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CREATE program in Bionanomachines (Nov 2/11)

Graduate and Undergraduate Research Opportunities in Bionanotechnology

The new NSERC-sponsored CREATE Training Program in Bionanomachines (CTPB) offers summer research stipends to undergraduates and 2-year stipends to graduate students in 22 laboratories in Montreal, Québec City, Calgary and Saskatoon. Bionanomachines is a young and developing field at the intersection of structural biology, supramolecular chemistry and biophysics that seeks to understand how biological machines function at the molecular level, and to harness their power for applications in health, chemistry and physics. For more information visit http://bionano.ca/en or contact the CTPB Coordinator at (bionano.med "at" mcgill.ca).

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CREATE program in Bionanomachines (July 23/11)

The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) has announced a new Collaborative Research and Training Experience (CREATE) grant in Bionanomachines led by Kalle Gehring at McGill University.

The CREATE Program in Bionanomachines (CTPB) is focused on the principles, design, and applications of bionanomachines, which are defined as nanometer scale devices such as enzymes or biomaterials that are derived from living organisms and composed of DNA, RNA, protein, sugars, and/or lipids. Existing bionanomachines touch us every day as improved stain-removing enzymes in laundry detergents to diagnostic tools and therapies for medicine and health.

The CTPB links world-class laboratories from across Canada in the fields of structural biology, biotechnology, supramolecular chemistry, nanotechnology, biophysics and protein engineering. Summer and graduate studentships can be held at Concordia University, the Université Laval, McGill University, the University of Calgary, the Université de Montréal, and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Applications for next year are due in December 2011.

A full list of mentors and program details can be found on the CTPB web site: http://www.bionanomachines.ca (available September, 2011) or by e-mail (bionanomachines.med "at" mcgill.ca)

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NMR paper in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology (Feb 10/11)

L.A. Freiburger, O.M. Baettig, T. Sprules, A.M. Berghuis, K. Auclair, A.K. Mittermaier, "Competing allosteric mechanisms modulate substrate binding in a dimeric enzyme," Nature Structural & Molecular Biology (2011) online. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nsmb.1978

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NMR events at CSC 2011 (Jan 26/11)

Dear colleagues,

The 94th Canadian Chemistry Conference and Exhibition (CSC 2011) "Chemistry and Health" will be held in Montréal, Québec from June 5-9, 2011, as a joint effort of the Canadian Society for Chemistry and the four Montréal Universities, with the Université de Montréal Chemistry Department as the host. The CSC is the largest annual national event for chemical professionals attracting close to 2500 participants each year.

Canada is very dynamic in Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectroscopy and to pursue the tradition, a solid-state NMR workshop as well as two 1.5-day NMR symposia are scheduled to cover a wide range of applications and developments in the fields of solution and solid-state NMR.

Profs Anthony Mittermaier (McGill University) and Pierre Lavigne (Université de Sherbrooke) are organizing the "Solution NMR: Biomolecular structure, dynamics, and function" symposium which includes, amongst a list of over 15 speakers, Charalampos Kalodimos (Rutgers U.). Brian Sykes (U. of Alberta), Gary Shaw (U. Western Ontario) and Lawrence McIntosh (UBC).

Profs Michel Lafleur (Université de Montréal) and Isabelle Marcotte (Université du Québec à Montréal) are co-organizers of the symposium entitled "Solid-state NMR: From materials to biomolecules". So far, Profs Marc Baldus (U. of Utrecht), Vladimir Ladizhansky (U. of Guelph), Bruce Balcom (U. New Brunswick), Valerie Booth (Memorial U.) and Dr. Ansgar Siemer (Columbia U.) have confirmed their presence as guest speakers.

We invite you to participate in the CSC2011 conference which plenary lecturer will be Nobel Laureate Prof. Roger Tsien (U. of California, San Diego). More detail on the symposia, abstract submission and registration can be found on the conference website at http://www.csc2011.ca

The deadline for abstract submission is February 15, 2011.

Submit your abstract through Hermes Conference Centre via the CSC2011 website. Details are available at http://www.csc2011.ca/Program/submit_abstract.html

NMR Symposia Organizers

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Thesis Defenses (Oct 21/10)

Qian Liu (Department of Biochemistry, McGill) June 2010
Supervisor: Kalle Gehring
PhD thesis "Structural Insights into Apoptotic Regulation by BCL-2 Family"

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6th Annual McGill Biophysical Chemistry Symposium (March 24/10)

Tuesday, May 13, 2010: This one-day, on-site Symposium aims to bring together research groups interested in using physical/chemical tools to study biological systems. This will be a great opportunity to interact with other biophysical/biochemical labs in Eastern Canada. This year's program is very exciting, with talks from researchers at Montreal, Ottawa, Sherbrooke, and Kingston, and a plenary lecture from Prof. Mike Summers (HHMI).

For more information, click here

http://www.chemistry.mcgill.ca/