After a very successful thesis defence yesterday, Lauren is now the first MSc student to graduate from the Monaghan Lab. What a milestone! I am so proud of all of Lauren's many achievements and her now almost-complete thesis 'Analysis of E3 ligases and identification of ubiquitination sites regulating turnover of the plant immune signalling kinase BIK1'.

Lauren joined the lab in May 2016 as a summer student with an NSERC Undergraduate Summer Research Award, prior to starting as a MSc student that September. Her graduate work was supported by an NSERC Canada Graduate Scholarship and Michael Smith Foreign Study Supplement in her first year and an Ontario Graduate Scholarship in her second year.  Lauren graduates as co-author of two publications, with another in the pipeline. Her work on identifying in vivo BIK1 ubiquitination sites, which she did during a 4-month stay abroad under the guidance of Frank Menke at the Sainsbury Lab, has advanced our research into BIK1 turnover and set the groundwork for additional thesis projects. In addition to working hard at the bench, Lauren also excelled in her coursework and organized the Molecular, Cell & Integrative Biology seminar series for our department for the last 2 years.  

Lauren was accepted into the highly-competitive International PhD Rotation Programme at the John Innes Centre/Earlham Institute/Sainsbury Lab, in Norwich UK, and starts next week! 

 Congratulations Lauren, and best wishes during your PhD. The lab won't be the same without you!