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CSM Canadian Society of Microbiologists
Awards and Honours Search Site
E-coli

CSM Awards - Past Award Winners


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CSM

CSM Awards

Norgen Biotek Corp. / CSM Award
www.norgenbiotek.com
   Norgen Biotek Corp.
This award was established to provide national recognition to outstanding Canadian Microbiologists and to provide a historical record of them and their achievements. The award is presented annually at the Annual General Meeting and consists of a plaque and $1,500.00 honorarium. This award is sponsored by Norgen Biotek Corp. and Canadian Society of Microbiologists (CSM). We are now accepting nominations for the 2010 Norgen Biotek Corp. / CSM Award. The nominations deadline is April 9, 2010. A nomination form is available below.
  Call for Nominations - 2010 Norgen Biotek Corp. / CSM Award
Call for Nominations - 2010 Norgen Biotek Corp. / CSM Award


Fisher Scientific Award 
www.fishersci.ca

 Fisher Scientific Canada
This award is given to stimulate and recognize new researchers in the microbiological sciences. The award comprises $1,500.00 and an inscribed scroll. More information about the award and the nominations process is available in the attached document. We are now accepting nominations for the 2010 Fisher Scientific award - the deadline for nominations April 9, 2010. 
  Call for Nominations - 2010 Fisher Award
Call for Nominations - 2010 Fisher Award


Canadian Graduate Student Microbiologist of the Year Cangene
University nominations are reviewed and ranked by a 5-member International Scientific Committee. The award consists of a quality gold coin from the Royal Canadian Mint, travel, accommodation, and registration to the annual meeting and a banquet ticket. Further details are published in the CSM Newsletter. The Gold Medal competition is made possible by the generous financial support of Cangene Corporation. We are now accepting nominations for the 2010 Canadian Graduate Student Microbiologist of the Year award. The nominations deadline is April 9, 2010. Information about the award and a nomination form (in PDF and Word format) is available at the link below.
 
Cangene Gold Award Nomination Form 2010
Cangene Gold Award Nomination Form 2010


CSM Student Award, Cedarlane Student Award, ISME 8 and the CCM Student Award
Cedarlane Laboratories Limited
Canadian College of Microbiologists
These awards are presented to the three top students presenting papers at the Annual General Meeting. Each award consists of a plaque and a $500.00 cash prize. As well, a small travel bursary is available to assist students competing for this award. These awards are sponsored by the Canadian Society of Microbiologists, Cedarlane Laboratories, the Canadian College of Microbiologists and the ISME 8 Award is sponsored by Atlantic Canada Society for Microbial Ecology , and. The CCM award also includes a 1 year free membership in the CCM.

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CSM

Current Award Winners

2009 Cangene Gold Medal Award: Canadian Graduate Student Microbiologist of the Year Award


Dr. Philippe Constant

Philippe Constant has completed a B.Sc. in Biological Sciences at the Université de Montréal. As an undergraduate, he undertook different research projects with Dr. Patrick Hallenbeck and his Ph.D. supervisors in the field of environmental microbiology. He conducted his Ph.D. research in the laboratories of Dr. Richard Villemur at the INRS-Institut Armand-Frappier and Dr. Laurier Poissant at Environment Canada on the biogeochemical cycle of molecular hydrogen and mercury. Having an interdisciplinary formation at the interface between environmental microbiology and Earth sciences, he has developed a unique expertise to measure trace elements fluxes and to identify the microorganisms involved in these exchanges. During his research, Philippe has contributed to 12 peer-reviewed publications and has given 5 conferences talks and 8 poster presentations. He was recognized by national and provincial scholarships, has obtained several conference travel awards and is currently reviewer for 4 different scientific journals. Philippe has been funded by the FQRNT to undertake a postdoctoral fellow in the research group of Dr. Ralf Conrad at the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology in Germany.

