NMIN Undergraduate Studentship Awardees 2022
Faith Liu
University of British Columbia
Supervisor: Dr. Sabrina Leslie
Project Summary: This project will study changes in the biophysical properties of mRNA-delivery lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) as a function of buffer pH and ionic strength, toward better understanding the mechanisms of action of these important classes of LNP-RNA therapeutics and vaccines.
Career Aspirations: My career goal is to work in biological and medical science, toward helping society through new research and discoveries.
Amanda Yao
University of British Columbia
Supervisor: Dr. Sabrina Leslie
Project Summary: This project will advance a fluorophore-quencher probe to use as a diagnostic tool to quantitate specific, single-stranded DNA of interest with single-molecule sensitivity.
Career Aspirations: I hope to continue my studies in PharmD and pursue a career in pharmaceutical sciences, working on drug development with a focus on researching new drug delivery techniques.
UBC Killam Accelerator Research Fellowships (KARF)
Sabrina receives UBC’s 2021 faculty research award with the UBC Killam Accelerator Research Fellowships, Supporting early-career researchers ready to launch the next stage of their careers.
Find the official announcement here.
The Faculty Research Awards recognize the research excellence and scholarly achievements of faculty from across all disciplines, ranging from medicine and applied and natural sciences to arts, social sciences and humanities. Recipients span from early career researchers to senior members of faculty.
Winners were selected by UBC’s Faculty Research Award Committee.
The Office of the VP, Research and Innovation will be hosting a reception on June 3, 2022 to acknowledge the achievements of researchers.
Congratulations to all recipients!
Biophysics Day 2022 (Feb 2022)
Earlier this week we got together with the other Biophysics labs at UBC for the first-ever Biophysics Day event. Each group introduced their research with a series of fantastic graduate student presentations and it was an amazing chance to meet folks within the department.
Huge thanks to the Michal, Plotkin, and Rottler labs for joining us and to the student committee for organizing the event. Looking forward to the next one!
New publication: Shaheen et al.
Non-equilibrium structural dynamics of supercoiled DNA plasmids exhibits asymmetrical relaxation
We are very pleased to announce that Cindy Shaheen, a senior PhD student in our lab, recently published an article in Nucleic Acids Research. This work uses convex lens-induced confinement (CLiC) to study the non-equilibrium dynamics of highly structured plasmid DNA from a single-molecule perspective. You can read more about her exciting work here:
We would also like to give thanks to our incredible collaborators David Levens and Fed Kouzine at the NIH, Craig Benham at UC Davis, and Brian Munsky at Colorado State University for their invaluable support along the way.
Congratulations Cindy for this huge achievement!