CRBI/CIRC Seminar
2021-04-14 10:00 - 11:00 (America/Toronto)
CRBI Seminar – Jeff Chan, Professor, Chemistry, University of Illinois
Expanding the Chemical Toolbox for Acoustic-based Imaging of Cancer

CRBI/CIRC Seminar
2021-06-02 10:00 - 11:00
CRBI Seminar – Sterhios Moschos
Understanding SARS-CoV-2 airborne transmission: the role of exhaled breath

CRBI/CIRC Seminar
2022-01-11 10:00 - 11:00
CRBI Seminar -Vadim Elisseev, IBM Research UK
Accelerating Scientific Discovery

Dr. Vadim Elisseev
2022-01-11 12:00 - 13:00
Abstract: Scientific discovery is the driving force behind technological and societal progress. It is at the heart of finding new drugs to treat diseases, new materials for clean and sustainable manufacturing and energy production and myriad other innovations. But to deal with many challenges our world is facing, we have to accelerate the pace of discovery. This talk will provide an overview of technologies from across IBM Research in high performance computing, AI, quantum computing and hybrid cloud, which are enabling us to solve some of the most ambitious problems in science, business and society.

CRBI/CIRC Seminar
2022-02-02 10:00 - 11:00
CRBI Seminar – John Chaput, Professor, Chemistry University of California, Irvine
Redesigning the Genetic Polymers of Life

Prof. John Charles Chaput
2022-02-02 14:00 - 15:00
Abstract: The birth of biotechnology marked a defining moment in American science that launched a multi-billion-dollar industry built on the concept that enzymes found in nature could be used to improve human health. This relatively simple idea revolutionized medicine by providing the tools need to synthesize, sequence, and manipulate DNA with exquisite precision. The panoply of applications that have emerged because of recombinant DNA technology—the core scientific discovery that fuelled the revolution—represent the vanguard of drug discovery and personalized medicine. Now, some forty-years later, we have begun asking the question: What discoveries could we make or what new technologies could we develop if we are no longer constrained to the natural genetic polymers of life? This talk will focus on the rise of artificial genetic systems, commonly referred to as XNAs, where X denotes a genetic polymer other than DNA and RNA. I will illustrate cases where natural enzymes have been redesigned by directed evolution to synthesize, propagate, and evolve artificial genetic polymers with backbone structures that are distinct from those found in nature. I will then demonstrate how XNAs are beginning to drive new applications in synthetic biology, biotechnology, and medicine.

Prof. John Charles Chaput
2022-02-02 14:00 - 15:00
Abstract: The birth of biotechnology marked a defining moment in American science that launched a multi-billion-dollar industry built on the concept that enzymes found in nature could be used to improve human health. This relatively simple idea revolutionized medicine by providing the tools need to synthesize, sequence, and manipulate DNA with exquisite precision. The panoply of applications that have emerged because of recombinant DNA technology?the core scientific discovery that fuelled the revolution?represent the vanguard of drug discovery and personalized medicine. Now, some forty-years later, we have begun asking the question: What discoveries could we make or what new technologies could we develop if we are no longer constrained to the natural genetic polymers of life? This talk will focus on the rise of artificial genetic systems, commonly referred to as XNAs, where X denotes a genetic polymer other than DNA and RNA. I will illustrate cases where natural enzymes have been redesigned by directed evolution to synthesize, propagate, and evolve artificial genetic polymers with backbone structures that are distinct from those found in nature. I will then demonstrate how XNAs are beginning to drive new applications in synthetic biology, biotechnology, and medicine.