Study of the biogeochemical cycle of molecular hydrogen and mercury by using an integrated approach
An original approach, combining microbial ecology with atmospheric sciences, has been elaborated to study molecular hydrogen (H2) and mercury (Hg) microbiogeochemistry. The research has been initiated by a characterization of H2 soil uptake, a process responsible for 80% of the global atmospheric H2 losses. So far, H2 soil uptake is attributed to hypothetical free soil hydrogenases and atmospheric H2 distribution models are derived by assuming a homogenous activity at the global scale. We have demonstrated that both assumptions should be mistaken. H2 fluxes measured in wetlands, grassland and subarctic ecosystems were characterized by considerable spatial and temporal variations explained by environmental factors such as soil temperature, carbon and water content. A new approach combining H2 fluxes measurement with microbial diversity monitoring has been developed to find the origin of the observed H2 soil uptake. Streptomyces sp. PCB7 has been identified as the first microorganism having the capacity to consume atmospheric H2. Strain PCB7 consumed H2 only during its sporulation phase, which is activated in response of nutrients depletion. A putative [NiFe]-hydrogenase has been identified, providing a first target for the development of a molecular tool to study H2 soil uptake ecophysiology.

Polar ecosystems are exposed to anthropogenic Hg, especially in springtime due to atmospheric mercury depletion events (AMDE). During AMDE, reactive halogens are oxidizing Hg species having a long atmospheric residence time to reactive forms that are rapidly deposited onto the snow cover. The fate of newly deposited Hg needs to be investigated since important discharges of methylmercury (MeHg; the most readily bioaccumulated Hg species) are observed in snowmelt water. Biological and chemical Hg methylation reactions have been observed in soil, sediments and aquatic ecosystems, but their occurrence has never been reported in snow. We have performed several field campaigns in subarctic ecosystems to identify the origin of the MeHg detected in the snow cover. Two main processes have been identified. Before the snowmelt, marine aerosols were a source of unstable MeHg which was rapidly demethylated following its atmospheric deposition. The situation was more intricate at the snow melting period, when a dramatic increase of MeHg concentrations was observed in shrub tundra, presumably due to in situ biological and chemical Hg methylation reactions. Our results provided evidences that reactive Hg species deposited in the snow cover during AMDE can be transformed in MeHg, representing an exposure risk to the arctic biota, especially in coastal aquatic ecosystems.

In conclusion, an integrative interpretation of our results has showed that global change could increase annual MeHg discharges in polar aquatic ecosystems and alter soil’s atmospheric H2 uptake activity.


2009 Roche Diagnostics-CSM Award 


Dr. B. Brett Finlay

Dr. B. Brett Finlay is a Professor in the Michael Smith Laboratories, and the Departments of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and Microbiology and Immunology at the University of British Columbia. He obtained a B.Sc. (Honors) in Biochemistry at the University of Alberta, where he also did his Ph.D. (1986) in Biochemistry under Dr. William Paranchych, studying F-like plasmid conjugation. His post-doctoral studies were performed with Dr. Stanley Falkow at the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford University School of Medicine, where he studied Salmonella invasion into host cells. In 1989, he joined UBC as an Assistant Professor in the Biotechnology Laboratory. Dr. Finlay’s research interests are focussed on host-pathogen interactions, at the molecular level. By combining cell biology with microbiology, he has been at the forefront of the emerging field called Cellular Microbiology, making several fundamental discoveries in this field, and publishing over 300 papers. His laboratory studies several pathogenic bacteria, with Salmonella and pathogenic E. coli interactions with host cells being the primary focus. He is well recognized internationally for his work, and has won several prestigious awards including the E.W.R. Steacie Prize, the CSM Fisher Scientific Award, a MRC Scientist, five Howard Hughes International Research Scholar Awards, a CIHR Distinguished Investigator, BC Biotech Innovation Award, the Michael Smith Health Research Prize, the IDSA Squibb award, the Jacob Biely Prize, the prestigious Canadian Killam Health Sciences Prize, the Flavelle Medal of the Royal Society, is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, and is the UBC Peter Wall Distinguished Professor. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada and Order of British Columbia. He is a cofounder of Inimex Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and Director of the SARS Accelerated Vaccine Initiative. He also serves on several editorial and advisory boards, and is a strong supporter of communicating science to the public.

