Dr. Kyle Bender
Kyle Bender is a postdoctoral scientist working with Cyril Zipfel at the University of Zurich (UZH) in Switzerland.
In 2013, he received his Ph. D. from Queen's University, where he
trained under Prof. Wayne Snedden. His Ph.D. thesis focused on
understanding how a subfamily of stress-regulated calmodulin-like
proteins mediate Ca2+-dependent
environmental responses. After his Ph.D. he carried out postdoctoral
work with Prof. Steven Huber and Raymond Zielinski at the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. During his time in Illinois, Kyle expanded
his research interests to include protein kinases and regulatory
phosphorylation. There, his work on Ca2+-dependent
protein kinases (CPKs) uncovered a novel role for phosphorylation in
priming CPK calcium sensitivity. In Zurich, he has continued to work on
protein kinase-mediated signaling, with a focus on understanding how
receptor kinase phosphorylation activates intracellular signaling after
perception of microbe-derived immune elicitors. While in Zurich, Kyle
has developed advanced protein biochemistry and proteomics skills
through training programs with state-of-the-art core facilities at UZH.
When he is not in the lab, Kyle spends his time hiking, playing board
games, and giving attention to his pug, 'Patti', and cat, 'Lilly', who
Kyle and his wife adopted from animal rescues in Europe.
Dr. Philippe Jutras
Philippe V. Jutras is an FRQNT postdoctoral fellow at the University
of Oxford. He joined the lab of Prof. Renier van der Hoorn in 2017 to
study plant proteases and how to prevent unwanted proteolysis of
proteins. His research interests are driven by fundamental and applied
sciences, mostly related to the cellular and molecular biology of plant
cells. He aims at a better understanding of recombinant protein
expression in plants for molecular farming applications. For the past
ten years, he is committed to providing human vaccines and therapeutic
proteins produced from plant biotechnology. He obtained his PhD from
Laval University where his work focused on pH modulation in the plant
cell secretory pathway to stabilise complex recombinant proteins.
Concurrently, he worked with a pharmaceutical company to produce
plant-expressed virus-like particles used for the development of vaccine
candidates against the seasonal flu. He now works on understanding how
the plant host (mainly Nicotiana sp.) interacts with Agrobacterium tumefaciens
during plant transformation to increase protein expression efficiency.
His work has been supported by the research councils of Canada and
Quebec, and the industry. Philippe is also strongly motivated by the
fundamental principles of access to knowledge in science. He advocates
for ethical collaboration platforms in academia and supports open source
software.
Wenlu Bi
Wenlu
Bi has been a postdoctoral fellow for the past three years at the
Gosling Research Institute for Plant Preservation (GRIPP) at the
University of Guelph. For her PhD, Wenlu already specialized in plant
cryopreservation and cryotherapy of grapevine with Dr. Qiaochun Wang at
Northwest A&F University in Yangling, China, in 2017. She created
technique to preserve plant germplasm resources and simultaneously
produce virus-free materials in Vitis
plants. Wenlu works as a postdoctoral fellow with Dr. Saxena on
establishing shoot-tip cryopreservation protocols for economically
important crops such as hazelnut and chestnut. She also develops
conservation strategies for several threatened and endangered plant
species, including Hill's thistle, Mingan thistle and Yukon Draba, which
are endemic to Canada. Her primary interest is in protecting and
recovering the wild plant species in their natural habitats in Canada.
She helps to mentor and support graduate students in developing their
experiments.
Narendra Singh Yadav
Narendra
Singh Yadav is currently a postdoctoral fellow working with Prof. Igor
Kovalchuk at the University of Lethbridge. His current research project
explores the effects of multigenerational stress exposure in plants. The
stressed lineages are studied for stress resilience via analyzing the
stress phenotype as well as genetic (WGS: Whole genome-sequencing) and
epigenetic (WGBS: whole-genome bisulfite sequencing) variation as
compared to their parallel and parental control. By completing this
project, he will determine if plants are able to transfer stress
modifications to their progeny, and if stress-induced microevolution at
genomic and epigenomic level occurs. Before coming to Canada, he worked
with Profs. Simon Barak and Gideon Grafi as a postdoctoral fellow at the
Jacob Blaustein Institute for Desert Research at Ben-Gurion University
of the Negev, Israel (2013 - 2018). In Israel, he worked in the field of
plant epigenetics to decipher its role in seed dormancy and abiotic
stress tolerance in Arabidopsis
and in regulating transposable elements, particularly during
stress-induced dedifferentiation. He received his Ph.D. (2013) in Plant
Biotechnology from the CSIR-Central Salt and Marine Chemicals Research
Institute in Gujarat, India. During his Ph.D., he carried out research
in the molecular mechanisms of salinity tolerance in extreme halophyte Salicornia brachiata.
His Ph.D. work received international recognition and he was
interviewed by the prestigious science magazine "Scientific American".
Over his career, he has published more than 20 articles in reputed
journals and reviewed more than 50 manuscripts. Currently, he is
serving as a guest editor for two special issues. Apart from research,
he loves swimming which helps him to cope with routine life stress.
