The Lab News Page

Updated 9:47 PM 02/01/2011

2011 We start the new year with great excitement! In December Suhaylah joined the team to work with us on her Science Fair Project. She will be working on NGF expression in the EAE tissue. She has already demonstrated a strong work ethic and has picked up western blotting very quickly. In addition, we are excited to welcome Mark to the team, he will be joining us on a partime basis in January. Also in January, Magda will be with us more often during the week, so that we can see her as well as hear about her exploits from other team members. Jan has left the team to focus on her medical school studies, she will be an outstanding physician and we all wish her the best of luck. She is welcome to visit with us at any time. Raena also made a flying visit to the lab in December, but unfortunately none of us were around that day, so we all missed her! Parvez went to a glia meeting in Alabama and had a wonderful time, he made some good connections, and picked up some great ideas. He is working on getting his second paper out very soon. Wenjun is currently in China with his family, he passed his candidacy exam in early December, and we are all very proud of him. He is also working to get his paper out early in the new year. Prakash has gone to India to visit family and friends, and will return early in the new year with his wife and children. We are looking forward to meeting them, and hope they all have a safe journey over here. That is all the news I can think of for now. Best wishes to all our readers, and hope you all have a happy and productive 2011!

After an exhausting summer with several manuscripts written and submitted, the team is settling down to a new routine.

Parvez has successfully completed his candidacy exam, and is now looking forward to the final phase of his studies, as he gets ready to gear up again after a summer of hard studying. So if you need to know anything about MeCP2, he is your go to guy.

Wenjun is preparing for his candidacy exam, which he will hopefully complete before Christmas. He is working hard on some final experiments for his manuscript, and studying.

Prakash is recovering from a bad bout of flu that kept him out of the lab for a week. Hopefully he is back to his old self again, and working hard on several different projects.

Farhana has left the lab to focus on family life, and is expecting to hear the patter of stork feet on the roof sometime in March. We are all thrilled and excited for her, and wish her all the best of health and wealth for the future!

Kelvin came back from his summer in Tronna excited about medical school. He is now an undergraduate medical student at U of M. Good luck Kelvin!

July 2010

Farhana successfully defended her thesis on July 7th, and is now officially an MSc. Congratulations Farhana! We are all so proud of you.

Baby Pillai has sent us portraits he had taken

Prakash is a daddy! His wife gave birth to a boy on Sunday, he is very excited, and we are looking forward to seeing the pictures. Blessings and congratulations on this momentous event for your family Prakash.

The CNRT has another paper accepted "Fatigue and cognition in patients with relapsing multiple sclerosis treated with interferon beta."has been accepted into The The International Journal of Neuroscience. Congratulations all around.

Parvez paper describing the expression of MeCP2 by oligodendrocytes and the regulation of myelin gene expression in the MeCP2 null mouse has been accepted for publication in Neuroreport. Woohoo!!! Congratulations Parvez!

Farhana submitted her thesis! Way to go Farhana! She will defend on the 7th July, and will pass with flying colours. She just has to get her papers written now!

May 2010

Oh My! as Sulu would say. It has been forever since I updated the news page! Well let's see.

Kelvin got a summer position with Dr. Joan Boggs at SickKids in Toronto, and an endMS Summer Studentship for the work. Good luck in Tronna Kelvin and stay in touch!

Monique Visser has been accepted into nursing school, she will be an excellent nurse and we are all thrilled for you Monique! See you at Sanofi next year.

Uma won the neuroscience award at Sanofi-Avenits Biotechnology challenge, congratulations Uma! Maybe see you in the lab again?

Jeremy left the lab in April, and it has taken a while to get used to his absence.

Matt got several medals for his integrin project at the Science Fairs this year, next year he hopes to win his section of the Sanofi-Aventis Biotechnology Challenge.

Farhana is busy writing up her thesis, and a couple of manuscripts before the end of June.

Parvez finally made it back to Winnipeg a couple of weeks ago, and is now working towards his candidacy exam.

Wenjun is also working towards his candidacy exam, and is now off for a month being a tour guide in Tronna to earn money. I wonder if he will bump into Kelvin?

Walter is back in school, trying to catch up on the studies he missed, good luck Walter.

Raena Mina is still in Japan, and looking into Graduate School.

