesis is submitted for defence.
Today’s Research in Progress was Christine, who knocked it out of the park… so today’s noon rounds (me) is going to look pretty bad by comparison. Oh well, I’ll just take credit for Christine’s talk instead - that’s my mentorship at work, right?
Abandoning my alliterations is unusual. So is submitting a grant a day early. Feel really good about this one!
It’s not your imagination, there’s something special unusual inside this cake. One of our team is expecting, and yesterday we got together to celebrate, make rather inappropriate comments about burst sizes and whether this is lysogeny, and eat blue cake. I’m excited for the couple, but also particularly delighted that the lab seems to be an environment where people don’t feel pressured to put their lives on hold for their work.
Isn’t it nice when the granting agencies do the alliteration for me? I was delighted to see this grant award in my inbox today. I really can’t take any credit, though - I had a moment’s panic wondering what I had written/promised to do for this grant, as it was written mid mind-fog during early pat-leave. I remember it seemed exciting at the time - thankfully he PI, Anthony Vincent, must have been more alert than I was - I’m sure he edited my sections heavily.
Some big updates on the horizon, but in the meantime - some waterfalls. With guest speaker Carolina Tropini today, we took some time in the afternoon to hike to a waterfall and show her Hamilton is more than a steeltown. Actually, it wasn’t this one… but I didn’t take a picture. I think this walk-and-a-waterfall will be a tradition for visiting speakers, if I can.
The paucity of updates since Christmas doesn’t reflect any lull, but rather a frantic period - a period of recruitment, a period of preparation for some big changes in the lab. But it’s big news items like this that force my hand (and rightly so!). It’s the first time I’ve seen this form… there’s a date now, and everything. This is going to be exciting, and it’s time to set up some new traditions!
Ok, sometimes the alliterations aren’t forced. With last week’s candidacy exam, we’re back to having no PhD Students in the lab - just candidates. I don’t think the photo below was technically related to celebrating that, but these are Christine’s thermophilus cookies - a lovely chain of cocci.
The last RIP of the year yesterday was Tamina’s, and she won over audiences with the troubleshooting on her last slide. Oh, and the data were pretty good too. Congratulations Tamina on closing off the year with a strong presentation!
It’s that time of year - the annual Solstice Celebration. Although Ayesha and Amany couldn’t join us, we had everyone else (and partners!) around for this one, and I think it’s fair to say the potluck was the most impressive culinary achievment we’ve had to date. I’m clearly selecting for students with something other than lab skills…
And as for the Secret Santa, once again, almost everyone (not me) has an uncanny ability to guess their santa on the first try. I’m beginning to suspect a conspiracy.
I had to look it up, but yes, alliteration is by sound, not by letter. I think I knew this at some point. Ok, enough of about the title - more about the picture; at this year’s IIDR Trainee Day, Jordan got to present his MSc work for the first time - and his poster was so busy, I never got a chance to chat with him about how it was going until the next day!
See the picture? We’re famous! I don’t think we’ve featured on the McMaster front news yet… but here we are (see link here). We’ve regularly trained graduate students from other labs to give them the tools they need to work with phages, but this was a first time for an undergrad, and that apparently caught someone’s eye!
This one, you have to click through to see the pictures… there’s too much to capture in one thumbnail. But the Thumbnail is great too - that look of intense concentration in pumpkin carving, and the payoff… well, you’ll have to click through, now, won’t you!
This year, with a great song/entrance routine, we managed to take the best possible place in the costume contest (2nd. Nobody can dethrone the Li lab, apparently!), and some good strategic planning won us first place in the Pumpkin Carving Contest.
Well, it’s not really Tamina’s, but she had an electron microscopy run today, and a few other lab members tagged along to learn the tricks of the trade… which means we now have photographic evidence. I love the ‘antique’ displays in the foreground… really adds to the ambience.
You know, we often celebrate a new piece of equipment… but the unsung hero of the lab is storage space. With some recent changes in the lab layout, we’ve made room for this fancy new rack, and it has been a game-changer. Am I excited about storage solutions? Yes. Does that make me weird? Probably.
Also, if OHS is reading, that cardboard box is exactly 45 cm from the ceiling.
Ok, despite the same letter, I realize this title wasn’t alliterative… but this isn’t just a phage publication - it’s a publication in the jouranl PHAGE. You can check it out here. This one had an unusual route, with Amany taking lead to support an effort based elsewhere - making it the only case where one of my students is lead author, but I’m not corresponding!
It’s our first forray into systematic reviews for phage therapy, but one of the nice findings to come out of it for me was not just the core findings, but the pattern of publications in this field - a huge gap in the 90s and 00s that tracks with a wide-scale lack of interest (and training) in phages. I’ll definitely be using that figure!