CRBI/CIRC Seminar
2022-03-02 10:00 - 11:00
CRBI Seminar – Yulia Gerasimova, Professor, University of Central Florida
Nucleic acid interrogation with colorimetric and fluorescent DNA probes

Prof. Yulia Gerasimova
2022-03-02 14:00 - 15:00
Abstract: Nucleic acid interrogation with colorimetric and fluorescent DNA probes: Nucleic acid analysis has benefited from the development of hybridization probes that interrogate nucleic acids in a sequence-specific manner. We have efficiently utilized a split approach for the design of hybridization probes based on deoxyribozymes and aptamers as scaffolds. In split probes, analyte-recognizing fragment of the probe is divided into two parts. The two parts need to be simultaneously bound to the target for generation of either fluorescent or colorimetric signal. This approach offers such advantages as excellent selectivity, efficient interrogation of structured nucleic acid sequences, use of a universal signal reporter, and (for fluorescent probes) tolerance to inhibitors in complex mixtures (e.g. cell lysates).ÿ A promising reporter system for hybridization analysis is based on light-up aptamers, among which DNA aptamers are preferable over RNA counterparts due to greater stability and lower synthetic cost. We have studied a recently reported light-up DNA aptamer and discovered its ability to bind and increase fluorescence of otherwise non-fluorescent dyes including commercially available auramine O and crystal violet. Based on mutagenesis, spectroscopic and molecular simulation data, we proposed the structure of the aptamer and its dye-binding site. The data can be used in designing aptamer-based probes. Most recently, we discovered the preferential binding of GelRed (a commercial gel staining dye) to single-stranded oligothymidylate sequences, which suggests that poly(dT) may exhibit a regular structure, and may open a route towards designing fluorescent light up sensors. To enable in-field interrogation of nucleic acid targets, a hybridization assay would benefit for an easy-to-read signal output, such as a color change.ÿ We took advantage of a peroxidase-like activity of oligonucleotides that have a propensity to fold into a parallel guanine quadruplex structure to develop colorimetric/visual sensing systems. Such systems were used for interrogation of nucleic acid sequences to enable detection and drug-susceptibility testing of bacterial pat

CRBI/CIRC Seminar
2022-04-06 10:00 - 11:00
CRBI Seminar – Dr. Igor Jurisica, Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto
Ai is not Enough: Explainable Biology for Improved Therapies

Dr. Igor Jurisica
2022-04-06 14:00 - 15:00
AI is Not Enough: Explainable Biology for Improved Therapies: Integrative computational biology and AI help improving treatment of complex diseases by building explainable models. From systematic data analysis to improved biomarkers, drug mechanism of action, and patient selection, such analyses influence multiple steps of drug discovery pipeline. Data mining, machine learning, graph theory and advanced visualization help characterize interactome and drug orphans with accurate predictions, making disease modeling more comprehensive. Intertwining computational prediction and modeling with biological experiments will lead to more useful findings faster and more economically. Learning Objectives: Participants will learn about the main challenges and opportunities in precision medicine using artificial intelligence, big data analytics and integrative computational biology workflows

CRBI/CIRC Seminar
2022-05-04 10:00 - 11:00
CRBI Seminar – Dr. Frank Delaglio, Professor, University of Leicester, UK
Exploiting NMR for Biomanufacturing needs

Dr. Frank Delaglio
2022-05-04 14:00 - 15:00
Abstract
Protein therapeutics are a highly successful class of drugs that are used to treat a number of serious and life-threatening conditions such as cancer, autoimmune disorders, and infectious diseases including COVID-19. These therapeutics have numerous critical quality attributes (CQA) that must be evaluated to ensure safety and efficacy, including that they must adopt and retain the correct structural fold without forming unintended aggregates. Furthermore, since these therapeutics are manufactured in living cells, where small variations in growth conditions can have a large therapeutic impact, analytics for cell growth metabolomics are also needed. This need is even more critical for therapies such as CAR-T, where the cells themselves are administered directly to the patient. Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) is powerful and diverse tool to help meet these measurement needs, because NMR spectra are sensitive to molecular shape and interactions as well as chemical structure, and NMR can provide this information at atomic resolution for proteins as well as for the small molecule mixtures comprising the metabolome. Exploiting NMR for these biomanufacturing needs leads to a series of computational challenges which we review, including spectral reconstruction of incomplete data, metrics of spectral similarity, detection and quantification of spectral features, and spectral analysis of mixtures.

