Host-pathogen-environment interactions

What we do:

Our research focuses on innate immune cell development and function in aquatic vertebrates, how innate immune cells and molecules coordinate a response to pathogens, and how innate immune function is modulated when faced with environmental stressors.

Currently, we are focusing on the amphibian innate immune system and how environmental stressors influence the cells and soluble molecules that comprise this system, and thus the ability of amphibians to defend against emerging pathogens, such as Frog Virus 3 (FV3). See our research page for more information.

The goal of our research is to understand how these complex host-pathogen-environment interactions are contributing to the worldwide decline of amphibians.

Our Location:

Biology 2-356

Department of Biology, University of Waterloo

200 University Ave West

Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

N2L 3G1

News

Congrats to Quinn Abram for receiving the 2018 A. Murray Fallis Prize for best student oral presentation in the Parasitism, Immunity and Environment (PIE) section of the Canadian Society of Zoologists!

This past week, Quinn attended the CSZ meeting in St. John's, Newfoundland and delivered an excellent oral presentation on his MSc work titled "Regulation of Endogenous Antigen Presentation in Rainbow Trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) Cells at Suboptimal Temperatures". 

Saturday, September 16, 2017

Welcome to Sumayyah and Leo!

The Katzenback lab welcomes Sumayyah and Leo to the lab!

Sumayyah and Leo are doing their honours thesis projects in the Katzenback lab over the Fall 2017/Winter 2018 semesters. 

Congrats to Maxwell Bui-Marinos for receiving the Murray Fallis Prize for best student oral presentation in the Parasitism, Immunity and Environment (PIE) section of the Canadian Society of Zoologists!

Maxwell gave an outstanding talk titled "Xenopus laevis skin epithelial cell lines differ in their molecular signatures and response to treatment with poly (I:C)", which he conducted as part of his MSc thesis.