NSERC offers summer research awards for students to undertake a 4 month research project in the laboratory of a professor who is an NSERC grant holder.  Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences is part of the Faculty of Health Science, to which 8 USRA awards are allocated.  Because there are many more grant holders (see attached) than awards, they are highly competitive.  BBS typically receives 3 or fewer of the 8 awards, which are distributed in part among students of equal merit from different departments within FHS.

If you are interested in applying for an award, or sponsoring a student for an award, please be aware that only students of very high academic standing (11 or better) with some relevant research (or similar) training are competitive for these awards.  Please do not submit multiple applications, as only 1 per student or lab will be considered.  Official transcripts are required, so please leave time to order those from the Registrar’s office.

To apply, please follow the instructions on the NSERC website.

NSERC – Undergraduate Student Research Awards Program <http://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/Students-Etudiants/UG-PC/USRA-BRPC_eng.asp>

Please submit completed applications to BBS Undergraduate Coordinator Mizan Graham by NOON on Feb 16, 2012; after verifying completeness, she will forward them to Caroline Woods for evaluation by the awards committee which meets in late Feb/early March.  LATE APPLICATIONS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED.

Andreas Korinek and Ahmad Jomaa at work!

Collecting electron microscopy images at the Ortega lab just got easier. The team is now using a computer program installed in one of the high-end electron microscopes at the Canadian Center for Electron Microscopy (CCEM) that makes the microscope collect images automatically. The man behind the magic is Andreas Korinek, a postdoctoral fellow from Germany that joined the lab this past summer. Andreas did his PhD at the Max Planck Institute and during his graduate work he developed this program that virtually transforms the electron microscope in a high-throughput instrument.

“Cryo-electron microscopy is tricky and it frequently takes the entire day to get a good grid in the microscope, but once you have it, you want to collect as much data as possible. Andreas program allows that once a good grid is in, you can press a button and go home. We used to stay here until 1 or 2 am when images were collected manually…” comments Ahmad Jomaa one of the senior students in the lab.

The system collects datasets much bigger than what is possible by hand. This huge datasets allow obtaining 3D reconstructions of large protein assemblies at high resolution. Very frequently, many of these complexes coexist in several conformations within the same sample. These large data sets allow exploring this conformational variability. “You simply don’t have enough data to obtain a 3D reconstruction of the complex in all these conformations with manually collected datasets”, argues Joaquin Ortega.

“One cool feature we are implementing is that the images that the microscope is collecting could be visualized from your cell phone or laptop computer at home as they come out from the microscope. This feature will allow monitoring the data collection from virtually anywhere …” indicates Andreas.

Andreas’ program is now making the microscope at the CCEM to work night and weekends shifts but finally … the Ortega lab members got a life!

MMPA Program @ U of T

The Master of Management and Professional Accounting (MMPA) Program at the University of Toronto is designed as a graduate program for non-business graduates.

To find out more attend one of these two sessions:

Tuesday, Nov 16th, 2010, 11am – 1pm, Great Hall

or

Tuesday, January 11th, 2011, 11am – 1pm, Great Hall

Brought to you by the SCCE.

Research 

Learn what research competitions are all about, who offers them and how and when to apply.

Tuesday, Nov 9th 10am to 3 pm, Lobby of BSB

Brought to you by the SCCE.