Our People - Biochemistry

Research Interests:

• Dynamics and control of MEMS
• Design of MEMS devices
• Micro-power generation
• Multi-body dynamics and control
• Biomechanics

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Research Interests:

• Pathogen detection, disinfection and sterilization using UV light

• Photochemistry, photocatalytic applications to water and air treatment

• Environmental engineering

• Biotechnology, biofiltration

• Metal nanoparticle synthesis and applications

• Process modelling and simulation

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Research Interests:

• Treatment of neurological disorders (Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and mental health conditions including schizophrenia and depression)

• Molecular pharmacology and pharmaceutical delivery

• Intracellular signaling pathways in neurons, and the role of cytoskeletal dynamics in the trafficking of receptors in neurons

ResearchGate

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Research Interests

• Breast cancer, glioblastoma and acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL)
• Vaccine development
• Immunotherapy
• Phage based nanomedicine

Google Scholar

Research Interests:

• cancer therapy
• colorectal, breast, prostate and lung carcinomas
• cancer tissue microenvironment
• chemokine pathways
• tumor-initiating cells
• proteins

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Research Gate

Research Interests:

• Biochemical engineering

• Microbial biotechnology

• Synthetic and molecular biology

• Genetic, metabolic and protein engineering

• Biopharmaceuticals (to treat autoimmune diseases and prevent rejection of organ transplants)

• Biomanufacturing, bioprocessing technologies (biological strain construction, bioreaction cultivation, biofuels, bioproduct recovery and purification)

[Waterloo Stories] May 3, 2013 "Can bacteria help create a cheaper fuel for our cars?"

[UW Eng-e-news] August 14, 2013 "Engineering Life-enhancing research"

Research Interests:

• Genomics, proteins, antibodies
• Molecular immunology and immunotoxicology in fish populations and the design for better vaccines for aquaculture

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Canada Research Chair in Fish and Environmental Immunology [Canada Research Chair Profile]

[UW Science News] June 15, 2018, Waterloo Biologist mentors local teen, the 2018 International BioGENEius Challenge winner

[Waterloo Stories] January 22, 2018 "Vaccines not protecting farmed fish from disease"

[Waterloo Stories] February 13, 2014 "True love makes pacific salmon healthier"

[YouTube] October 9, 2013 "Science Scoop - For the love of fish!"

[Waterloo Stories] September 9, 2013 "Video conferencing connects Waterloo biologist to young students"

Research Interests:

• Cancer research

• Cell cycle, DNA replication, biomarkers and checkpoints

• Genetics, yeast genetics, molecular biology

• Protein factors

• Kinases

• Chromatin

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[CBB researcher story] January 2, 2013 "How the Trout are Saving Us: Using Biomarkers to Improve Water Quality"

[Science Direct] August 10, 2018 "Revealing the atomistic details behind the binding of B7–1 to CD28 and CTLA-4: A comprehensive protein-protein modelling study"

[Nature] August 27, 2019 "Comprehensive in vitro characterization of PD-L1 small molecule inhibitors"

Research interests:

• Imaging, treatment, and prevention of diseases
• Fabrication and characterization of innovative biomaterials for drug delivery systems (nanoparticles, medical devices, biodegradable films, hydrogels, etc.)
• Vaccine development for protection against HIV and other diseases

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[Waterloo News] February 6, 2019 "Researchers find new treatment for Chlamydia"

[Waterloo News] April 16, 2018 "Developing new way to fight transmission of HIV"

Research interests: 

• GTP-dependent phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinases
• IgA1 protease family of bacterial proteases

Research Interests:

• Methionine chemistry and biochemestry (amino acid methionine and its roles in proteins, cellular pathways and its functions)

• Bionanomaterials, bionanotechnology (for novel drug carriers, molecular foundations for nanodevices)

• Medicinal chemistry

• Enzymology
• Bioorganic chemistry
• Protein structure and function

ResearchGate

[Daily Bulletin] June 1, 2018, 11 CBB Members Named Outstanding Performance Award Winners

Research Interests:

• Clinical trial design
• Contact lens performance
• Drug delivery
• Ocular biomaterials
• Proteins at interfaces

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University Research Chair

Office of Research - Technology Transfer & Commercialization:

• Long-lasting Eye Drop Delivery Platform for Targeted Ocular Delivery Applications

Research Interests:

