Contacts

Expertise:

• Complex biologics (products derived from living organisms or the organisms themselves)
• Baculovirus expression systems of complex biologics, including glycosylation and myritoylation post-translational modifications
• Cell culture monitoring, modeling and simulation – from metabolomics to on-line spectroscopy
• Monoclonal antibody production and modification, including enhancing monodispersity of the product
   

Expertise:

• Bioinformatics, computational biology and molecular genetics
• Predicting novel protein families and functions by combining sequence analysis with structural bioinformatics
• Predicting evolutionary adaptations in genes and genome by combining sequence analysis, phylogenetics and structural modeling
• Computational approaches to functionally annotate metagenomes and detect biologically relevant differences between them
   

Expertise:

• DNA replication, cell cycle checkpoints, molecular genetics
• Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a model organism for cancer-related studies of the cell cycle
• Initiation of DNA replication including identifying and characterizing protein factors
• Cancer diagnostic markers for cell proliferation
   

Expertise:

• Protein structure and function
• Understanding of enzyme catalytic mechanisms including in methionine biochemistry and glyoxalase metalloenzymes
• Bio-nanotechnology including nanosized proteins as drug carriers and molecular foundations for nanodevices
• Bacteriophages to produce building blocks used in advanced biomaterials
• Interactions between biomolecules and nanomaterials
   

Expertise:

• Microbial diversity and function, especially at contaminated sites (primarily municipal landfills)
• Microbiome analysis (DNA, RNA and protein in metagenomics, metatranscriptomics and metaproteomics) from environmental samples
• Bioremediation tool development from exploration of microbial community interactions

Publications:

Laura Hug's Publication list

Expertise:

• Applications of systems and control theory to systems biology
• Design and construction of gene regulatory networks from forward-engineering of biological systems (synthetic biology)
• Modelling intracellular networks and heterogeneous cellular communities
   

Expertise:

• Hyperthermophilic microorganisms growing at 80°C and above
• Microbial physiology and enzymology
• Alcohol and H₂ fermentation using novel enzymes that work at high temperatures
• Biocatalysis using thermostable enzymes for the production of chiral compounds
• High temperature biochemistry and protein engineering
   

Expertise:

• Proteomics analysis, that is, identifying and quantifying the proteins active within a biological system
• Computational and bioinformatics approaches for investigating protein function
• Quantification of cell cycle proteins in yeast, recombinant protein production in mammalian cell lines, and identification of proteins mediating plant-bacterial interactions
• Structural pattern recognition algorithms to predict protein functions such as carbohydrate binding and antifreeze activity
• Evolution of protein function within homologous protein groups
   

Expertise:

• World expert on Bangiales – types of red algae
• Red algae of economic importance - they contain compounds (agar, carrageenan, etc.) that are used extensively as thickeners in products such as yogurt, ice cream and toothpaste
• Red algae as food sources - genera such as Porphyra (aka. Nori, laverbread) and Palmaria (a.k.a. Dulse) are important food sources and are global billion-dollar aquaculture industries
• Red algae as a critical group in the evolution of photosynthetic life on earth through secondary endosymbiosis of chloroplasts
• Red algae as a nuisance - (e.g. Cladophora and Chara in Laurentian Great Lakes), invasive species (e.g. Bangia atropupurea in the Great Lakes)
• Cyanobacteria that release toxins and taste and odour compounds in drinking water (Lake Ontario)
   

Expertise:

• Microbial diversity - developing and applying molecular and computational methods to explore complex microbial communities spanning aquatic, terrestrial, and host-associated habitats
• Linking function and phylogeny - by exploring active microorganisms involved in transforming carbon and energy, to better understand who is doing what in the environment
• Nitrogen cycle - using a combination of molecular and cultivation approaches to investigate the microbial community members associated with ammonia oxidation and denitrification

Publications:

Josh Neufeld's Publication List

Expertise:

• Determining ‘growth laws’ of bacteria through an understanding of genetic networks using mathematical physics and experimental microbiology

Expertise:

• Bio-based production of glycolic acid, allowing for safer and more environmentally conscious cosmetics
• Microbial metabolism, including exploration of new methods to improve yields in synthetic biology
• Metabolic flux, looking especially at proteins, regulators, and pathways involved in microbial metabolism

Expertise:

• Exploring abilities of various bacteria to form resistance to widely used antibiotics, including colistin, polymyxin, and metronidazole
• Examining bacterial antibiotic resistance through a public health lens
• Microbial proteins that play a role in antibiotic resistance and microbial pathogenesis, especially considering Clostridioides difficile and Klebsiella sp.
• Relationships between various common antibiotics, concerning bacterial cross-resistance
• Sequencing of bacterial genomes to further understand antibiotic resistance across bacterial species