Mikko Taipale, PhD

The Glorious Leader, capo di tutti capi

Education: University of Oulu (MSc), EMBL Heidelberg (PhD), Whitehead Institute (Postdoc)

Hometown: Helsinki, Finland

Other activities: Working from home

  • Doing things that PIs do (not experiments) 97% 97%
  • Doing experiments (ideally) 12% 12%
  • Doing experiments (actually) 1% 1%

Mandy Lam, PhD

Senior Research Associate, Lab Manager

Education: University of Toronto (BSc, PhD)

Hometown: Mississauga, ON

Other activities: Managereering the next feline social media star

  • Ensuring the lab doesn’t spontaneously implode 75% 75%
  • Other lab managering activities 25% 25%
  • Trying to NOT kill Mikko’s plants 10% 10%

Tanisha Teelucksingh, MSc

Technician

Education: University of Guelph (MSc)

Hometown: Brampton, ON

Other activities: Aerial fitness, crocheting and taking too many photos of my cats.

  • High throughput profiling of pathogenic disease variants 55% 55%
  • Brushing up on my microscopy skills 40% 40%
  • Collecting all the pink coloured items in the lab 15% 15%

Hanna Cho, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow

Education: POSTECH (MSc), Korea University (PhD)

Hometown: Seoul, Korea

Other activities: Walking

  • Inducing proximity to oncogenic proteins 64% 64%
  • Finding novel small molecules 23% 23%
  • Learning French…but only as high as her elevator goes 23% 23%

Guillaume Dugied, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow

Education: Université Paris Cité (MSc, PhD)

Hometown: Paris, France

Other activities: Baking, cooking, baseball

  • Taking pictures of things pathogenic effectors do to cells 65% 65%
  • Reading about pathogenic effectors 25% 25%
  • Thinking about new assays for pathogenic effectors 20% 20%

He Leng, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow

Education: Heilongjiang University (BSc, MSc), Peking University (PhD)

Hometown: Harbin, China

Other activities: Ping-pong and badminton

  • Characterizing TFs/COFs interactions 63% 63%
  • Designing superactivators in human cells 27% 27%
  • Beating Dmitri at squash with only a ping-pong paddle 20% 20%

Evan Kerek, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow

Education: University of Calgary (BSc, MSc), University of Alberta (PhD)

Hometown: Calgary, AB

Other activities: Video Games, Netflix

  • Characterizing mislocalized protein variants 61% 61%
  • Minipreps 20% 20%
  • Learning about microscopy 29% 29%

Jack Li, BSc

PhD student

Education: University of Toronto (BSc)

Hometown: Beijing, China

Other activities: Playing first person shooter games

  • Taming dCas13 71% 71%
  • Drinking up all the luciferase reagents 25% 25%
  • Climbing the two flights of stairs between Blencowe and Taipale labs 14% 14%

Michael Ostrovski, BSc

PhD Student

Education: University of Tel Aviv (BSc), University of Toronto (BSc)

Hometown: Toronto, ON

Other activities: Bouldering, camping, moving stuff at the gym

  • Taming dCas12 68% 68%
  • Thinking about naked mole rats 26% 26%
  • Splitting his time between the Moffat and Taipale labs 16% 16%

Chloe Reno, BSc

MSc student

Education: York University (BSc)

Hometown: Seattle, Washington

Other activities: Long walks

  • More phenotyping of rare diseases (ideally) 67% 67%
  • Cloning her days away 14% 14%
  • Battling robots 29% 29%

Kaiden Thompson, BSc

MSc student

Education: University of Toronto (BSc)

Hometown: Indian Head, SK

Other activities: Cooking, trying to keep houseplants alive

  • Identifying oncogene modulators by induced proximity 67% 67%
  • Wrangling endogenous proteins around the cell 29% 29%
  • Pleading with stubborn cloning reactions 14% 14%

McKenna Kelly, BSc

MSc student

Education: The College of Charleston (BSc)

Hometown: Guelph, ON

Other activities: Lifting heavy things at the gym, playing softball

  • Finding ways to eliminate mitochondria via induced proximity 72% 72%
  • Thinking about mitochondrial quality control 24% 24%
  • Perfecting my flow cytometry skills 14% 14%

Jack Stoodley

Undergraduate student

Education: University of Toronto (BSc in Progress)

Hometown: Vancouver, BC

Other activities: Fishing & BJJ

  • Mini preps and digests 73% 73%
  • Waiting for digests 24% 24%
  • Struggling with mental math 13% 13%

Wanqi Chu

Undergraduate student

Education: University of Toronto (BSc in Progress)

Hometown: Beijing, China

Other activities: Drawing, dancing, & playing the piano

  • Working on plasmids extraction and WB 82% 82%
  • Struggling from anxious paper reading 12% 12%
  • Studying mathematics and statistics tricks 16% 16%