As mentioned in an earlier post, Bowdish lab PhD student, Avee Naidoo, won the Fall 2014 CIHR Institute of Aging Anne Martin-Matthews Doctoral Research Prize of Excellence in Research on Aging and is mentioned in the CIHR’s Institute of Aging newsletter!
Avee Naidoo successfully passed her transfer exam today. She now joins the ranks of Fan Fei, Mike Dorrington, Kyle Novakowski, Dessi Loukov, Sara Makaremi, and Pat Schenck as part of the Bowdish lab PhD posse. Well done Avee!
Becoming a PhD student in the Bowdish lab is a family affair. Junior lab members sent their favourite stuffie in to wish Avee luck. It must have worked as she aced it!
…and a little lab humour. We have both skilled scientists (see picture at bottom) and skilled artists (see whiteboard) in our lab.
Alex Jiang underwent the CaRMs residency matching processwas able to land his top choice residency in Urology at Western. This is an exciting addition all the successes he has had in medical school at Western. Well done Alex!
Congratulations to Kyle Novakowski for receiving an OGS scholarship for his PhD research on macrophage phagocytic receptors. Way to go Kyle!
Kyle, getting twice as much work done in the tissue culture hood.
Bowdish lab trainees Avee Naidoo and Netusha Thevaranjan were recognized for their research excellence at the fourth annual Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research (IIDR) Trainee Research Day. The event was held at CIBC Hall on Friday, October 10th and featured a keynote address by Professor Quim Madrenas of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at McGill University. In addition to the keynote speach, the talented trainees at IIDR presented their latest research findings and accomplishments during the day.
A second-year Master’s student Avee Naidoo was awarded with the Michael Kamin Hart Memorial Scholarship at a reception held at the University Club at the end of the day. The $1,800 scholarphip is named in honour of a gifted Master’s student of IIDR who tragically passed away in 2011. Avee plans to use the scholarship to attend a Keystone meeting on inflammation and aging in Montreal next year. Another Master’s student in the Bowdish lab, Netusha Thevaranjan, was awarded with the IIDR Awards of Excellence for her poster presentation. Kyle Novakowski was the runner up for the PhD poster award.
Both Avee and Netusha are currently working to elucidate the mechanisms underlying age-associated deterioration of the innate immune response.
Congratulations to both Avee and Netusha!
Netusha Thevarnjan wins best MSc poster presentation and Avee Naidoo wins the Michael Kamin Hart Memorial scholarship at the 2014 IIDR trainee day. Dawn beams with pride.
This past month has been very productive in the Bowdish laboratory, with many triumphs achieved by it’s industrious members.
Firstly, a big congratulation goes to Kyle Novakowski, the Bowdish 
lab’s newest PhD student. Following a lot of hard work, determination and great dedication to his Masters project, Kyle successfully passed his transfer exam on July 7 and has officially begun his seemingly endless exciting pursuit for a PhD. Good luck to Kyle in continuing his interesting investigation on the regulation and function of MARCO!
Dessi Loukov presents her undergraduate work in the Bowdish lab at the 1st annual Perey Symposium, convinces everyone she’s a senior PhD student and brings home the Faculty choice award for best speed poster presentation.
Next up is Dessi Loukov, who is currently an undergraduate but come September will be the Bowdish lab’s 4th PhD student. At the 1st annual MIRC Perey Symposium held on June 19, Dessi impressed faculty and trainees with her educational and enthusiastic speed poster presentation on modulating the immune system to potentially reverse age-associated inflammation. Dessi was awarded a travel award as a result of her superb presentation skills. Kudos also to Fan Fei (PhD candidate) and Avee Naidoo (MSc candidate) who gave excellent speed poster talks and Dr. Chris Verschoor who gave an excellent oral presentation. Who knew that research in inflammation could be so exciting? The Bowdish lab, that’s who!
One PhD candidate who deserves great recognition for his recent successes is Mike Dorrington. Not only was Mike awarded with a prestigious and well-deserved Canadian Lung Association & Canadian Thoracic Studentship, but he additionally achieved received The Ruth and Wilson Tafts Prize for Immunology for having the best paper published in a peer-reviewed journal in 2013. Geez Mike, save some awards for the rest of us. These awards will be used to further fund his fascinating work on the role of macrophages – clearly, the best cell around – in recognition and clearance of Streptococcus pneumoniae in the upper respiratory tract. Congratulations Mike!
At the celebration of Mike’s first first author publication. Although Dawn is mostly happy for Mike, she is also slightly nervous that she might be about to lose an eye when the champagne is opened.
Then, there’s Dr. Chris Verschoor, the lab’s most productive and well-rounded member. Chris’ paper entitled, “Alterations to the frequency and function of peripheral blood monocytes and associations with chronic disease in the advanced-age, frail elderly“, was recently accepted into the PLoS one. If you’re interested in changes in monocyte populations with age – I mean, who isn’t? – keep a look out for Chris’ article in the next issue of PLoS one . Way to go Chris on this well-deserved publication!
<- Manuscipt accepted = happy post-doc.
And last, but definitely not least, the lab takes great pleasure in congratulating our passionate leader, Dr. Dawn Bowdish, who has been awarded tenure and a promotion to Associate Professor effective as of July 1, 2014. This accomplishment is a fitting acknowledgement of Dawn’s exceptional work, devotion and academic contributions to research in the field of macrophage biology. In addition to her promotion and tenure, Dawn recently received a Best Teacher Award in the Department of Pathology for excellence in undergraduate teaching and graduate supervision. Well-done Dawn!
Dawn receives the Pathology & Molecular Medicine Department’s best teacher award for her undergraduate and graduate supervision. Dr. Murray Potter, the education co-ordinator and Dr. Fiona Smaill, the chair, present her with the award.
Congratulations Bowdish lab on our successes!
Way to kill it, like young macrophages on pneumo 😉
A long overdue congratulations to Avee Naidoo(MSc candidate) for receiving the Frederick Banting and Charles Best Master’s Canada Graduate Scholarship (CGS) from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).
The award funds Avee’s research examining age-associated inflammation, impaired macrophage function and disease susceptibility in the elderly.
Way to go Avee!
Jessica Wallace (Sept 2013-Apr 2014) was a Life Sciences student who took Dawn’s HTHSCI 4II3 (Advanced Immunology) class. She was such an engaged student that despite being full to the rafters, she became the Bowdish lab’s 7th undergraduate student in the 2013/14 school year. She worked with Dr. Chris Verschoor to study the role of circulating bacterial products in age-associated inflammation. She has been accepted to McMaster’s Medical Sciences Graduate Program and will be working with Dr. Deborah Sloboda (Biochemistry) as an MSc student in Sept 2014. Congratulations Jessica!
Prashant Bharadwaj (Summer 2013) was an undergraduate from the Indian Institute of Technology who won a MITACS summer studentship to work in the Bowdish lab discovering novel signalling motifs in macrophage scavenger receptors. He will be joining John Hopkins as a graduate student in September 2014. Way to go Prashant!
Sarah Chauvin, a Bowdish lab alumnus (Biochem Thesis student May 2010 – September 2011 and NSERC USRA winner) is finishing her MSc degree at U of T and has been accepted into medical school there! Congratulations to Sarah.