2014 CIFAR-IMB General Meeting – Liblice, Czech Republic

The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research – Integrated Microbial Biodiversity (CIFAR-IMB) Program held its annual conference for members (and their students) at the beautiful Liblice Castle, Czech Republic on June 25-29, 2015. This time, it was Fabini's turn to attend, and he presented a poster of his work entitled "Vibrio metoecus, a novel emerging pathogen closely related to Vibrio cholerae." The group also went on an afternoon trip to Prague on June 27th to attend a private one-hour organ and violin concert at the St. Salvator Church by Charles Bridge.

This was Fabini's first trip to Europe, and he visited various cities after the conference (Prague, Vienna, Salzburg, Munich, Bremen, and Amsterdam).

Fabini presenting his poster at the CIFAR conference

2014 Banff Conference on Infectious Diseases – Banff, Alberta

Paul and Fabini attended the 2014 Banff Conference on Infectious Diseases (BCID) on June 4-8, 2014 at the Banff Centre in the beautiful Canadian rockies. BCID, organized this year by Dr. Stefan Pukatzki and his lab (Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology), was a venue for scientific discussions with researchers on pathogenesis and other aspects of infectious diseases and host defenses.

The lab presented posters entitled "Looking for the ancestor of cholera in its natural habitat" (Paul) and "Vibrio metoecus, a novel emerging pathogen closely related to Vibrio cholerae" (Fabini).

Amazing view of the Canadian Rockies from the Banff Centre

Tania is the Recipient of the NSERC PGS-D Award

It was announced today that Tania is one of the recipients of the Postgraduate Scholarship  –  Doctoral (PGS-D) award by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). Congratulations Tania!

Update (September 25, 2014)
As NSERC PGS-D awardee, Tania also receives the President's Doctoral Prize of Distinction, a top-up award for recipients of one of the Doctoral Tri-Council Scholarships (NSERC, SSHRC, CIHR). Again, congratulations Tania!

Sampling in the Ganges Delta Region in Bangladesh

From April 29 to May 24, 2014, Yan and Tania went to Bangladesh for an extensive sampling of environmental isolates of Vibrio cholerae from water from two different coastal areas (Kuakata and Mathbaria) in the Ganges Delta region of Bangladesh. It was a great experience, and they are thankful for the support of Dr. Munirul Alam and his team from the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh.

Tania, Yan, and Dr. Alam filtering water samples and isolating V. cholerae on site.

NML Workshops in Microbial Informatics – Winnipeg, Manitoba

Fabini attended two workshops at the National Microbiology Laboratory (NML) in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The first one was the Introduction to Linux Workshop (May 5-7, 2014), and the second was the Microbial Whole Genome Sequence Analysis Workshop (May 7-16, 2014). The participants were introduced to various bioinformatics tools for whole genome sequence analysis. The workshops were organized by Dr. Gary Van Domselaar and his laboratory team.

Some light reading for the workshop

Determining the Origin of the 2010 Cholera Outbreak in Haiti

The review article "The 2010 cholera outbreak in Haiti: how science solved a controversy" is now published as part of the PLOS Pathogens Pearls collection. Yan and Fabini are joined by world-renowned scientist Dr. Paul Keim (Northern Arizona University) as co-author. The use of whole-genome sequencing to determine the origin of cholera in Haiti is discussed in the paper.

The article was written specifically for PLOS Pathogens Pearls by invitation from Pearls Editor Dr. Joseph Heitman (Duke University School of Medicine).

Update 1 (April 6, 2014)
The article is featured on the Scientific American Blog Network: "The pathogen detectives: sourcing the post-earthquake cholera outbreak in Haiti" by S.E. Gould.

Update 2 (April 24, 2014)
The article is featured on Nature's Research Highlights – Social Selection, based on popular articles on social media.

How the Haiti cholera outbreak started (from Orata et al., 2014)

Department of Biological Sciences Teaching Award for Fabini

Fabini received the 2014 Department of Biological Sciences Teaching Award. He was presented with the award certificate by Dr. Heather McDermid, Associate Chair of Graduate Studies, and Dr. Tracy Ravio, Assistant Associate Chair, during the Celebration of Excellence ceremony on March 27, 2014 at the Department of Biological Sciences. Congratulations!

2014 Ocean Sciences Meeting – Honolulu, Hawaii

Yan escaped the freezing Edmonton winter to visit Hawaii and attend the 17th Ocean Sciences Meeting at the Hawaii Convention Center, Honolulu, Hawaii on February 23-28, 2014. This conference served as a venue for scientific exchange across various disciplines in the marine sciences. It was the largest international assembly of ocean scientists, engineers, students, educators, and policy makers.

Yan gave an oral presentation entitled "Exploring marine reservoirs of the cholera pathogen" on February 24th.

The conference was co-sponsored by the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography, The Oceanography Society, and the American Geophysical Union.