Speakers, presenters, and members of the organizing committee.

 

The fifth annual Biochemistry Summer Symposium convened by the Biochemistry Graduate Student Society was held on August 11, 2015, at the Rooms.

Once again some fifty participants were treated to a stimulating day of scientific research presentations. Ten graduate students each gave 15 minute presentations on their research, and eight undergraduates preseneted posters on their summer research work.

The audience was also treated to a presentation by Dr. Sean Taylor of Bio-Rad on the perils of doing Western blots incorrectly and on the advantages offered by a new system for quantitative PCR that has been developed by Bio-Rad.

The day was capped by a keynote presentation from Dr. Petra Kienesberger from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Dalhousie Medicine New Brunswick on the topic of "A tale of two Lipases and their role in energy metabolism".

As has been our practice, the oral presentations were judged by member of faculty for the L.M. Stead Oral Competition Award. This award was inaugurated last year by the generosity of Dr. Lori Stead and by Dr. René Jacobs, both alumni of the department.

This year the award receipients were:

• L.M. Stead Award for M.Sc. student oral presentation: Alex Brannan (co-supervised by Drs. Booth & Brown)
• L.M. Stead Award for Ph.D. student oral presentation: Craig Ayre (supervised by Dr. Christian)

The runner-up prize in the Ph.D. student oral competition went to Luke McMillan (supervised by Drs. J. and M. Brosnan).

Prizes were also awarded for the best undergraduate posters.  Recipients were:

1st place: Shannon Hart (supervised by Dr. Berry)

2nd place: Travis Pickett (supervised by Dr. Brown)

Congratulations go out to all participants for the high qualitry of the posters and presentations.  A great big thanks also goes out to the Biochemistry Graduate Student Society for organising and delivering another very successful Symposium.

Finally, we must acknowledge and thank all of the sponsors of the event whose support made it possible:

Canadian Institutes of Health Research

Memorial University of Newfoundland:

• Department of Biochemistry
• Faculty of Science
• School of Graduate Studies
• Graduate Student Union
• Vice-Presidents' Conference Fund

Bio-Rad

Fisher Scientific

Lamarckian Solutions

TD Bank