January 2010

Jan Mustapha is back!! Woohoo! she will rejoin the lab next week, and we are looking forward to her energy and enthusiasm for the work.

Farhana's paper just came out as an epub! Now she just has to get the other paper finished and submitted.

Parvez is in India getting his permanent residency card for life in Canada.

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December 2009

Farhana's paper was accepted for publication and will come out early next year, congratuations Farhana!

Kelvin beat Parvez twice in a row on the Guitar Hero game. The boys nights out seem to center around this game and eating Jeremy's baking.

Dr. Frost was on TV again. No one in the lab saw it, but several people have mentioned it so it must be true.

Our paper 'Examining the roles of cannabinoids in pain and other therapeutic indications: a review' in Expert Opinion in Pharmacotherapy was featured on the MDLinx.com site on December 11th 2009. MDLinx is the world's most up to date index of articles that matter in the daily lives of physicians and other healthcare professionals.

October 2009

Parvez was awarded the Pfizer Canada Inc. Centennial Pharmacy Research Award, in recognition of his outstanding record over the last year of his studies.

The lab was involved in the recent World President's Organisation visit to the Faculty of Pharmacy and Faculty of Medicine. We presented our research to two groups of interested business entrepreneurs from around Manitoba.

Riffat Munir will be joining the lab on a part time basis. Riffat comes to us with loads of experience, and is keen to get involved.

Matt has broken his heel, so there is no knowing when he will be back in the lab. We wish him a speedy recovery.

August 2009

Anika and Uma joined the lab this week to start work on their projects for the 2010 Science Fair. They are both from For Richmond Collegiate.

Manuscript published, the TNFalpha paper finally came out in MS. As an ePub on Aug 10th. Yipee!

July 2009

Seth has just informed us that he was accepted into medical school, starting this Fall. Congrats Seth! And see you around the Medical School.

Matt rejoined the lab at the start of this month. He is still working on the immunoprecipitation of proteins, getting great results.

Parvez is happy now that his mice have been ordered for the breeding colony. This means that we will be able to push the experiments forward much more quickly.

May & June 2009

Well a lot of things happened in May and June, here is a summary.

Kelvin got cells! He has been working on a myelinating co-culture system for the last few months, and it has finnal paid off. He regularly gets great cultures now and his project is moving forward.
The whole lab relocated towards the end of June, we are now in the Faculty of Pharmacy, 3rd Floor with Dr. Mike Namaka's team, as you will see from the homepage, we have merged with his team.
Jan has taken a hiatus from the team. She is spending some much needed recreational time with her family, and hopefully we will be able to recruit her back to the team in the Fall.
Farhana has been getting more sassy, she now teases Parvez like a pro!
Parvez completed his Competent Communicator (CC), it only took two years.
The lab has another published article, this is the MS Journal paper about TNF-alpha expression in EAE. This paper will form the basis of several follow up papers.
That is pretty much it, although if I forgot something, someone will tell me.

April 2009

Dr. Frost scored! A chocolate Lindt bunny from a secret stash up the corridor! TG, this grant thing is going to kill her!

Matt is riding the wave of success! Not only did he win at MSSS (Gold medal Jnr grade 7/8) he also got the best in Health Science Category (grd 7/8). As well!! He won second place at the Sanofi-Aventis Biotechnology Challenge Junior Section (grd 7/8). Congratulations Matt, it just goes to show what you can do when you put your mind to it!

It has been a while! The lab has been extremely active, with many things going on that have not been reported through March and April, so I will endeavour to catch you up!

Matt has been learning from Farhana, and not telling us when he wins awards! I have it on good authority (his mum) that he won a gold medal in his AP class for his science fair project. In addition, he went to the Winnipeg Schools Divisional Science Fair and promptly won another gold medal, AND he won Best in Category for Biology grade 7/8. THEN he got the platinum (i.e. came second overall) for the Winnipeg School Divisional grade 7/8 Science Fair. He is off to MSSS next , and we wish him the best of luck! He will of course also be at the Sanofi-Aventis Fair on April 27th.

Hakim is back in the lab, and finding some strange things in the spinal cords of the IGFBP3 overexpressing mouse!

Farhana blew everyone away with her fantastic presentation at the American Society for Neurochemistry meeting in Charleston, South Carolina. She was SO good that several people in the audience commented on how good she was, this was people other than Dr.s F&N!