• Design/discovery of potential therapeutics to target various diseases
• Understanding the structure and pharmacology of membrane proteins
• Development of in silico methods/tools for sequence, structure and functional analysis
• Inferring the structure-function evolution of proteins
• Protein engineering for biotechnology and pharmaceutical applications

[American Chemical Society] January 23, 2012 "Exploring Inhibitor Release Pathways in Histone Deacetylases Using Random Acceleration Molecular Dynamics Simulations"

[Wiley Online Library] July 27, 2013 "Ligand release mechanisms and channels in histone deacetylases"

[Royal Society of Chemistry] December 19, 2013 "A steered molecular dynamics mediated hit discovery for histone deacetylases"

[Nature Methods] May 8, 2017 "ModelFinder: fast model selection for accurate phylogenetic estimates"

[Royal Society of Chemistry] October 24, 2017 "Reverse engineering: transaminase biocatalyst development using ancestral sequence reconstruction"

Research Interests:

• Biophysics of lipids and lipid-protein interactions

• The role of structural changes and physical properties of lipid template in controlling biological processes and diseases

• Biomedical nanotechnology (lipid films, molecular mechanism of Alzheimer's disease)

• Drug development and delivery systems, antimicrobial peptides in lung disorders

• Fluorescence and atomic force microscopy

• Kelvin probe force microscopy and single molecule force spectroscopy

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[Global Impact] May 2018, studying Alzheimer's at a molecular level to find a cure

[YouTube Lecture] October 1, 2014 "Scanning probe microscopy in biomedical research"

Research Interests:

• Green energy: solar cells and hydrogen generation

• Biosensing and environmental remediation using hybrid nanomaterials
• Quantum electronics
• Surface chemical physics
• Ultra-large scale computational chemistry

Research Interests:

• Biomedical diagnosis

• Targeted drug delivery

• Environmental monitoring

• DNA-based biosensors and functional polymers

• Nanomaterials, (gold nanoparticles, liposomes, magnetic nanoparticles, quantum dots, graphene hydrogels, hybrid nanomaterials)

• Bioinorganic / Bioanalytical chemistry

University Research Chair

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[Waterloo Stories] February 27, 2013 "Waterloo researcher uses nano-materials to clean water"

Research Interests:

• Biochemistry and enzymology

• Thermostable Biocatalyst and dehydrogenases (Biofuel/Bioethanol production, pharmaceutical and other industrial processes)

• Enzyme evolution and protein engineering, microbial physiology, molecular biology

• Sulfur reduction and energy metabolism, alcohol metabolism

• Electron transfer and flavoproteins.

• Proteins purification and analysis, metal-containing
• Fermentation
• Hyperthermophiles

Office of Research - Technology Transfer & Commercialization:

• Novel Thermostable Biocatalyst

Research interests: 

• Neurobiological embedding of adversity
• Biological characteristics that influence outcome from brain injury
• Drug development, biomarkers
• Stroke; biological characteristics that influence outcomes from brain injury

Google Scholar

Research Interests:

• Bio inspired solar cell technology
• Targeted drug delivery
• Bio compatibility
• Tissue engineering
• Cardiovascular
• Industrial biotechnology
• Sensors
• Polymers

Research Gate

Google Scholar

Research Interests:

• Drug discovery
• Rational drug design and medicinal chemistry
• Cancer therapy
• Treatment of neurological disorders (Alzheimer's, Parkinson's)
• Drug discovery/rational design
• Synthesis and biological evaluation of novel organic molecules and peptides/peptidomimics as therapeutic agents

ResearchGate

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[Science News] October 22, 2018 "Nekkar lab determines that depression medications can help treat Alzheimer’s disease"

​[Pharmacy News] July 29, 2015 "Waterloo pharmacist examines drug therapies for Alzheimer’s disease"

Research Interests:

• Flexible, wearable energy storage and sensing technologies
• Graphene production and post-processing techniques
• Directed assembly of 2D nanomaterials at the air-water interface
• Bottom-up assembly approaches for energy storage, sensing and electrocatalysis
• Supercapacitors
• Next generation batteries
• Electrochemical sensors
• ​Thin films and membranes
• Nano-materials

​ResearchGate

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Office of Research - Technology Transfer & Commercialization:

• Film Forming Process

Research Interests:

• Protein and DNA separation analysis towards disease diagnosis and drug discovery

• Biosensing and Devices (bacterial, proteins, fluorescence)

