The Lab in 2005

Dr. Ken Ishida ishidak{at}kenroku.kanazawa-u.ac.jp Post-Doctoral Fellow. Ken has his own lab at Kanazawa University in Japan. website

Dr. Naomi Fast nfast{at}interchange.ubc.ca Post-Doctoral Fellow. Naomi has her own lab in the Botany Department here at UBC.

Dr. Brian Leander bleander{at}interchange.ubc.ca Post-Doctoral Fellow. Brian has his own lab in the Botany Department here at UBC. website

Dr. John Archibald jmarchib{at}dal.ca Post-Doctoral Fellow. John has his own lab at Dalhousie University in Halifax, NS. website

Dr. James Todd Harper jtharper{at}interchange.ubc.ca Post-Doctoral Fellow. Todd is on the faculty at Douglas College.

Dr. Ross Waller rossfw{at}unimelb.edu.au Post-Doctoral Fellow. Ross has his own lab at the University of Melbourne, Australia. website

Dr. Bryony Williams bryw{at}mail.botany.ubc.ca Post-Doctoral Fellow. Bryony has her own lab at the University of Exeter.

Dr. Nicola Patron patron{at}mail.botany.ubc.ca Post-Doctoral Fellow.

Steve Perlman stevep{at}uvic.ca Post-Doctoral Fellow. Steve has his own lab at the University of Victoria, BC. website

Suvendrini Lena suve{at}interchange.ubc.ca M.D. - Ph.D. Candidate. Suvendrini is doing an MD at the University of Toronto.

Audrey de Koning apdk{at}interchange.ubc.ca Ph.D. Candidate. Research Interests: Functions of cryptic plastids and Lateral Gene Transfer in Protists. Audrey defended in July 2006 and became a new mom in November. She and her husband are planning to bravely raise their offspring in their cottage "off the grid".

Matthew Rogers matthewrogers62{at}hotmail.com Ph.D. Candidate. Matt defended his thesis in November 2006 and is now doing a Postdoc in the UK.

Michelle McEwan em.elle.em{at}gmail.com M.Sc. Candidate. Michelle defended her thesis in April 2006 and is now living in southern Alberta.

Aaron Heiss ar654569{at}dal.ca M.Sc. Candidate. Aaron defended in July 2006 and has started a Ph.D. in Halifax as of September of 2006. He is currently conducting research with Alastair Simpson.

Qing Qian M.Sc. Candidate.

Anya Gangaeva evgenya7{at}interchange.ubc.ca

Lena Burri lena.burri{at}gmail.com Post-Doctoral Fellow. Generally, I am interested in protein targeting, the signals involved and the proteases responsible for processing of presequences. In particular, I am working with microsporidia, a eukaryotic intracellular parasite that has undergone several reductions at both molecular and cellular levels leading to a cryptic mitochondria-derived organelle, called mitosome. In order to better understand the mitosomaI targeting system I compare it with the mitochondrial protein import machinery of yeast.

Kevin J. Carpenter kjcarpe{at}interchange.ubc.ca Post-Doctoral Fellow. I am interested in the phylogenetic significance and functional roles of protist ultrastructural and surface morphological characters. I use light (confocal, widefield) and electron (transmission, scanning) microscopy to investigate these characters in a wide variety of protist lineages. Much of my work is on poorly studied, but morphologically spectacular anaerobic flagellates - the parabasalids and oxymonads, as well as a group of marine dinoflagellates with diatom tertiary endosymbionts.

Claudio Slamovits claudio{at}interchange.ubc.ca Post-Doctoral Fellow. My current research interests are generally related with molecular biology and evolution of eukaryotes and their genomes. In particular, I am interested in studying how genomes and their physiology evolve as a result of radical changes in lifestyle such as the acquisition of parasitic and symbiotic relationships.

Rowena Stern rowenas{at}interchange.ubc.ca Post-Doctoral Fellow I am interested in biodiversity of protists and have been involved in a large scale DNA barcoding effort on four groups of microalgae together with Erick James focusing on diverse and often harmful algae group, Dinoflagellates. Most recently I have barcoding a species of termite symbiont protists to look at how species diversity is affected in a virtually closed environment.

Gillian Gile ggile{at}interchange.ubc.ca Ph.D. Candidate. My work in the Keeling lab has mainly focused on plastid targeting in chlorarachniophytes. Chlorarachniophyte plastids are descended from green algae and retain a functional, though highly reduced, eukaryotic nucleus (called a nucleomorph). This complicates plastid targeting, because proteins encoded in the nucleus must be targeted to both the plastid and the periplastid compartment that houses the nucleomorph, and a handful of nucleomorph-encoded proteins are targeted to the plastid. I have identified the first periplastid-targeted proteins in chlorarachniophytes. One of these proteins, EFL, is a translation elongation factor with a history of lateral gene transfers, and I am also studying its complex distribution across eukaryotes and assessing functional divergence between EFL and its better-known homolog, EF-1alpha.

Nicolas Corradi ncorradi{at}interchange.ubc.ca Post-Doctoral Fellow. In general, I am interested in the molecular evolution of fungal genomes, including the divergence of their gene families, the evolution of their gene order and content. In addition, I am studying the molecular mechanisms that control mRNA transcription in highly compacted genomes.

Ales Horak horak{at}interchange.ubc.ca

Lex Howe athowe{at}interchange.ubc.ca Post-Doctoral Fellow