Parvez attracted the attention of several groups with his poster, and we have established a connection with a group in West Virginia who are also working on transcriptional regulation of oligodendrocytes.

Parvez was elected to the Graduate Student Council and so will be working hard at making sure that graduate students are treated fairly.

Jeremy got GAPDH bands on his western blot, something we have been waiting for for several weeks now.

February 2009

The Frost/Namaka Neuroscience Research Team made the TV this month. Well ok, so we made 6 tv stations. It was a fun and exciting time, as the team tried to work around the camera crews, while Dr.s Namaka and Frost tried to make it look like they always pipetted water.

January 2009

Matt Levesque has joined the lab this week. He is working on his Science Fair project, studying the expression of integrins on oligodendrocyte progenitors. Welcome to the group Matt!

Farhana!!!! has been invited to make a platform presentation at the upcoming Neurochemistry meeting in Charleston, South Carolina! Wow! What an honour! Well done Farhana, you will do us proud!

Jeremy Paterson will join the lab on January 5th 2009. Welcome to the lab Jeremy, hope you are ready to work hard, oh and don't believe everything the others tell you!

Dr. Frost has been doing some genealogy over the holiday, and found out that she is the fourth cousin, six times removed of Charles Darwin!. Dr. Frost is the ninth great granddaughter of Aaron Wedgwood and Margaret Daniel, the third great grandparents of Charles Robert Darwin. No wonder she is a genius! It runs in the family.

December 2008

Happy Holiday Season! the lab will be closed for the holiday season. Look out for news up dates in January 2009.

Zhicheng MSc Zhicheng successfully defended her thesis today. She did a fantastic job of presenting her data, and closed with some wonderful answers to the examiners questions. We celebrated with chocolate cheesecake (what more could you ask?), and Zhicheng just has a few changes to make to her thesis for final submission. Well done Zhicheng, we are all proud of you!. Check the pics page for photographic memories.

November 2008

Green cells! We finally got some GFP transfected cells that didn't die the next day! Woohoo! Pics coming soon. This means that we can finally get to look at protein translocation in the cells.

Parvez is off at Neuroscience, enjoying the sunny weather down in Washington DC. We are looking forward to catching up on all the latest information when he gets back.

Farhana and Parvez are proud recipients of FGS top up funding! Congrats to you both for that prestigious award.

Walter Kim has joined the lab as a volunteer, he is an indergraduate, and will be on the group photo page soon. Welcome Walter.

October 2008

Zhicheng submitted!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Today was a red letter day for the lab. Our first graduate student has finished her writing and has submitted her thesis to her examining committee. She will defend in a month or so, and then be on her way out into the world. Congrats Zhicheng!!

Farhana has an excuse for her forgetfulness. It seems that she is getting married! On her trip back home in December. Congratulations Farhana, we all wish you the very best for your future!

Farhana has done it again! Today I discovered that Harpradeep has successfully defended her thesis (Congratulations Harpradeep!). Farhana knew about it and FORGOT to tell the rest of us so we all missed it! Good work Farhana.

MICH Child Health Research Day October 2 saw us all attending the MICH CHRD, after listening to some very interesting seminars, and numerous interactions at the poster session. Although Janet complained that she was the only technologist presenting a poster.

August and September 2008

What happened to the summer??? All of a sudden it is October! So a quick catch up on the events that occurred this summer. Alex and Hakim finished their summer jobs, and went back out into the sun to enjoy the vacation. Jan started Medical School. Parvez and Farhana both got MHRC studentships, which was great. Kelvin started working as a Student Research Assistant with Dr. Namaka, but unfortunately we can't get rid of him from the lab, so he is still hanging around. Zhicheng has nearly finished writing her thesis. Parvez managed to get a visitors visa to travel to the US, so he will be attending the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Washington DC in November.

July 2008

Grandprix fun The lab spent the afternoon at the Grandprix amusements park and had loads of fun. Farhana made it out of the pit lane, and promptly crashed into the helmet stand. Parvez had to eat dust on the forumla one karts, and Alex was callously driven off the track by the Queen of Speed, who lapped Kim 3 times despite her protestations. Zhicheng never did get the hang of the bumper boats, and was happy to be bumped around the pool. Lots of fun was had by all! We might even have to go back for a return trip next summer! Pics on the pic page.

