Brendan McConkey

The research in Professor McConkey's lab is focused on two complementary areas – experimental techniques for proteomics analysis, and the use of computational and bioinformatics approaches for investigating protein function.

Professor McConkey and research team use the proteomics techniques of differential in-gel electrophoresis and mass spectrometry to identify changes in protein expression in a variety of biological systems. For example, his lab has applied this approach for the quantification of cell cycle proteins in yeast, recombinant protein production in mammalian cell lines, and identification of proteins mediating plant-bacterial interactions.

Computational and bioinformatics approaches are also used in the McConkey lab to investigate protein structure and expression patterns, and to investigate how protein function changes and diversifies within protein families.

Recently they have applied structural pattern recognition algorithms to predict protein functions such as carbohydrate binding and antifreeze activity, and have used publicly available high-throughput data sets to map the evolution of protein function within homologous protein groups.

• Bioinformatics, systematics and protein evolution

• Protein structure and interaction modeling

• Gene expression pattern analysis

• Molecular genetics

• Biochemistry and biophysics

• Bioinformatics, systematics and evolution

• Molecular genetics

• Microbiology

• 2002, PhD Biology, Waterloo, Canada

• 2000, BSc Applied Physics, Waterloo, Canada

• 2012, Early Researcher Award, Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation

• 1999, W.B. Pearson Medal for creative thesis research (Biology), University of Waterloo

• 2024 – Present, Graduate Studies Curriculum Committee

• 2020 – 2024, Undergraduate Studies Curriculum Committee

• 2020 – 2023, Associate Chair of Undergraduate Studies

• International Society for Computational Biology (Member)

• UW Bioinformatics Research Group (Member)

• Waterloo Centre for Microbial Research (Member)

• BIOL 130L - Cell Biology Laboratory
  • Taught in 2022
• BIOL 365 - Methods in Bioinformatics
  • Taught in 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2026
• BIOL 465 - Structural Bioinformatics
  • Taught in 2024
• BIOL 631 - Statistical Methods in Ecology
  • Taught in 2025
• BME 285L - Engineering Biology Laboratory
  • Taught in 2022

* Only courses taught in the past 5 years are displayed.

• For the full list of Brendan McConkey's publications, please see Google Scholar.

• Cheng, Z., Li, JF., Niu, Y. et al. (2015). Pathogen-secreted proteases activate a novel plant immune pathway. Nature 521, 213–216 https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14243

• Duncker BP, Chesnokov IN, McConkey BJ. (2009) The origin recognition complex protein family. Genome Biol. 2009;10(3):214 Epub Mar 17. PMID: 19344485; PMCID: PMC2690993. https://doi.org/10.1186/gb-2009-10-3-214.

• Lorv, J.S., McConkey, B.J. Kastor (2025): a reference-based comparative approach for assessment and correction of gene-fragmenting errors in long-read assemblies of small genomes. BMC Genomics 26, 388 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12864-025-11569-y

• Mooney SM, Talebian V, Jolly MK, Jia D, Gromala M, Levine H, McConkey BJ (2017). The GRHL2/ZEB Feedback Loop-A Key Axis in the Regulation of EMT in Breast Cancer. J Cell Biochem. 2017 Sep;118(9):2559-2570. Epub 2017 May 3. PMID: 28266048. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcb.25974

• Collington EL, Doxey AC, McConkey BJ, Glerum DM. Widespread gene fusion artifacts in helminth genome annotations. BMC Genomics. 2026 Feb 4;27(1):253. PMID: 41634541; PMCID: PMC12964723. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12864-026-12589-y

• Hajaniriana, E., Ruffell, S., McConkey, B.J., Muller, K.M. Sterile Methods and Products: Provisional Patent for Anti‑bacterial Algae Fatty Acids. PCT International Patent Application PCT/CA2015/051288, jurisdiction PCT (WO), patent type Provisional