March 2020
Congratulations to Geoff for winning the UBC Faculty of Science Excellence in Service award. These awards "recognize staff, students, and faculty whose service contributions have had a significant positive impact in achieving UBC Science's mission." Geoff was given this award for his 12 years of service as Academic Director of the UBC Bioimaging Facility.
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Geoff receiving his award from the Dean of Science, Meigan Aronson
July 2019
Geoff and Laryssa travelled to Guelph for the 2019 Plant Canada meeting.
Geoff was Chair of the Scientific Organizing Committee and helped to put together a fantastic lineup of speakers. Geoff just completed his term as President of CSPB and will now represent Canada on the Global Plant Council as President of Plant Canada!
Congratulations to Laryssa Halat, who received the Ragai Ibrahim award for excellence in publication by a graduate student. She also won the Best Student Presentation Award for her seminar "Make or Break? Microtubule Growth and Shrinkage are Controlled by the Dynamic Turnover of Plus-end Proteins."
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Laryssa and Geoff with presenters in the Cell Biology session
Geoff Wasteneys, Bill Plaxton, Siobhan Brady, and Liam Dolan after their plenary session
May 2019
We welcome Jinyi Chen from the University of Western Australia, who is working on tubulin mutants in ryegrass. We also warmly welcome Rostislav Blume from Kiev, Ukraine who is undertaking a Mitacs work term in our lab.
Sept. 2018
Aug. 2018
Geoff and Laryssa were back on the east coast again, this time in New Hampshire for the Gordon Plant and Microbial Cytoskeleton conference. Although the presentations were top secret, we can disclose that there was plenty of groundbreaking science and fun outdoor activities that made the week a fantastic summer experience. We are excited to return in 2020 when Geoff will be a co-chair of the meeting!
Congrats to Karlson Pang, who successfully defended his Master's degree. We wish him the best for his future endeavours.
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We welcome Aida Rakei, who will be doing her PhD in the lab. Aida will be studying how environmental stress, such as drought, affects microtubule associated proteins and plant growth.
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July 2018
Geoff, Miki, and Laryssa travelled to Montreal to attend Plant Biology 2018 - a joint meeting of CSPB, ASPB, and ISPR. Geoff organized a fantastic symposium on Integrating Signals in Plant Cell Biology and Development, while Miki presented a poster about her work on the COBRA project and Laryssa delivered a talk and poster on light-dependent root development.
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Laryssa and Natalie Hoffman (Samuels lab) taking in the conference venue.
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Sam Livingston, Natalie Hoffmann, and Miki Fujita saving up energy between conference events.
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May 2018
Dr. Rui Li joined our lab as a visiting scholar from Hebei Normal
University. Her work in the lab will focus on microtubule
organization and dynamics in the integument cells in ovules of
Arabidopsis. She will be making use of fluorescent marker lines and immunolabelling to explore infertile mutant plants.
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Dec. 2017
Congratulations to Laryssa Halat, winner of the Directors' Award for best student oral presentation at the joint CSPB-CBA joint Western Regional Meeting in Winnipeg.
L to R: Geoff, Laryssa and Natalie (MSc candidate in Dr. Lacey Samuels' lab) enjoying the Christmas cheer in Winnipeg.
Nov. 2017
Geoff's Canada Research Chair was renewed for another 7 years (2018 to 2024). This is his third, and with the new CRC rules, final term as CRC Tier 1 in Plant Cell Biology.
Aug. 2017
We made the cover of Plant & Cell Physiology with our publication: Eng et al. 2017 in Plant Cell Physiology.
Jul. 2017
The whole lab was in full force at Plants from Sea to Sky, the joint meeting of the Canadian Society of Plant Biologists and the Canadian Society for Horticultural Science. Geoff was conference chair so just about everyone was roped in to helping out. Thanks to all of the presenters for representing the lab so well, including our seminar speakers Meng Li and Fatima Awwad, and all the amazing poster presenters, including Miki Fujita, Laryssa Halat, Karlson Peng, Sandra Keerthisinghe and especially to our undergrads Marcus Woodley, Jorge Holguin, and Ron Blutrich for their amazing efforts. Thanks also to Caitlin Donnelly for volunteering at the reception desk. Big congratulations to Laryssa Halat for her honourable mention in the poster competition.
Mar. 2017
Congratulations to Caitlin Donnelly for successfully defending her PhD thesis.
Dec. 2016
Congratulations to Laryssa Halat for successfully passing her PhD comprehensive exam. Also, farewell to Fatima, a visiting PhD student from Université de Sherbrooke, who was with us for 6 weeks.
Sept./Oct
2016
A huge congratulations to both Adam Mulvihill, M.Sc, for his successful exit seminar and defense this past month on the topic of microtubule domains for modifying Cellulose Synthase Complex velocity, as well as to PhD. candidate, Caitlin Donnelly, for her excellent exit seminar discussing her research on the interactions between MOR1 and microtubules! Good luck in the coming months to you both!
Aug. 2016
A warm welcome to Karlson Pang who joins the lab as an official Master's student after helping out as an undergraduate assistant for the past 6 months! Watch out for the major chops on this one!
May 2016
A major congrats to Dr. Ryan Eng on the completion of his PhD and successful defense! An even further congratulations on his Postdoc appointment at the Mac Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology. We know Ryan will be an all star there as he was here!
Nov. 2015
Big News! Yuan successfully completed her PhD and will be heading to Elliot Meyerowitz's lab at Caltech (the number one ranked school in the world!)
We also welcomed Laryssa Halat to our lab who will be doing her Master's work with us.
July/Aug.
2015
The lab attended the annual Botany Conference, this year held in Edmonton, Alberta. At the conference, Ryan won the Ragai Ibrahim Award for excellence in publication by a graduate student. Congratulations!! Later, we enjoyed a road trip through the Rockies to Lake Louise for some hiking and relaxation!
Feb. 2015
Jan. 2015
Congrats to Yuan on completing her Exit Seminar! She did a fantastic job.
Salar and Kensen joined our lab. Welcome to the lab!
Team Honeybadger won the second place in Botany curling bonspiel!
Nov. 2014
Kasia joined our lab as a postdoctoral fellow. Welcome to the lab!
Yuan's review paper is published in Current Opinion in Plant Biology!
Sept. 2014
Junsu joined our lab as a work-learn study. Welcome to the lab!
Chris' paper on bipolar cortical microtubule arrays has been selected as a featured article in Plant and Cell Physiology.
Ryan's paper on ARK1 is published in The Plant Cell.
Congratulations!