Bugs R Us: The role of the microbiota in infectious enteric diseases
The number of microbes in and on us outnumber our human cells by a factor of 10, and one gram of feces contains more bacteria than all humans in the world. Despite this, we have only recently begun to explore the human microbiome and its effects on us. There is strong preliminary evidence that the normal flora impacts on obesity, metabolism, inflammatory bowel diseases, asthma, and infectious diseases. We have been studying the role of the microbiota in enteric infectious diseases using pathogenic E. coli and Salmonella murine models. It is becoming apparent that the microbiota plays a critical role in immune development and responses, and the establishment and outcome of infectious enteric diseases. Results probing these aspects will be discussed in the context of these infectious agents.


2009 Fisher Scientific Award


Dr. John Hunter Brumell

John Brumell, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist at the Hospital for Sick Children and an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto in the departments of Molecular Genetics and the Institute of Medical Science. He received his undergraduate education from the University of Western Ontario and his graduate education from the University of Toronto under the supervision of Dr. Sergio Grinstein. Dr. Brumell received postdoctoral training in the laboratories of Dr. Mike Tyers (Mt. Sinai Hospital, Toronto) and Dr. Brett Finlay (University of British Columbia). He started his independent research career at the Hospital for Sick Children/University of Toronto in 2002. Dr. Brumell’s research examines how bacteria interact with cells of their host to cause disease. A major focus of this work is on Salmonella typhimurium, a common cause of food poisoning in North America and a model pathogen. The focus of his work is on toxins called ‘effectors’ that are delivered by the bacteria into host cells using a needle-like delivery system. The objective of his studies is to determine the molecular mechanisms by which the effectors alter host cell machinery during infection. Another focus of his research is autophagy, a cellular defence to infection by pathogenic microorganisms. His research examines how autophagy can target bacterial pathogens like Salmonella during infection, restricting their growth in host cells. By utilizing infection models Dr. Brumell is examining the mechanisms that regulate autophagy.

Autophagy of bacterial pathogens: its roles and its regulation
Autophagy plays an important role in immunity to microbial pathogens. In my laboratory we have characterized the interaction of two intracellular bacterial pathogens with the autophagy system in cells that they infect, and have begun to characterize autophagy regulation.

Salmonella typhimurium can grow in modified phagosomes (Salmonella-containing vacuoles) in cells of its host. However, a small population of these bacteria can damage the vacuole and escape into the cytosol during in vitro infection. Using GFP-LC3 as a marker of autophagosomes, we found that ≈ 20% of intracellular S. typhimurium colocalized with GFP-LC3 at 1 h post infection. LC3+ bacteria colocalized with vacuole markers. Autophagy-deficient (atg5-/-) cells were more permissive for intracellular growth by S. typhimurium than normal cells. We propose a model in which the host autophagy system targets S. typhimurium in damaged vacuoles early after infection to protect the cytosol from bacterial colonization.

After entry into host cells, Listeria monocytogenes escapes the phagosome using several virulence factors, including Listeriolysin O (LLO), a cholesterol-dependent cytolysin. LLO has two functions: 1) create small pores in the phagosome to block its fusion with lysosomes and 2) to disrupt the phagosomes, allowing bacterial escape into the cytosol. Phagosome lysis is enhanced by two phospholipases (PI-PLC and PC-PLC). In the cytosol, the Listeria protein ActA recruits host actin regulatory proteins to drive actin polymerization at one bacterial pole and movement (actin-based motility) in the cytosol, facilitating intercellular spread. In our studies, L. monocytogenes was targeted by the autophagy system during initial escape from phagosomes. However, these bacteria evaded autophagy targeting during subsequent stages of infection. Actin-based motility and the expression of PI-PLC and PC-PLC were found to promote autophagy evasion by the bacteria. As well, a population of L. monocytogenes was found to replicate, albeit slowly, within large vacuoles we termed Spacious Listeria-containing Phagosomes (SLAPs), the formation of which was dependent on LLO expression and the host autophagy system. Importantly, SLAPs were also observed during in vivo persistent infection of SCID mice. We conclude that L. monocytogenes uses multiple mechanisms to evade autophagy killing and colonize the cytosol of host cells. We suggest that SLAPs may represent an intracellular niche for L. monocytogenes during persistent infection.