Solmaz Irani
Solmaz Irani is a postdoctoral fellow working with Dr. Elizabeth Weretilnyk at McMaster University. Her
main research interest is to understand plant adaptation mechanisms to
unfavourable environmental conditions, which will help to improve crop
production under
increasingly variable climatic conditions. She graduated with a Ph.D.
degree from Department of Biology at the University of Saskatchewan in
September 2016, where she used a
combination of molecular, physiological and biochemical approaches to
study ureide compounds metabolism in response to abiotic stress in Arabidopsis. After her PhD, she did about a year of research in University of Saskatchewan on clubroot disease that forms galls in the roots of canola. At McMaster University, her focus is on Eutrema salsugineum which is an extremophile plant and a model system for stress-tolerance research in plants. Her goal is to understand the physiological and molecular mechanisms underlying the tolerance of Yukon ecotype of Eutrema to low phosphate availability.
Beyond science, Solmaz is a regular volunteer in “Plant Molecular Biology” workshops which are hosted by Dr. Weretilnyk’s lab for high school students. Solmaz has been one of the McCall MacBain postdoctoral fellows since Jan 2020. The program is a hands-on scholarship on teaching and learning by training postdocs with evidence-based teaching methods. Through the program, Solmaz has been paired with Teaching Stream faculty members in the Department of Biology at McMaster University to co-lead a project to explore the long-term impacts of STEM Engagement workshops on high-school students and their teachers.
Valentin Joly
Dr. Valentin Joly is a postdoctoral fellow working with Dr. Yannick Jacob at Yale University. While he was still finishing his B.Sc.
in life sciences at Pierre & Marie Curie University in France, he
moved to Canada for a short-term exchange program... and never came
back! In 2013, he joined Dr. Daniel P. Matton’s laboratory
at Université de Montréal with a Ph.D. project aiming at deciphering
the molecular causes of reproductive isolation in wild potatoes. Using a
dual approach combining RNA sequencing and proteomics, he analyzed gene
expression in reproductive tissues of Solanum chacoense and re-annotated the genome with 7000 new genes. He then identified candidate genes potentially involved in species-specific pollen-pistil interactions, in particular cysteine-rich
proteins (CRPs). He developed a bioinformatic sequence search tool,
KAPPA, dedicated to the detection and clustering of this peculiar
category of rapidly diverging proteins. In 2016, he was part of the ten
Canadian students selected for the Summer Program of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. This allowed him to join Dr. Testuya Higashiyama’s lab at Nagoya University, where he developed microfluidic devices tailored for pollen tube guidance
assays in Solanum, allowing to test candidate proteins. Right after
receiving his Ph.D. degree in August 2019, he joined the Jacob Lab at
Yale with an FRQNT postdoctoral fellowship. His new project aims at
optimizing the CRISPR/Cas9 technology and create large chromosomal
deletions within the Arabidopsis genome.
The goal is not only to take a step further towards the generation of
minimal plant genomes but also to reveal potential hidden functions of
repetitive DNA. More information can be found on his website (https://vjoly.net).
Dr. Allyson MacLean, Assistant Professor, University of Ottawa
Allyson
MacLean has recently joined the University of Ottawa as an Assistant
Professor where her research is focused on a study of the molecular
interactions that occur between plants and microbes within the context
of both beneficial and pathogenic associations. Allyson earned her PhD
from McMaster University under the mentorship of Turlough Finan for her
research into the nitrogen-fixing legume symbiont Sinorhizobium meliloti.
As a recipient of a Marie Curie International post-doctoral fellowship,
Allyson joined the lab of Saskia Hogenhout at the John Innes Centre in
Norwich, England, to examine the role of effector proteins in the plant
pathogen phytoplasma, identifying a novel bacterial protein that hijacks
floral development in infected plants. Intrigued by the idea of
investigating the role of microbial effector proteins in a beneficial
symbiosis, Allyson next joined the lab of Maria Harrison at the Boyce
Thompson Institute for Plant Research as a PDF prior to accepting the
opportunity to lead her own lab at uOttawa. The MacLean lab presently
is engaged in research relevant to understanding how plant immunity is
suppressed during mycorrhizal symbiosis, and characterizing the role of
fungal proteins in mediating root colonization. Allyson is also excited
to start a new research program to identify both microbial and host
proteins critical towards the establishment of clubroot disease in
canola, in collaboration with Chris Todd and colleagues at the
University of Saskatchewan.
Dr. Shawkat Ali, Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada, Kentville Research & Development Centre
Shawkat joined Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) as a Research Scientist recently.
Dr. Ali completed his Ph. D at the University of British Columbia in 2011 in Molecular Plant Pathology Lab of Dr. Guus Bakkeren, where he worked on plant-microbe interactions, particularly on Ustilago hordei avirulence genes. After that Dr. Ali worked as an NSERC visiting research scientist and FQRNT post-doctoral fellow in the laboratories of Drs. Peter Moffett (University of Sherbrooke, Quebec) and Guy Belair (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada). Dr. Ali did another post-doctoral fellowship at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia focusing on abiotic and biotic stress tolerance in plants.
Shawkat Lab is focusing his research program on large and small fruit diseases in Canada particularly in Atlantic regions. At AAFC his Lab is interested to understand how pathogens are overcoming plant defence and causes disease. Using molecular biology and molecular genetic approach his Lab is working on different aspects to reduce the losses from disease caused by pathogens. His group is also working on fungal endophytes to control plant diseases and to improve plant health that will result in a clean, environment-friendly and sustainable alternative to chemical pesticides. He is also interested in using small RNA to control virus infection in the plant.