The McFarLab welcomes new PhD student Rowan Brookman. Rowan joins the lab after completed his BSc at the University of Toronto (as a McFarLab undergraduate student!) and an MSc with Robin Cameron at McMaster University. Rowan will examine how cell wall signaling triggers changes in cell wall synthesis and secretion. Rowan won an Ontario Graduate Scholarship to support his studies. Welcome Rowan!
Just a week after transferring to the PhD program, PhD student, Fabrizio Chow, has been awarded the Rustom H. Dastur Graduate Scholarship in Cell and Systems Biology. Congratulations, Fabrizio!
Today, Fabrizio Chow successfully completed his PhD transfer exam. Congratulations, Fabrizio, and welcome to your PhD!
Today, McFarLab MSc student, Gaeun Shin, was awarded the CSB Elizabeth Ann Wintercorbyn Award: “One award is made annually to a graduate student in the Department of Cell & Systems Biology engaged in research work which is likely to prove beneficial to Agriculture”
Congratulations, Gaeun!
Heather’s Canada Research Chair in Plant Cell Biology has been renewed. Tier 2 Canada Research Chairs recognize “exceptional emerging researchers, acknowledged by their peers as having the potential to lead in their field.”
Many components of the plant cell wall are synthesized inside the cell at the Golgi apparatus and must be secreted before they can be integrated into the plant cell wall. Our new paper in Developmental Cell shows that the plant cell wall polysaccharide xyloglucan requires side chains for effective secretion following its biosynthesis in the Golgi apparatus, as production of side-chain-deficient xyloglucan causes intracellular aggregations of proteins and polysaccharides. These results highlight the importance of polysaccharide structure for efficient secretion to the cell wall. This work was led by recent McFarLab PhD awardee Natalie Hoffmann and demonstrates that some cell wall modifications may need to occur after polysaccharide synthesis and secretion, suggesting that cell wall-localized, polysaccharide-modifying enzymes might make exciting targets for biotechnology.
Natalie’s striking image of one of these dramatic intracellular aggregations has been selected as the cover image for this issue of Developmental Cell and our article has been selected by the editors as a “featured article”.
Free access to the article is temporarily provided via this link.
McFarLab MSc student, Eskandar Mohammad, has been awarded OGS scholarship from the Ontario Ministry of Colleges and Universities. Congratulations, Eski!
When plants encounter cell wall stress, they must presumably fortify the plant cell wall by synthesizing and secreting additional cell wall components. Our new paper in the Journal of Experimental Botany directly tests this hypothesis using live cell imaging and electron microscopy of plant samples across a range of cell wall stresses. We found that changes to cell wall integrity results in a rebalancing of the endomembrane system to promote secretion over endocytic trafficking. This work was led by recent McFarLab PhD awardee Natalie Hoffmann, with important contributions by MSc student Eskandar Mohammad, and is now featured on the cover of the JXB Special Issue on Exocytosis.
Free access is temporarily provided by the journal via this link.
Natalie Hoffmann successfully defended her PhD thesis today! Natalie was one of the first PhD students to join the McFarLab. Natalie’s thesis investigated the interplay between the endomembrane system and changes to the plant cell wall. She made several exciting discoveries about how changes to cell wall synthesis can affect the endomembrane system; watch this space for more details about her work soon, since she has multiple first-author publications under review.
Eduardo has been awarded the Valerie Anderson Award from the Department of Cell & Systems Biology.
[from the CSB webpage] “The Valerie Anderson Award To be awarded on the basis of academic merit (research and course work) to an outstanding graduate student in any subdiscipline of Plant Biology.” Congratulations Eduardo!