MONAGHAN LAB

9/8/2020

Welcome to the lab, Mackenzie and Brandon!

This week we welcome 4th-year students Mackenzie and Brandon to the lab as they start their Honours Thesis projects. Mackenzie will study the molecular evolution of a family of Raf-like kinases and Brandon will study a sub-family of E3 ubiquitin ligases. We are very interested in how these important signalling enzyme families have evolved in plants. Both projects will contribute to ongoing projects in meaningful ways and learn how to use a variety of plant genomics databases.

Welcome to the (virtual) lab!

9/3/2020

Carmen successfully defends her MSc thesis!

Congratulations to Carmen Gonzalez-Ferrer who successfully defended her MSc thesis last week. Carmen's thesis, "Initial characterization of a subgroup of Arabidopsis group VIII receptor-like kinases in immune and flowering time pathways" received excellent feedback from her examining committee and she expertly defended her work. You can read more about her work here.

To celebrate, we met as a group (for the first time since March!) at a local craft brewery. It was great to see everyone and celebrate Carmen's achievement.

Well done!

6/12/2020

Welcome to the lab, Thakshila and Nick!

Even though they are not allowed in the lab due to COVID-19 restrictions, I am very happy to welcome Thakshila Dharmasana and Nick Smith to our group. Thakshila is a MSc student and Nick has been awarded an NSERC Undergraduate Summer Research Award. Over the next few months, they will work together with former student Natasha Kelkar on a data-mining and molecular evolution project.

Welcome!

6/8/2020

Katy is a 2020 ASPB Plantae Fellow!

MSc student Katherine Dunning has been selected as one of this year's American Society for Plant Biology Plantae Fellows. Below are some of the excellent paper summaries she has published in the Plant Science Research Weekly blog. Her summaries are great - check them out!

Plant synthetic promoters to fine tune expression of engineered genes (bioRxiv)

Repurposed genes and the evolution of plant carnivory (Curr. Biol.)

Fungal antagonism of Arabidopsis oomycete infection requires a previously uncharacterized secreted hydrolase (bioRxiv)

Master regulator of gene expression in plant defense upregulates its own transcription (Plant Physiol.)

Interplay between phosphorylation and ubiquitination is key for regulating reactive oxygen species during plant immunity (Nature Comms)

Using CRISPR/Cas9 editing to inactivate an endogenous virus impacting bananas (Commun. Biol.)

2/20/2020

Another successful Winter Research Retreat at QUBS

We have an annual tradition in our lab to head up to the Queen's University Biological Station over Reading Week for a two-day Research Retreat. We discuss all ongoing projects in detail and use our hive-mind to map out research plans for the upcoming year.

We also enjoyed sunny morning coffee on Lake Opinicon, playing Codenames by the wood-burning stove, and of course, sharing meals and good conversation.

2/11/2020

A winter visit to the University of Ottawa

I had the pleasure of visiting the Department of Biology at the University of Ottawa this week, where I was graciously hosted by my good friend and colleague Allyson MacLean. I toured the shiny new labs of Gendron Hall and CAREG, and of course the rooftop glasshouse where I learned about the legumes that Allyson's group studies. I presented our ongoing work in their Departmental Seminar series and shared a wonderful meal with Ottawa's newest plant faculty: Allyson MacLean, Liz Brauer, and Marina Cvetkovksa. Thanks for the great visit, and see you again soon.

1/6/2020

Welcome to the lab, Natasha!

Natasha Kelkar joins the lab today as a visiting MSc student from the Savitribai Phule Pune University. Welcome to the lab, and to our Canadian winter!

11/11/2019

A September visit to Tuebingen & Freiburg

I was invited to give a Departmental Seminar at the ZMPB in Tuebingen, where I had the wonderful opportunity to visit with former Monaghan Lab member and Queen's alum Danalyn Holmes who is now there working on her PhD. I enjoyed meeting with friends and colleagues at the ZMPB and discussing our ongoing work on the regulation of cytoplasmic protein kinases. I then travelled to Freiburg for a few days to join the Plant Proteostasis meeting, where I presented our work on the immune-induced ubiquitome.

Thanks for the bretzels, weizen, and great science - Prost!

9/25/2019

Congrats to Irina and Kristen, who successfully defended their MSc theses

Congratulations to Irina and Kristen, who successfully defended their MSc theses last month.
Well done both, and all the best for your futures!

7/29/2019

Jacqueline visits the Sainsbury Lab in Norwich, UK

After the IS-MPMI meeting in Glasgow, I headed south to Norwich to meet with colleagues at the Sainsbury Lab, where I did my postdoctoral research from 2010-2015. Former MSc student Lauren Grubb is currently working at the affiliated John Innes Centre as a PhD student with Myriam Charpentier - it was fantastic to see that she is doing so well and enjoying living abroad. Norwich is a well-preserved medieval city with lots of old-world charm.

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