What regulates autophagy of bacteria? Many potential factors have been identified. The production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) by the mitochondria has been linked to starvation-induced autophagy and ROS from other cellular sources may also regulate autophagy. Of particular interest is the NADPH oxidase (NOX) family of enzymes, which generate ROS for the purposes of signaling, development, growth control and immunity. In phagocytes, the NOX2 NADPH oxidase plays a central role in microbial killing through the generation of ROS and subsequent initiation of many phagocyte effector functions. We recently showed that NOX2-generated ROS are necessary for autophagy targeting bacteria in phagocytes. Anti-bacterial autophagy in human epithelial cells, which do not express NOX2, was also dependent on ROS generationby other NOX family members. Our results suggest an important role for members of the NOX family in regulating autophagy targeting of microbial invaders


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CSM

Past Award Winners

The Roche Diagnostic CSM Award

Year

First Name

Surname

1963 Dr. R.G.E. Murray

1965

 

Dr. J.H.

 

Quastel

1966

Dr. J.J.R.

Campbell

1967

 

Dr. C.F.

 

Robinow

1968

Dr. B.D.

Sanwal

1969

 

Dr. J.

 

de Repentigny

1970

Dr. N.E.

Gibbons

1971

 

Dr. J.F.

 

Morgan

1972

Dr. A.

Frappier

1973

 

Dr. R.A.

 

MacLeod

1975

Dr. A.J.

Rhodes

1976

 

Dr. L.C.

 

Vining

1977

Dr. P.C.

Fitzjames

1978

 

Dr. S.

 

Sonea

1979

Dr. J.

Child

1979

 

Dr. T.

 

LaRue

1979

Dr. W.

Kurz

1980

 

Dr. J.

 

Costerton

1981

Dr. R.

Knowles

1983

 

Dr. K.-J.

 

Cheng

1984

Dr. V.

Pavilanis

1985

 

Dr. D.W.

 

Westlake

1986

Dr. A.

Hurst

1987

 

Dr. R.E.W.

 

Hancock

1988

Dr. L.

Bryan

1989

 

Dr. G.D.

 

Sprott

1990

Dr. Lorne Allan

Babiuk

1991

 

Dr. Malcolm B.

 

Perry

1992

Dr. D.J.

Kushner

1993

 

Dr. Trevor J.

 

Trust

1994

Dr. Terrence

Beveridge

1995

 

Dr. Diane

 

Taylor

1996

Dr. Ken

Sanderson

1997

 

Dr. Julian

 

Davies

1998

Dr. Dieter

Kluepfel

1999

 

Dr. Donald E.

 

Woods

2000

Dr. Cecil

Forsberg

2001

 

Dr. Peter C.

 

Loewen

2002 Dr. Pierre  Talbot

2003

 

Dr. Chris

  Whitfield

2004

 

Dr. Gerrit

  Voordouw

2005

 

Dr. Carlton

  Gyles

2006

 

Dr. Joseph

  Lam
2007   Dr. Jo-Anne   Dillon
2008   Dr. Miguel   Valvano
2009   Dr. Brett Finlay

The Fisher Award

Year

First Name

Surname

1990

Dr. Reggie Y.C.

Lo

1991

 

Dr. B. Brett

 

Finlay

1992

no award

1993

 

Dr. Mario

 

Jacques

1994

Dr. Michael F.

Hynes

1995

 

Dr. J.R.

 

Lawrence

1996

Dr. Keith

Poole

1997

 

Dr. Richard

 

Belanger

1998

no award

1999

 

no award

 

 

2000

Dr. Michael G.

Surette

2001

 

Dr. Marcelo

 

Gottschalk

2002   Dr. Roberta    Fulthorpe

2003

 

Dr. Francois

  Jean

2004

 

Dr. Lyle

  Whyte

2005

 

Dr. Charles M.

