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%

Staff

Mandy Lam, PhD

Senior Research Associate, Lab Manager

Education: University of Toronto (BSc, PhD)

Hometown: Mississauga, ON

Other activities: Making boats move backwards

  • 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-Lynch, 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%

Julianne Peralta, MSc

Technician

Education: McMaster University (BSc), University of Toronto (MSc)

Hometown: Niagara Falls, ON

Other activities: Knitting, movies, and other grandma hobbies

  • Generating constructs for high throughput screens 65% 65%
  • Tracking down invoices 35% 35%
  • Being sad when my overnights don’t grow 10% 10%

Myra Paz Masinas, BSc

Data Analyst

Education: University of the Philippines (BSc)

Hometown: Metro Manila, Philippines

Other activities: Pilates, reading, spending time with my fluffy dog

  • Processing microscopy data and setting up image viewers 72% 72%
  • Learning how to analyze OPS data one script at a time 26% 26%
  • Hoping the servers don’t crash 12% 12%

Postdoctoral Fellows

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%

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 63% 63%
  • Minipreps 27% 27%
  • Learning about microscopy 20% 20%

Graduate Students

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%

McKenna Kelly, BSc

PhD 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 68% 68%
  • Thinking about mitochondrial quality control 26% 26%
  • Perfecting my flow cytometry skills 16% 16%

Kaiden Thompson, BSc

PhD 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%

Kevin Yuan, BSc

PhD Student

Education: University of Toronto (BSc)

Hometown: Thornhill, ON

Other activities: Reading, watching esports, discovering new music

  • Killing cancers with pathogenic effectors 73% 73%
  • Discovering pathogenic effectors that prevent cell death 28% 28%
  • Trying to find a synonym for ‘pathogenic effectors’ 9% 9%

Undergraduate Students

Banita Jeyakumar

Undergraduate Student

Education: McMaster University

Hometown: Markham, ON

Other activities: Amateur film critic, dancing

  • Attempting to rewire cellular behaviour via molecular matchmaking 65% 65%
  • Developing scientific intuition 30% 30%
  • Calling every faint band on a gel “probably something important” 15% 15%