Today Mike Dorrington officially became a PhD candidate as he passed his comprehensive exam with distinction. He wrote a very interesting proposal on developing new technologies to measure serotype replacement of non-vaccine strains of Streptococcus pneumoniae in the developping world, which stemmed from his interest in global health. Well done Mike!
The winning team!
Well it was an impressive show even for our over achieving lab! Bowdish lab undergraduates (Netusha Thevaranjan, Dessi Loukov, James Han), graduate students (Kyle Novakowski, Mike Dorrington, Fan Fei), post-docs (Dr. Chris Verschoor) and associates (Fiona Whelan, Dr. Jennifer Stearns, Michelle Pinto) all got selected to present posters at the IIDR trainee day. James Han won the IIDR Award of Excellence for best poster by an undergraduate and Dr. Jennifer Stearns brought home the award for best poster by a post-doc. Avee Naidoo was selected to give a talk only 6 weeks into her graduate degree and Dr. Chris Verschoor won the Gulliver award ($1000!) for the best oral presentation by a post-doc. What a great day!
For a complete album of photos, click here.
Avee Naidoo gives her first talk on her project – 6 weeks into grad school!
Dessi Loukov presents her poster and gets lots of compliments on her story.
Dr. Chris Verschoor wins the Gulliver award for best presentation by a PDF.
Dr. Jennifer Stearns and James Han win IIDR awards of excellence for their poster presentations.
Dawn was deeply touched by her team’s nomination for the President’s Award in Graduate Supervision. This was a touching tribute to her abilities as a supervisor. Although she didn’t win the award, she won the support of the people who matter most – the Bowdish lab team.
The Bowdish lab team attends the President’s Award for Graduate Supervision Ceremony. Dawn was thrilled to be nominated for the award by her team.
Bowdish lab associate member (technically she’s supervised by Dr. Mike Surette but we think of her as one of our own), Julie Kaiser, successfully defended her MSc thesis “Host responses to the Strepotococcus Milleri Group”. To see a photo of Julie in her post exam bliss/haze click here. Julie is moving on to a PhD at UWO in Dr. Dave Heinrichs lab. We’re sending Dave on of our best & brightest – we expect a thank you card any day now.
The lab of Dr. Dawn Bowdish at the McMaster University Immunology Research Centre (MIRC) has recently begun collaboration with the Vancouver-based pharmaceutical company Qu Biologics on preclinical studies investigating the role of macrophage dysfunction in chronic inflammation.
Qu Biologics has developed Site Specific Immunomodulators (SSIs), which aim to “reboot” the body’s innate immune system in targeted organs or tissues to reverse chronic inflammation.
“Macrophages are important cells of the innate immune system. There is growing evidence that macrophage dysfunction underlies many important common chronic diseases, including cancer and autoimmune disease,” said Dr. Hal Gunn, CEO of Qu Biologics. “This collaboration will be invaluable to assist in our understanding of the benefits of SSI therapy on macrophage function as it relates to chronic inflammation and immune dysfunction.” Dr. Gunn added.
The studies will test whether a lung-specific SSI therapy can restore normal lung and bone marrow-derived macrophage function using a variety of in vivo and in vitro assays.
Dr. Bowdish adds “This is an ambitious and exciting project that takes a fundamentally different approach to tackling the problem of chronic inflammation, which has been very resistant to therapeutic intervention. My team is thrilled to be working together on a problem that affects the lives of so many Canadians.” This work capitalizes on the resources and immunology expertise of the McMaster Immunology Research Centre and Dr. Bowdish’s research interests in how inflammation impairs macrophage function.
About Qu Biologics
Qu Biologics develops Site Specific Immunomodulators (SSI), a novel class of immunotherapies that aim to reboot the body’s immune system. SSIs are designed to stimulate an immune response in targeted organs or tissues to potentially reverse the chronic inflammation underlying many conditions including cancer and autoimmune disease. The company recently launched a Phase 1/2 clinical trial to research SSI therapy for the treatment of Crohn’s disease.
Backed by a prestigious group of scientific advisors and board members, Qu Biologics is led by a management team that includes co-founder and CEO Dr. Hal Gunn, a physician and expert on the body’s immune response to chronic disease; and Chief Medical Officer Dr. Simon Sutcliffe, former CEO of the BC Cancer Agency and a distinguished clinician, scientist and leader in cancer control in Canada and internationally. For more information, visit www.qubiologics.com and www.qucrohnstrial.com.
For more details and to see the original press release here:
Keith Lee, who will be attending the University of Toronto for medical school starting August 2013 has received a very prestigious CIHR MSc graduate award. He has chosen to decline to pursue his medical studies and potentially re-apply as an MD/PhD student next year. Congratulations Keith!
Dr. Bowdish discusses the implication of our Verschoor et al publication “Blood CD33(+)HLA-DR(-) myeloid-derived suppressor cells are increased with age and a history of cancer.” in studies of aging and cancer in the below commentary.
Click image for .pdf.
This is an open access publication so please feel free to use the following image in presentations/publications providing that it is properly referenced.
Fan Fei (PhD candidate), under the supervision of Dr. Brian McCarry, and in conjunction with Bowdish lab undergraduate Keith Lee, studies age related changes in the inflammatory response from a metabolomics perspective. Funded by the Russell Bell Travel Scholarship award, she attended the 9th Annual conference of the Metabolomics Society. July 1-4, 2013, SECC Glasgow. She won the “Glasgow Polyomics & University of Strathclyde Young Scientist Award” for outstanding poster presentation of research in the field of metabolomics at the Metabolomic Conference 2013 in Glasgow Scotland for her work “Comprehensive Metabolomic Analysis Reveals Major Differences in the Macrophage Inflammatory Response Between Young and Aged Mice”. Way to go Fan!
What is the best way to reduce infectious disease in the elderly? Vaccination! Unfortunately the aging immune system presents a number of challenges for vaccine development. Bowdish lab PhD candidate Mike Dorrington discusses them in this review and presents a case for developing novel vaccines that work within the constraints of the aging immune system.
Media coverage: This paper was picked up by MDLinx. See their coverage here.
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Click image to download .pdf
