Undergraduate Summer Research Awards Results

2025 Recipients

Name Supervisor Project Title
Nicole Berthiaume Lorne Tyrrell

Drug screening using a SARS-CoV-2 GFP reporter virus against FDA-approved host cell factor inhibitors
Rachel Chew Justin Di Trani

Elucidating the connection between quorum sensing molecules and the respiratory chain of P. aeruginosa
Tyler Kidd Michael Woodside

Developing antisense DNA oligomers as potential therapeutics for dengue, West Nile, and Zika viruses
Alison Lee You Voon Katharine Magor

Cellular players in an evolutionarily early version of antibody affinity maturation through single cell RNA sequencing
Travis Murray Wael Elhenawy

Investigating the role of Escherichia coli exopolysaccharide content in Crohn’s disease development
Nnemdi Osadunkwu Jason Plemel

Investigating glycan profiles in oligodendrocytes and oligodendrocyte progenitor cells during early brain development
Undergraduate Summer Research Awards 2024
Name Supervisor Project Title
Jarrett Ardiel Ryan Noyce Targeting tumour glycosylation with oncolytic poxviruses
Devin Atkins Khaled Barakat In silico modeling of poly-(A) tail lengths in mRNA encoding tumor-specific antigens for optimized cancer vaccine design
Meghan Bunn Amit Bhavsar An inside job: investigating how Salmonella manipulates host receptors to promote infection
Natalie Lapa Wael Elhenawy Investigating the effects of altered maltose metabolism on the pro-inflammatory behavior of Crohn’s disease-associated Escherichia coli
Helena Piekut Denise Hemmings The role of SDC-1 shedding in the pathogenesis of placental malaria
Connor Riemann David Marchant Nucleolin is a scavenging receptor
Undergraduate Summer Research Awards 2023
Name Supervisor Project Title
Isabelle Bernard Michael Hawkes Characterization of benign ethnic neutropenia in children living with HIV
Alisha Duggal Edan Foley Understanding how immune signals influence the growth of intestinal tumors
Levi Legaree Karen Doucette Evaluation of outcomes of a nurse led Hepatitis B clinic
Eliana Pyon Denise Hemmings Interactions between bioactive lipids: key to the maintenance of systemic vasodilation in pregnancy
Jessica Ramos Maya Shmulevitz Identifying the course of reovirus assembly
Cole White Carlos Cervera Improving our understanding of the urine microbiome: the role of intracellular bacterial biofilms
Undergraduate Summer Research Awards 2022
Name Supervisor Project Title
Pedro Almeida Lisa Willis Sex differences in immunomodulatory glycans
Isabelle Bernard Michael Hawkes Chitinase-3-like protein 1 as a marker of systemic inflammation in children with vertically-acquired HIV
Eva Craik Michael Houghton Characterization of the cross-neutralization response using recombinant glycoproteins E2 from various HCV strains
Emma Kasinyabo Vanessa Meier-Stephenson Towards a novel therapy for chronic hepatitis B virus – targeting the chronic form of hepatitis B virus
David Tianqin Yao Lisa Willis Investigating secreted glycoproteins in breast cancer
Undergraduate Summer Research Awards 2021
Name Supervisor Project Title
Bradley Dubrule Amit Bhavsar Protein-based inhibitors of bacterial effector proteins
Mai Huynh Shokrollah Elahi Investigating the role of dexamethasone in the differential expression of ACE2/TMPRSS2
Ji Hyun (Lucy) Lee Sue Tsai The impact of insulin resistance on CD8+ T cell-mediated anti-tumor immunity
Naomi Perkins Andrew Mason Prognostic evaluation of mitochondrial biogenesis and metabolic remodeling in peripheral blood of patients with primary biliary cholangitis
Undergraduate Summer Research Awards 2020
Name Supervisor Project Title
Tyce Culp David Marchant Inhibiting RSV binding to IGF1R
Katarzyna Dzierlega Xavier Clemente-Casares The role of activin A in cancer-associated muscle wasting
Hery Lee Deborah Burshtyn Investigating the interaction of immune regulatory receptors with myelin
Vasyl Yavorskyy Andrew Mason RNA analysis of primary biliary cholangitis patients responding to obetocholic acid treatment