Instead of an after-the-fact picture, a picture of the cleanup crew in action (click through for those of us gathered for lunch). A long-time tradition inherited from the Moineau lab - starting every semester with a full-lab shutdown, full “on-hands-and-knees” scrubbing, sorting, etc. Always pays off!
Missing; Rabia, who had to TA, and Bailey, who had class over lunch.
Yes, the place’s name is already alliterative, but that felt like cheating. Summer is winding down, Félix is homeward bound in two senses; back to La Belle Province, but also to home ownership… so we thought we’d gather for some games. I look particularly sinister in this shot, I think. Oh, and the kids aren’t our undergrads… just my two oldest in tow.
The summer is almost over, I’m told (though I refuse to believe it), although it is hitting home a little as this week I have been updating the team page to include some of the incoming September cohort of students - Michael Hamilton (from Guelph. This won’t get confusing) joining us for an MSc, and Sayna Salehzadeh - a thesis student from the ISci program. Check out the Team page! More to introduce later this week.
It’s a very promising cohort - but it also reinforced the fact that this year, three PhD students have left the lab - it’s a major changing of the guard! Exciting, Daunting… all of the above.
The trouble with not updating in a month or so - vacations, summer chaos for those of me with kids - is that you feel like the post that breaks the lull has to be pretty good - well, today we had a lab ‘picnic’ (Storm Debby had other plans, so it was a picnic in the atrium) to finally meet Christine’s little one in person. She wasted no time in settling him into the lab, and I think, from the look on his face, that he has some interest in the P10.
Too many pictures to show of the last day of CSM, so click through for (other) Dr. Hynes’s honorary membership, Ayesha’s award (which would have been a nice alliterative headline, of course), etc - otherwise be content with this proper Western Send off, in front of the most photogenic building - admitedly, of quite a few, as it’s a gorgeous campus.
CSM2024, Day 3 - the Section Symposia. And of course, Rabia knocks it out of the part for the third CSM in a row; from Poster Award to Student Symposium Award, to Section Symposium Selection. This… pretty closely mirrors her PI’s 2010-2011-2013 trajectory. Think she can pull off a 2027 Roger Knowles Win? Of course she could.
Three Posters Presented today! The featured picture is of Ayesha, attending her first CSM and presenting her Hynes lab work for the first time outside the lab - but Jordan (click through) and Gayatri also, of course, shows off their cool stuff!
Today, we submitted a paper - this pre-print - in which we worked to modernize the 100-year-old gold standard in our field: the plaque assay. A picture is worth 1536 plaque assays. While we used a robot, we also tried a dirt-cheap 3D-printed alternative which works wonders at 384-density. I really believe this pre-print has the potentially to be the largest impact I will make on my field, with labs all over the world taking this up.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.06.20.599855v1
As is common, the quiet of the lab website belies a pretty exciting time for the lab; two grants submitted, two papers submitted (with another this week! - check publications page for preprints)… but this is an occasion onto itself. Christine won’t be joining us at CSM next week… and starts mat leave on July 1st, so we thought’d we’d have a little get together beforehand to see her off. Turns out we’re not that great at bowling, pretty good at celebrating a strike with attitude.
A few faces missing for a proper lab photo (Devron, Tamina and Ayesha), but I guess my kids can stand in for them.
The BBS picnic returns, for the first time since 2019! We put together a team for the olympics, got a name from Christine, and ran with it - literally. While we didn’t win (4th?), I’m sure our time wasn’t statistically different from the winner’s. With a few more replicates we might have come out on top.
Despite the chaos post-convocation, my newly hooded graduands all found one another, and we managed to get this shot of us all. It’s my first time wearing my wizard robes - I think in the heat (and the rush to get their degrees - you trade in your robes for the paper - not a great deal!) - the former-undergrads had already ditched their academic regalia.
Our latest paper is out in mBio today! If you've induced phages, you may have wondered if you can do the 'opposite' - block entry into lysogeny. You can, using protein synthesis inhibitors! Better still, this yields a potent synergy, functionally turning a temperate phage into a virulent one. This was a lot of work, spanning two parental leaves (not both for the same person), and a big group effort to push it over the finish line - but it came together beautifully.
Check it out here: Temperate phage-antibiotic synergy across antibiotic classes reveals new mechanism for preventing lysogeny | mBio (asm.org)
Turns out, last week’s award-winning talk was just the warm up, as Jordan gave a masterful talk at today’s RIP. Sometimes, getting the trainees to ask questions and engage is like pulling teeth… but here, the engagement was so obvious from the (many) questions. Bravo!
The last 7 days has had almost too much to recount - I didn’t want to flood the site with news updates. Our Boot Camp (The Tenth!) training our own incoming undergrads, as well as trainees from two other labs. Three superb talks at the FHS plenary, with Rabia, Gayatri and Jordan knocking it out of the park…. and Jordan, in particular, being recognized and winning an award for his PechaKucha format talk (pictured here, in the showcase at the award ceremony). Congratulations! There’s a not insignificant prize money….
What’s the smell? Well, “Meadows & Rain” apparently - it says so on the bottle. Just before launching into another instance of the boot camp, pulling everyone in for a concerted cleanup effort. And, as always, it pays off.
Et de deux! Félix (Seen here presenting the spoils of his PhD - Warhammer, Phage-Planters, and eDNA. Oh, and a Thesis, I suppose) just had a masterful defence… and there goes the last of the lab's starting cohort. *sniff*. This one may hit harder than Amany’s, because she’d been working remotely for a while beforehand… Plenty more photos of the event after the jump.
Also fantastic that so many family members were able to attend!
5 PhDs - Committee, Supervisor, Newly Minted, and External
The celebration!
No, I don’t mean the blows, I mean the ‘greatest hits’ - yet another talk where one of ours (Christine) put on a masterful performance. And the line about recognizing a dead end when you see one? Chef’s kiss! You had to be there, of course.
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""
