Back on Wednesday, October 2nd, a small group of students had the unique opportunity to hear Dr. McQuibban discuss his career path and research. This was the first talk in a series of talks held by BUSS referred to as “Lunch and Learn” meetings. These are great opportunities to get to know the faculty and learn more about a career path in research. Remember to watch out for our next one on November 21st, 1-2pm, featuring another professor!
Hey biochemists! We are pleased to announce another event: a general meeting and welcome-back elections. Details are as follows:
When: Wednesday Sept 25th at 1:30-2:30pm
Where: Medical Science Building 5231.
What: The first half will be the election and the rest of the time will be a short meeting. Come out run and vote! If you cannot attend, send in a 1 to 2 minute speech to sympascho.young@mail.utoronto.
What are the available positions?
These roles enable us to create a bridge between BUSS and the student body. Duties will include advertising our events to classes as well as occasional roles in our special events.
Who can run for the positions? Anyone in BCH major or specialist!
Come meet with us and get to know other students in the program!
Thanks to everyone who came out for Clubs Fair last Tuesday and for Street Fair earlier today! BUSS had an amazing time reaching out to new students, and we hope that some of the people we met have found their way to this website. All newcomers should feel free to participate in online discussion, come out to events, and commiserate with fellow biochemistry students.
We’ve included a gallery of some of our favourite shots from Clubs Fair in this post. Remember to check back later for Street Fair pictures, as well as announcements about upcoming events such as the general meeting and by-election.
As a lot of you may know, several weeks ago (July 11th), we had a course selection seminar for fourth year courses, in which former students and current professors came and talk about different fourth year courses that are available to you in the upcoming year. This was also a great opportunity for second/third year students to get a sense of their future opportunities in terms of courses and to help see where their program is leading them.
If you happened to miss this talk, don’t worry! We took notes during the seminar, and they are available here.
Good luck to all fourth years!
The following article on the University of Toronto website describes the recent work of one professor of biochemistry, Igor Stagljar:
Igor Stagljar, Professor in the Faculty of Medicine’s Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research, and his team developed the first roadmap for ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporter proteins. These proteins are crucial components of every cell, and are also involved in tumor resistance.
Scientists have struggled with understanding how ABC transporter proteins work and communicate with other proteins. Stagljar and his team, including first author Dr. Jamie Snider, have solved the mystery by using Membrane Yeast Two-Hybrid (‘MYTH’) technology to see how these transporter proteins interact with other vital components in the cell.
Here’s a little more info for those who are interested in biochemistry: ATP-binding cassette transporters are a large class of transmembrane proteins. Typically, they use energy derived from ATP hydrolysis in order to carry out various tasks, such as the transport of substrates across membranes. Issues with ABC transporter proteins often lead to disease, as the article describes: for instance, CFTR falls under this class of proteins, and a variety of mutations in it will lead to cystic fibrosis. Dr. Stagljar has various ongoing projects in his laboratory, but his recent publication in Nature Chemical Biology concerned his work in defining the interactome of ABC transporters. (You can read more about this and the method used in his research, the Membrane Yeast Two-Hybrid system, here.) This sort of work gives us a much better understanding of diseases that are associated with ABC transporters, including macular degeneration, Tangier disease, and cancer (i.e. how cancerous cells are resistant to chemotherapy).
Dr. Stagljar is cross-appointed to the departments of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology and Biochemistry. Last year, he was one of the lecturers in BCH242Y1 (the introductory biochemistry course for specialists), and the material he went over was actually relevant to this news. Hence, as a biochemistry student, it is possible to have the opportunity to be taught by him!