TV Stars in the lab We were recently interviewed by CKY TV reporter Gord Leclerc, for his Small Wonders segment. Alex and Hakim were asked about their contribution to the research and Dr. Mike "Slowpoke" Namaka and Dr. Emma "Speedqueen" Frost talked about their research. Watch us on July 31st on the noon and 6 o'clock shows!

Lab Summer Outing This year we are off to the Grand Prix Amusements Facility for the afternoon. Apart from anything else we are looking forward to seeing if Farhana will make it out of the pit lane! Kim and Wenjun will be joining us, although Dr. Namaka has whimped out on the challenge, claiming that he will be "up north" that week. Uhuh. Ok. Whatevs. Pics will be posted.

What happened to June? It looks like we had no news in June! The kids in the lab must be slacking off! That or things are just too busy around here.

May 2008

CAN-Montreal We just got back from the Canadian Association for Neuroscience meeting in Montreal. Parvez had a great time at the Biodome, Jan spent most of the time in bed sick, Zhicheng didn't stop eating (see the photo page for proof) and Farhana's poster attracted a lot of interest. But all in all, it was a very nice hotel.

MICH Summer Students Kelvin joined the team at the beginning of the Month, but we had to wait for Cory to get back from the YUK before we could welcome him formally. Both have settled in and started to get experiments done, which is great, although Kelvin is proving to be a bit of a nag.

Paper accepted! Our ERK signaling paper has been accepted by the Journal of Neurochemical Research! Happy days.

April 2008

Monique won a prize for her poster! At the Manitoba Schools Science Symposium held on April 27th Monique won the "Best Biological Individual - Senior Sponsored by Monsanto Canada Inc." for her poster The Effects of Fibroblast Growth Factor on Astrocytes. Congratulations Monique!

Parvez scores a win! Parvez got an A+ on his Readings in Anatomy course. Let's hope that Hamza gets his daddy's brains.

Bye bye Raena. Raena got an A on her project, was accepted into the JET program, and is off to Skratchieoon on Saturday until she leaves for Japan in August. We had a nice lunch at Pyramid Felafel (pics on the pics page) to say au revoir.

Dr. Jan - Say it ain't so! Yup, Jan's news is that she is going to start medical school in the Fall. Hopefully she won't be leaving the lab, but that is up to the goddesses of the Universe.

Farhana does it again! Another A, you would think she would get bored of being so good!

Raena has finished her project. She defended her thesis really well at UofW, and is now in the final stages of making corrections. We will miss her.

Guestbook opens Finally after much nagging from Jan, I have put a guest book on the website. You can link to it from the button on the left in th menu bar. Please be respectful with your comments.

Janet expecting twins! Yes she has finally allowed me to post her exciting news (she had to wait until she had told Ish), Jan is expecting twins. They are due in the Fall. Congratulations all around!

Farhana has done it again! This time she has been awarded a full studentship from the UMFGS. Congratulations Farhana! Double congrats really, because she remembered to tell me this time.

Mohammed Hamza weighed in at 6lbs 2 oz, has a healthy yell and a full head of black hair. Fortunately he looks like his mother. We all had a cuddle (except Raena), and wish the new family every best wish as they settle in to life together.

March 2008

It's a Boy! Congratulations Khushbu and Parvez, the first lab baby made his appearance today (31st). Big smiles all around

Cory joins the lab. Cory has joined the lab, and is working on making more plasmid for Monique to transfect into her cells. At some point, Cory will try something a little more challenging, but for now he is taking baby steps. Welcome Cory!

February 2008

Jan Jan has some exciting news, so exciting I am too excited to write it down!

January 2008

Monique gets green cells! Monique is the first person in the lab to successfully transfect a mixed glial culture to get GFP expressing oligodendrocyte progenitors, and astrocytes! She is attempting a second transfection, which will hopefully be just as successful (if not more so) and we will have bucket loads of cells to play with next week. Congrats Monique!

December 2007

The Frost Empire is expanding. We have finally edged our way onto the other side of the lab, and have expanded to take over 6 benches. This means that each researcher can have one bench each, with one bench for histology and one bench for molyB.

Apparently Farhana won an award and neglected to tell me, so I am late in announcing this news. If you already knew bah humbug, if you didn't, great isn't it?!