Biochemistry

Research in Dr. Duong Bui's lab is driven by a fascination with how cells communicate through complex molecular signals—especially those carried by glycans. They combine bioanalytical chemistry and structural biology to uncover how glycan-mediated interactions shape viral infection, immune activation, and cancer progression.

Research in the Dr. Simon Chuong’s lab focuses on understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms that regulate the structure and function of single-cell C4 photosynthesis in two genera of terrestrial plants. In particular, his research group investigates factors that are involved in the movement of organelles and localization of macromolecules leading to the establishment of anatomical and biochemical polarity within two cytoplasmic regions of the cell.

Dr. Travis Craddock is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Waterloo and the Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Quantum Neurobiology. Dr. Craddock seeks to understand the basic underlying physical and molecular processes of neuroinflammation to improve diagnosis and identify novel treatment strategies for neuroinflammatory illnesses including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.

Dr. Bernard Duncker is a Professor in the Department of Biology whose lab work focuses on using the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae in cancer-related studies of the cell cycle.

Dr. Todd Holyoak's research interests lie in the areas of enzyme structure, mechanism, inhibition and allostery. He studies the role that conformational plasticity plays in these areas of enzymology and how these dynamic aspects of enzyme structure can be exploited in the regulation of enzyme function. The Holyoak lab is currently investigating these phenomena in various enzyme families with a current focus on the origins of selectivity in bacterial immunoglobulin proteases using various biophysical the tools such as well as structural approaches such as Xray crystallography and Xray scattering.

Dr. Kesen Ma's research focuses on physiology and enzymology of hyperthermophiles, a group of microorganisms growing at temperatures of boiling water. His research provides further understanding of the mechanisms of protein thermostability, unusual metabolic pathways and biocatalysis at high temperatures, and also explores potential applications of these biocatalysts in pharmaceutical and other industrial processes.

Dr. Dale Martin is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biology, program director for Medical and Biomedical Sciences, and a Graduate Studies faculty member in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Waterloo. He leads the NeurdyPhagy Lab, which investigates protein mislocalization and proteostasis dysfunction in Huntington disease (HD) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Dr. Kirsten Meyer's research group explores microbial communication and competition to advance novel antimicrobial strategies. Currently they are uncovering the biochemical mechanisms behind the packaging of natural specialized metabolites into extracellular vesicles by Streptomyces bacteria, to enable bioengineering of microbial populations. The group also investigates the antimicrobial properties of these vesicles against problematic microbes and then designs bioinspired lipid nanoparticles for the targeted delivery of cocktails of antimicrobials.

Dr. Natoya Peart is a biomedical researcher interested in understanding how RNA processing and the modulation of RNA processing influences cell fate and contributes to tissue development and disease. Her research focuses on RNA binding proteins (RBPs), a large and diverse class of proteins that bind RNA and regulate splicing, polyadenylation, export, decay and translation to control gene expression.