CRBI/CREATE Joint Conference - 2022
2022-07-07 | Schulich School of Business

CRBI/CIRC Seminar
2022-11-18 10:00 - 11:00
CRBI Seminar – Dr. Jennilee Gavina, Research Scientist, Gilead
How can you as an analytical chemist contribute towards developing life saving medicines within the pharmaceutical industry

In person seminar by Dr. Jennilee Gavina
2022-11-18 11:00 - 12:00 | Petrie Building – Room 317
How can you as an analytical chemist contribute towards developing lifesaving medicines within the pharmaceutical industry? Let’s explore this rewarding career path through learning the whats, whys, and hows. First, we’ll cover some basics about Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) and regulatory requirements so we can understand what characteristics of a compound need to be controlled and why a wide variety of analytical methodologies are required. Then the fun stuff – how do we apply these methods to manufacturing and when do we need to test? We’ll go over how this all fits together, with some practical tips and case studies along the way, and include some insight on the more recent regulatory expectations for nitrosamine control.
The event will be followed by a roundtable session with students from 12 pm to 1 pm.

CRBI/CIRC Seminar
2022-12-12 10:00 - 11:00
CRBI Seminar – Dr. Terry Sachlos, Associate Professor – Teaching Stream, York University
New paradigm of leukemic stem cells and how they can be targeted using differentiation therapy as novel therapeutic strategy

In person seminar with Dr. Sachlos
2022-12-12 14:00 - 15:00 | Life Sciences Buliding (LSB) 107
Acute myeloid leukemia is a fatal blood cancer. The malignant AML blast cells rapidly overwhelm the bone marrow, disrupting resident hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) and normal blood production and eventually causing death. Treatment involves the administration of DNA-binding chemotherapeutic agents that indiscriminately kill both HSC and progenitors, leading to myelosuppression and ultimately drug dose attenuation. Ideally, drugs should specifically target AML while sparing healthy HSC to reduce potentially lethal myelosuppression side effects and extend the dosing period. In this talk, we will discuss the new paradigm of leukemic stem cells and how they can be targeted using differentiation therapy as a novel therapeutic strategy with reduced side effects. The development of novel stem cell screening platforms able to identify agents that specifically target AML-leukemic stem cells (AML-LSC) while sparing HSC will be explored. Recent results demonstrating the importance of engineered niche microenvironments to extend the ex vivo lifespan of HSC and AML-LSC will also be presented. This work sets the foundations high-throughput 3D organoid drug screening using primary human cells extracted from tumours for the development of precision medicine applications.

2023-01-18 10:00 - 11:00
CRBI Seminar – Dr. Simchi, Professor, Fraunhofer Institute

In person seminar with Dr. Simchi
2023-01-18 13:00 - 14:00 | Life Sciences Buliding (LSB) 107

2023-02-01 10:00
CRBI Seminar – Dr. Leo Chou, Professor, University of Toronto

CRBI seminar - Dr. Leo Chou
2023-02-01 14:00 - 15:00 | Life Sciences Buliding (LSB) 107

CRBI seminar - Philip Britz-McKibbin
2023-03-07 08:00 - 17:00
Abstract:

New advances in analytical chemistry for large-scale epidemiological studies: Insights into nutrition and smoke exposures for global health

A suboptimal diet and tobacco smoking are two leading modifiable risk factors in chronic disease burden globally that are typically evaluated using questionnaires by epidemiologists despite being prone to bias and misreporting. This presentation will focus on new advances in mass spectrometry (MS)-based metabolomics research when coupled to capillary electrophoresis (CE) that may allow for more reliable assessment of exposures and their health impacts in large-scale epidemiological studies. A capillary electrophoresis assay for surveillance of iodine deficiency in the Canadian population will first be presented. This work revealed differences in iodine nutrition and exposures to environmental iodine uptake inhibitors in four different regions across Canada. Also, recent developments to expand CE-MS techniques for untargeted lipid profiling when using nonaqueous conditions will be discussed. This approach was used to identify specific circulating lipids associated with omega-3 index status, including biomonitoring changes following high-dose fish oil supplementation. Lastly, I will present a new approach for biochemical verification of tobacco smoke exposures in various countries at different socioeconomic status in support of global health and chronic disease prevention. Stratification of fast from slower nicotine metabolizers offers a unique way to better assess the true hazards from tobacco smoking in diverse populations.

