People

Mehrab Ali

Lab Manager
mehrab.ali@utoronto.ca

Mehrab completed her Bachelor and Master of Science from Saint John’s University in New York. She then moved to Toronto and joined the Greenblatt Lab, before joining the Stagljar Lab as a lab manager. Her previous projects include doing high throughput chemical biology screens for E.coli.

Outside of the lab, Mehrab likes to paint, swim, cook and plans to finally learn how to ride a bike.

Jennifer Chiang

Graduate Student
jennifer.chiang@utoronto.ca

Jen obtained her undergraduate degree from McGill University in Biochemistry, where she discovered her interest in proteins, or what she likes to think of as "biological micro-machinery". She then pursued her passion for research by completing her M.Sc. in Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto - an epicentre of scientific discovery.

As serendipity would have it, what started out as a collaboration with the Stagljar lab turned into a full M.Sc. project. Jen continues her work on the yeast Alr1p protein and is currently involved in several other exciting projects, including that of using MYTH to identify interactors of the human Erb family.

In her free time, Jen enjoys the company of her 1-year old nephew and her equitation classes.

Katelyn Darowski

Graduate Student
k.darowski@mail.utoronto.ca

Katelyn received her BSc degree at the University of Western Ontario in London, ON with an honours specialization in chemistry and biochemistry. She became inspired to continue her studies in biochemistry after a fourth year project working with the SAGA complex in yeast. During her graduate studies she will be working on building an interactome of all human phosphatases using the MYTH system and testing them for interactions with numerous human Receptor Tyrosine Kinases. Some of these RTKs and phosphatase pairs will then be tested for their role in cancer cells.

In her free time she enjoys spending time at the gym, playing sports, playing piano and exploring Toronto.

Dr. Bella Groisman

Postdoctoral Fellow
bella.groisman@utoronto.ca

Bella completed PhD studies at Tel Aviv University in 2009. The main focus of her studies was elucidating pathways and protein complexes, which enable cellular quality control machinery to distinguish between properly folded and misfolded proteins.

Following her PhD, she joined the Molecular Genetics Department at the Weizmann Institute of Science, where she worked on research projects focusing on microbial transcription regulation networks. This allowed her to gain insights from a systems biology aspect.

Dr.Groisman's main research interest is to understand molecular players driving cellular machinery, which are impaired in disease states. At Igor’s lab she plans to investigate the interactome of RTK receptors family of proteins. He main goal is investigate how RTK-interacting proteins contribute to cancer.

In her spare time, Bella likes reading, traveling in the nature, dancing and spending time with family.

Asad Hanif

Graduate Student
asadhk2@gmail.com

I completed my undergraduate studies in Neuroscience at the University of Toronto in 2008 and started my masters in the Department of Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto in September 2009. I am currently working with other lab members to develop the interactome for yeast ABC Transporter proteins using iMYTH system. In my spare time, I enjoy watching and playing basketball, watching movies and reading about cars and computers.

Dr. Mandy Lam

Reserach Associate
mandyhiuyi.lam@utoronto.ca

Mandy completed her undergraduate degree here at the University of Toronto, with a specialization in Molecular Genetics and Molecular Biology. After she was inspired by research done as part of her fourth year research project, she decided to pursue a Ph.D. degree in the Department of Molecular Genetics at U of T, studying the role of the deubiquitination enzyme Ubp2 in yeast protein transport.

In her spare time, she enjoys playing the violin as a member of a string orchestra, riding her bike around town, skiing, and attending concerts.

Meg Mendoza

Graduate Student
mgmendo0@gmail.com

Meg graduated from the University of Manitoba with a BSc (Honours) in Microbiology, having participated in the Co-op program, where he worked at the National Microbiology Laboratory (NML) for the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) and in the Butler Lab at the University of Manitoba. His past projects have involved working with chimeric monoclonal antibodies, various tissue culture cell lines, serum-free media formulation and signaling pathways. Through his previous work, Meg gained an interest in the use of tissue culture and the study of protein-to-protein interactions for the development of biotherapeutics, an interest he is pursuing as a graduate student in the U of T’s Department of Molecular Genetics.

In his free time, Meg likes working out, wasting time on video and computer games, cooking, and watching the special features included with his movies.

Dr. Julia Petschnigg

Postdoctoral Fellow
j.petschnigg@utoronto.ca

I completed my PhD thesis at the University of Graz, Austria, by the end of 2008, and then spent another 6 months as a postdoc in Graz in Sepp Kohlwein’s “Yeast Genetics and Molecular Biology Group”.

During my PhD time, I was working on lipid-induced lipotoxicity in yeast, and since September '09 I am working in Igor's lab. Here, I will investigate interactors of lipid-metabolic enzymes as well as work on establishing a mammalian Membrane Two-Hybrid (MaMTH) system

As a native Austrian, of course I love hiking and spending time outdoors.

Dr. Jamie Snider

Research Associate
jamie.snider@utoronto.ca

Jamie recently (summer 2007) obtained his PhD in Biochemistry here at the University of Toronto. He joined the Stagljar lab in Sepetember 2007, and is working to identify yeast ABC transporter interaction partners using the iMYTH approach.

Kate Sokolina

Graduate Student
kate.sokolina@utoronto.ca

Kate graduated from the University of Ottawa with Honours B.Sc. Biology/Biotechnology, taking part in the Co-op program. During her co-ops and 4th-year, Kate was involved in a series of research projects, from developmental biology to neuron electophysiology to asthma pharmaceuticals. They ended up fitting together just right - and she is ready to tackle her GPRC-interactome project as grad student with the Department of Biochemistry. Kate will be working on characterizing a functional relevance of several GPCR-interacting proteins identified in MYTH screens with the full length human GPCRs.

Kate climbs big rocks, reads captivating books and experiments with often-disastrous recipes in her spare time. She prepared her mind for her graduate studies by taking an extended trip to Asia.

Dr. Igor Stagljar

Professor
igor.stagljar@utoronto.ca

Igor coordinates zillions of projects in his group and enjoys interacting with his group members. He tries to create the opportunities for all of his group members to have cool, new projects.

In his spare time, Igor is doing a lot of sport (swimming, jogging, and basketball), makes his own red wine, and plays acoustic guitar.

The captain of the boat, the fisherman of fishes:

Victoria Wong

Technician
v.wong@utoronto.ca

A native of Toronto, Victoria obtained her undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto from the Department of Medical Genetics and Microbiology. She is working on the human GPCR-membraneome project, and runs and validates hundreds of MbYTH screens.

When she isn't at work, Victoria enjoys reading literature and Taek-won-do.

Dr. Zhong Yao

Research Associate
zhong.yao@utoronto.ca

Originally from China, Zhong obtained his Ph.D. from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. His primary research interest is to study signaling principles that govern different intracellular processes and how signal transduction is involved in various diseases. In Igor’s lab, he is currently using the MYTH system to investigate proteins that interact with human receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs) and their roles in the regulation of RTK-mediated signaling pathways.

Aside from his research work, Zhong likes to spend his spare time with his son.

Analyn Yu

Technician
analyn.yu@utoronto.ca

Analyn obtained both her undergraduate and graduate degree from University of Toronto, Department of Molecular Genetics.

Analyn joined the Stagljar Lab in 2011 and is currently involved in several projects, including the utilization of the iMYTH to identify yeast ABC transporter interactors.