On Jul 31, 2019, Adam Khan successfully defended his MSc on heterogeneity in two-component signaling responses in clinical isolates of IBD-associated E. coli. Congratulations Adam!

Youn Hee, Adam and Joe all recently attended the Canadian Society for Microbiologists meeting in Sherbrooke, Quebec. In addition to excellent poutine, craft beer, and some thrilling basketball games, some truly excellent science was also shared by all. Adam received a travel award from the CSM Executive to present his work and Youn Hee gave an update of her work on omptin regulation in Escherichia coli.

In March 2019, Abuzar, Disha, Jasika, Raymond and Anna defended their thesis work in my lab. I’m very pleased with the work they did and excited to see what they do next!

We are excited to see this in print! This work describes the broad phenotypic conservation of E. coli found in IBD patients and argues that a focus on genetic characterization may miss numerous phenotypes that are not readily predicted or predictable. We hope that some of the ideas here gain traction and provoke new ways of thinking about how intestinal microbes might drive changes in the host that are associated with IBD.

https://academic.oup.com/ibdjournal/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/ibd/izy312/5128780?redirectedFrom=fulltext

Michael recently defended his MSc work entitled, “Interactions between adherent-invasive Escherichia coli and host macrophages: a virulence phenotype”. Michael is now working as a clinical data management specialist and we wish him all the best in his future career.

McPhee lab at CSM2018

The Canadian Society of Microbiologists AGM was held from June 20-23 at the University of Manitoba. Joe McPhee presented a talk highlighting recent work by Youn Hee Cho and Riasad Fadle Aziz on the role of the PhoPQ system in the regulation of omptin activity, while Michael Renouf presented his work describing how AIEC can alter macrophage behaviour while Youn Hee Cho presented her work on phenotypic diversity in IBD-associated E. coli.

McPhee lab at Ryerson CAB Undergraduate Research Symposium

The Department of Chemistry and Biology hosted an undergraduate research symposium where McPhee lab undergraduate students Rebecca Cabral Diaz, Riasad Fadle Aziz, Ashuka Kayastha, Najih Ismail and Shion Song presented their 4th year thesis work. Thanks to Michael Renouf for his excellent work chairing the session. Congratulations to everyone!

The McPhee lab is pleased to announce that Youn Hee Cho has received a Canada Graduate Scholarship. These are very competitive awards and it is a testament to Youn Hee’s hard work and dedication to her graduate studies. Congratulations Youn Hee!

From June 20-23, members of the McPhee lab attended the Canadian Society of Microbiologists Annual General Meeting in Waterloo, Ontario. Youn Hee presented a talk on her project related to host-defense peptide resistance in inflammatory bowel disease-associated Escherichia coli while Michael and Mario gave poster updates on their work as well. The conference was a lot of fun and the group even managed to sneak some work in around the edges.

This summer, the McPhee lab is happy to welcome two new undergraduate researchers to the lab. Riasad Aziz is the recipient of a Ryerson Undergraduate Research Opportunities award while Abuzar Abedin is the recipient of NSERC Undergraduate Summer Research Award. These awards will support Riasad and Abuzar as they get their projects up and running. Riasad will be working on projects related to PhoP-mediated regulation of polymyxin B and host-defense peptide resistance while Abuzar will examine regulatory circuits that result in altered E. coli morphology to determine whether these alterations change resistance to host-defense peptides.