CRBI/CREATE Joint Conference - July 2023
2023-07-11
CREATE/CRBI joint CONFERENCE JULY 2023
The joint CREATE Technology-Enhanced Pharmaceutical Discovery (TEPD) and CRBI conference was held at York University on Monday July 10th and Tuesday July 11th . Day one included workshops featuring guest speakers from Eurofins, Gilead and GSK. Students were able to learn from industry experts and connect with their peers. Day two featured student presentations from various labs in Chemistry and Biology as well as students from the Centre for Research on Biomolecular Interactions (CRBI) lab.

CRBI/CIRC Seminar
2023-12-18 10:30 - 11:30
CRBI Seminar – Karen C. Waldron
Department of Chemistry, Université de Montréal
Crosslinked proteolytic enzymes for microscale proteomics applications
Proteolytic enzymes are routinely used to cleave the potentially thousands of proteins in a biological sample into smaller, more manageable peptide fragments. This facilitates their separation and identification by nano-HPLC, capillary electrophoresis (CE) and/or mass spectrometry (MS). This process, called peptide mapping, is one of the steps used in the workflow for identifying, quantifying, characterizing or probing the function of proteins in the vast field of proteomics, specifically “bottom-up” proteomics. Insoluble proteolytic enzymes (i.e., trypsin, chymotrypsin, pepsin, Lys-C, Asp-N, etc.) offer several benefits such as limited autolysis, reusability and rapid digestion because high enzyme-to-substrate ratios can be used. The added advantage of adaptability to microreactor formats and microfluidic platforms comes from using glutaraldehyde (GA) to crosslink enzymes and render them insoluble instead of immobilizing them on solid-phase supports. In 2004 we reported a multi-step GA-crosslinking procedure for trypsin and compared its specific activity and peptide maps to trypsin immobilized onto GA-functionalized glass beads. The procedure was later adapted for chymotrypsin to digest nanomolar concentrations of fluorescently labelled protein substrate with peptide mapping by CE laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) detection. A GA-chymotrypsin microreactor was fabricated in a capillary column by programing reagent delivery in a CE instrument. Despite the ease in making GA-crosslinked trypsin and chymotrypsin “particles”, their re-use for multiple digestions has been problematic. Our successes and setbacks will be discussed, as well as our efforts to improve the robustness of the crosslinked enzymes using a Design-ofExperiments (DOE) approach to investigate the experimental parameters in our multi-step crosslinking method.

CRBI/CIRC Seminar
2024-01-09 10:30 - 12:00
CRBI/CIRC Seminar –
Dr. Seyed M Moghadas, Professor, Dept of Mathematics, York University
COVID-19 Quarantine and Testing Strategies for Preventing Onward Transmission
Jason Kindrachuk, Associate Professor, Medical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases, University of Manitoba
Investigating emerging zoonotic virus circulation and spillover at the human-wildlife interface in diverse global settings – increasing preparedness and response capacities

CRBI/CIRC Seminar
2024-01-23 10:30 - 12:00
CRBI/CIRC Seminar – Dr. Jianhong Wu, Professor Dept. of Mathematics, York University
Identifying contact mixing patterns in respond to public health interventions and behavioral changes

CRBI/CIRC Seminar
2024-02-13 10:30 - 11:30
CRBI/CIRC Seminar – Dr. Jude Dzevela Kong, Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics, York University
Harnessing Light for Molecular-Specific Sensing and Imaging of Biological Samples

CRBI/CIRC Seminar
2024-02-20 10:30 - 12:00
CRBI/CIRC Seminar – Dr. Ebrahim Ghafar-Zadeh, Associate Professor, Dept. of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, Lassonde School of Engineering
Electronic Point-of-Care Diagnostics: Recent Advances and Future Prospects
Bill Kim, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Chemistry, York University
Next-generation Genome Editing: Technology and Applications

CRBI/CIRC Seminar
2024-03-12 10:30 - 12:00
CRBI/CIRC Seminar – Dr. Nima Tabatabaei, Associate Professor Department of Mechanical Engineering York University
Harnessing Light for Molecular-Specific Sensing and Imaging of Biological Samples
