Schedule
5:30-6:15pm Ricardo Henriques (UCL) + Q&A
6:15-7:00pm Brenda Andrews (Univ. of Toronto) + Q&A
7:00pm onnwards Dinner buffet + drinks reception
There will also be a showcase of projects created through the Biomaker Winter Challenge - a computing challenge at the intersection of biology, engineering and computer science. (https://www.biomaker.org/)
Dr Ricardo Henriques
Dr Ricardo Henriques established his lab at the MRC Laboratory for Molecular Cell Biology, UCL to undertake research combining cell biology, optical physics and biochemistry. His group focuses on biological problems that cannot be addressed with current imaging technology, and thus aims to develop analytical, optical and biochemical approaches toaddress these questions.
In cell biology they aim to understand how viruses enter cells by probing and remodelling membranes, and what are the structural changes viruses undergo during cell-entry, uncoating and morphogenesis. To do so, we are developing new classes of fluorescent probes, high-speed cell friendly Super-Resolution (SR) methods and computational modelling approaches that, although designed to answer questions of interest in the lab, will have broad applications in cell biology research.
Ricardo and his lab have developed robust fluidics approaches to automate complex sequences of treatment, labelling and imaging of live and fixed cells. Their open-source NanoJ-Fluidics system is based on low-cost LEGO hardware controlled by ImageJ-based software and can be directly adapted to any microscope, providing easy-to-implement high-content, multimodal imaging with high reproducibility.
Dr. Brenda Andrews
Dr. Brenda Andrews is the Charles H Best Chair of Medical Research, Director of the Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research, and University Professor in Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto.
She obtained her BSc and PhD from the University of Toronto, then studied at the University of California, San Francisco before returning to Toronto to start her own lab in the Department of Medical Genetics (now Molecular Genetics). She became Chair of the Department in 1999, a position she held for 5 years before assuming her position as inaugural Director of the Donnelly Centre, an interdisciplinary research facility designed to promote collaborative research at the forefront of biomedicine.
Dr. Andrews was recently named a Companion of the Order of Canada for her “globally significant research in systems biology and for developing and nurturing prominent scientific communities in molecular genetics”. Dr. Andrews is also an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Academy of Microbiology. She was inaugural Director of the Genetic Networks program of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, and remains a Senior Fellow.