• Living cell analysis and water toxicity testing

• Lab-on-a-Chip technology (point-of-care biomedical diagnosis , chemical detection, protein separation and identification, environmental testing)

• Micro-scale fluid mechanics, droplet microfluidics and nanofluidics

• High Throughput Screening For Drug Screening
• Manufacturing Nanomaterials and Carbon Management

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ResearchGate

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Canada Research Chair in Lab-on-a-Chip Technology [Canada Research Chair Profile]

[Waterloo Stories] June 14, 2012 "Creating the tiny future of science"

Research Interests:

• Protein structure, functions, and pharmaceuticals
• Type II Diabetes
• Bioinformatics, Systematics, and Evolution
• Molecular Genetics
• Microbiology

Google Scholar

[YouTube Lecture] September 30, 2015 "Glycosidases in human health and disease"

Research Interests:

• Drug discovery, delivery systems and nanomedicine

• Gene therapy, microbial genetics

• Oncology, Antiviral therapeutics design

• Anti-bacterials

• Acne cosmeceutical design

• Phage-based biotechnology

• Viral exclusion systems

• Cosmeceuticals

• Vaccine design (dementia), bacteriophage-based biotechnology, use of coliphages to design and construct vectors for the development of novel vaccines, pharmaceuticals and gene delivery systems, and the identification and application of novel phage genomic anti-bacterial genes with potential phage therapy applications.

• Strategic management in Pharmacy; healthcare reform

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ResearchGate

Research Interests:

• Calcium channel analysis for target drug delivery for treatment of pain, arrhythmias, angina, and potential benefits in treatment of epilepsy and cancer.

• Structure, function and pharmacology of calcium channels and sodium channels

• Structure and function and analysis of NALCN cation channel  and anti-calcium channel toxins

• The Spafford Neurobiology Research Laboratory studies voltage-gated calcium channels, molecular physiology, biophysics, cell biology, protein biochemistry, fluorescence microscopy and tissue cultures.

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[Science News] April 25, 2014 "Waterloo discovers a key regulator in the pacemakers of our brain and heart"

Research Interests:

• Medicinal chemistry/enzymology (treatment of prostate and breast cancer, diabetes)

• Nanomedicine; development of novel antibiotics

• Bionanomaterials; synthetic polymers and methodologies

• Peptide, charbohydrate, nucleoside and nucleotide chemistry

[Daily Bulletin] June 1, 2018, 11 CBB Members Named Outstanding Performance Award Winners

[Science News] February 4, 2015 "Chemists develop new method to improve the discovery of antibiotics"

Research Interests:

• Biochemistry and molecular biology of programmed cell death

• Functional genomics of senescence (biological aging) and apoptosis

• Comparative aspects of senescence and stress including the role of hormones and the involvement of free radicals

• Applicable therapies for cancers, inflammatory diseases (arthritis and sepsis), and in the agricultural sector (enhance yield, develop tolerance to environmental stress and plant diseases, and increase the shelf-life of perishable produce)

The Royal Society of Canada Fellow

Research interests:

• Environmental biology, industrial biotechnology, and therapeutics
• Production of sustainable chemicals
• Novel bioprocesses for applications in bioresource engineering and biorefining
• Microalgae, metabolic engineering, and ionic liquid based separations in biological systems

Google Scholar

Research Interests:

• Biomaterials and mechanics of biomaterials and tissues

• Bone quality and fragility, collagen

• Engineering of bone mimetic materials for skeletal reconstruction (3D printing)

Google Scholar

Research Interests:

• Biopharmaceuticals (therapeutics, treatment of autoimmune diseases, prevent rejection of organ transplants)

• Industrial biomanufacturing and biotechnology (fermentation, food ingredients, enzymes, biofuels)

• Environmental management (bioremediation of carcinogenic environmental pollutants, filtration, chromatography)

The Royal Society of Canada Fellow

[YouTube Lecture] September 29, 2014 "Biofuels and Waste Treatment"

[YouTube Lecture] September 19, 2013 "Industrial Biotechnology: Current developments and trends"

[UW Eng-e-news] August 14, 2013 "Engineering Life-enhancing research"

[Waterloo Stories] May 3, 2013 "Can bacteria help create a cheaper fuel for our cars?"

[CBB researcher story] December 6, 2012 "Bringing Bioengineering and Biotechnology to its Fullest Potential"