The paper Infants’ First Solid Foods: Impact on Gut Microbiota Development in Two Intercontinental Cohorts has been successfully published to the journal Nutrients. Click here to read!
Congrats to all the authors involved in the process.
One more new face can be found in the Stearns Lab: Colton Mak, who will be completing his project course with us, investigating the phylogenetic placements of P. sordelli isolates and carbohydrate-use genes that enable them to co-exist with fiber fermenters in the gut.
Recent Lab Success – Colin received the 1st place in the oral presentations for the biochemistry and biomedical sciences research symposium at the masters (MSc) level, and Moiz was recently awarded both the Bachelor of Health Science (BHSc) Summer Research Scholarship and the Mitacs Research Grant to continue his work over the summer!! Additionally, Colin has successfully transferred from the MSc program to the PhD program – congratulations!
Lastly, Bhavya, Colin, Dr. Stearns and Chiara presented posters at the annual CSM (Canadian Society of Microbiologists) conference.
After a short hiatus, we are back on the lab website! Since our last post, a lot has happened. Many of our fourth year project and thesis students have graduated and left the lab, after graduating in 2020. We are lucky to still have Sarisha Philip on board as a research assistant!
New students include Salman Reza, a new PhD candidate, Alan Minkovich, a co-op student working in the lab and Moiz Lakhani, who is primarily working on the bioinformatics side. For more information, be sure to check out the research group page: https://stearnslab.ca/research-group/.
Former undergraduate student Aelita Huang has been accepted to the University of Waterloo for a MSc in statistics – maybe she discovered her love for statistical analysis while completing her project on network analysis here in the Stearns lab;).
The student enthusiasm in the Stearnslab is hard to contain. We have a few new faces for the summer and more arriving in the fall.
Aman started in the lab one year ago as an independent study student in the Biochemistry program. Aman has been working hard to characterizing the bacterial cross-feeding relationships within the infant gut. We’re happy to have him in the lab this summer thanks to the Summer Studentship ahead of his 4th year thesis with us in the fall.
Our very own Luna el Dakiky was recognized in May for both Excellence in Graduate Studies and Outstanding Achievement at the FHS Plenary. Luna is currently completing her thesis on the microbiome in the infant gut during the transition to solid food. Congratulations Luna!