  Dozois

2006

 

Dr. David

  Heinrichs
2007   Dr. Fiona   Brinkman
2008   Dr. John   McCormick
2009   Dr. John Hunter   Brumell

Canadian Graduate Student Microbiologist of the Year

The Gold Award

Year

First Name

Surname

University

1997

Dana J.

Philpott

University of Toronto

1998

 

Janine

 

Bossé

 

University of Guelph

1999

Lisa D.

Collins

University of Ottawa

2000

 

Jolyne

 

Drummelsmith

 

University of Guelph

2001

Jeremy A.

Yethon

University of Guelph

2002   Danika    Goosney   University of British Columbia

2003

Sean Connell University of Alberta

2004

Trevor Lawley Acadia University

2005

Matthew Gilmour University of Alberta

2006

Dawn Bowdish University of British Columbia
2007   Catherine   Paradis-Bleau   Université Laval
2008   Joe   Harrison   University of Calgary
2009   Philippe   Constant   Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, Germany

Cedarlane Student Award

Year

First Name

Surname

University

1996

David

Chow

University of Guelph

1997

 

Benoit

 

Barbeau

 

Centre de Recherche en Infectiologie

1998

Paul Antony

Amor

University of Guelph

1999

 

Vincent

 

Martin

 

University of British Columbia

2000

Kelly

Rice

University of Toronto

2002   David    Allen   Dalhousie University

2003

Sonia

Bary Queen's University

2004

Casey

Hubert University of Calgary

2005

Valerio Matias University of Guelph

2008

Karon James McGill University
2009   Justin   Deme   McGill University

CCM Student Symposium Award

Year

First Name

Surname

University

1995

Joanna

Brooke

University of Western Ontario

1996

 

Carl

 

Gagnon

 

Institut Armand-Frappier

1997

Kate

Billingsley

University of Waterloo

1998

 

Ian C.

 

Schoenhofen

 

University of Regina

1999

David

Alexander

McGill University

2000

 

Margot Faye

 

Hiltz

 

Dalhousie University

2002 Ahmed El Zoeiby Université Laval

2003

  Stacy   Tom-Yew   University of British Columbia

2004

  Joel   Wedge   University of Guelph

2005

  Anne   Eisenhower   McGill University

2009

  Gheyath   Nasrallah   Dalhousie University

CSM/CBDN Student Award

Year

First Name

Surname

University

1995

Michael

Mitsch

University of Calgary

1995

 

Tim

 

Karnaucho

 

University of Ottawa

1996

Lesia

Harachuc

The University of Manitoba

1996

 

Lateef

 

O. Adewoye

 

University of Manitoba

1997

Isabelle

Turcot

Queen's University

1998

 

Kerrn

 

Yat-Fai Yau

 

University of Guelph

1999

Jason

Correia

Queen's University

2000

 

Gregory James

 

Newton

 

University of Guelph

2002 Maria Dowdeswell University of Saskatchewan

2003

  Jean-Nicolas   Gagnon   McGill University

2004

  Wayne   Miller   University of Guelph

2005

  Wook   Kim   University of Calgary

ASM Student Symposium Award

Year

First Name

Surname

University

2008 Katherine Yam University of British Columbia
2009 Valerie Janelle INRS-Institut Armand-Frappier

ISME 8 Student Symposium Award

Year

First Name

Surname

University

2009 Sandra Wilson Queens University

CSM Student Symposium Award

Year

First Name

Surname

University

2009 Patrick Moynihan University of Guelph

CSM Poster Award

Year

First Name

Surname

University

2009 Salim Islam University of Guelph

CCM Poster Award

Year

First Name

Surname

University

2009 Christine Ritlop McGill University

ISME 8 Poster Award

Year

First Name

Surname

University

2009 Christine Martineau NRC (BRI) and McGill University

ASM Poster Award

Year

First Name

Surname

University

2008 Jenna Capyk University of British Columbia
2009 Felix Hugentobler McGill University