Biophysics Student Profiles | Biophysics at Memorial | Memorial University of Newfoundland

Claire Langille

I hold a B.Sc. (Hons) in Biochemistry from Memorial, where I also minored in Mathematics. My honours research with Dr. Valerie Booth focused on studying lung surfactant analogs using diffusion NMR techniques. I am now completing my M.Sc. at MUN with Dr. Booth and Dr. Katie Wilson, focusing on the selectivity of antimicrobial peptides for the Gram-positive Bacillus subtilis membrane.

Sogand Sasan Moghadam

Sogand received a Master’s degree in Biochemistry from Shiraz University. Her work focused on the structural damages to lens crystallins, including human αA-crystallin, caused by peroxynitrite and methylglyoxal, two causative players in diabetic complications. She joined Dr. Valerie Booth's laboratory for her doctoral studies and has also collaborated with Dr. Michael Morrow. Her current research explores the role of teichoic acid in the selectivity of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) for Bacillus subtilis over red blood cells. In her AMP permeabilization studies, she employs techniques such as Zetasizer, flow cytometry, and NMR. Her research aims to explore how the interaction between AMPs and bacteria cell envelopes works, potentially finding new strategies for fighting bacterial infections.

Nury Paula Santisteban

Nury has a B.Sc. in Physics from the Universidad Nacional de Columbia. She went on to to an M.Sc. in Physics at Universidad de Los Andes with supervisor Chad Leidy on "Mechanical Properties of Membranes as resistance Factor to Antimicrobial Peptides." Nury joined Memorial in May 2014 where she is a Physics PhD candidate. She works with Valerie Booth and Michael Morrow on performing solid state NMR with antimicrobial peptides interacting with intact bacteria.

Tadiwos Getachew

Before joining our group, Tadiwos completed his BSc in Chemistry at Debub University in Ethiopia, followed by an MSc in Chemistry from the University of Eastern Finland. He became a PhD candidate in the Biochemistry PhD program at Memorial in 2013. Tadiwos is working on dynamic light scattering, circular dichroism and NMR studies of surfactant protein B refolding.

Ernest Awoonor-Williams

Ernest completed his B.Sc. (Hons) in chemistry at Mount Allison University. He completed an Honours thesis with Professor Khashayar Ghandi. He is developing methods to predict the pKa of cysteine residues in proteins. Ernest holds an NSERC Vanier scholarship.