Members

Our Commitment to Diversity

GIA is committed to equity, diversity and inclusivity. These principles benefit our workplaces and learning environments, and are essential to advancing glycomics research in Alberta. We look forward to welcoming you to the institute.

Members

Wade Abbott

About Wade Abbott

Dr. Wade Abbott received his PhD in Biochemistry under the supervision of Professor Juan Ausió at the University of Victoria in 2005. His thesis was awarded the UVic Lieutenant Governor’s Gold Medal in 2005. His first postdoctoral research fellowship was with Professor Alisdair Boraston at the University of Victoria in the molecular basis of carbohydrate interactions (2005-2008). He completed a second postdoctoral fellowship with Professor Harry Gilbert at the University of Georgia Complex Carbohydrate Research Centre in metabolic pathways from intestinal bacteria involved in the utilization of dietary glycans (2008-2010). In 2011, Wade began his career with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada at the Lethbridge Research Centre as a Research Scientist. Group research themes include the discovery of carbohydrate active enzymes and metabolic pathways, agricultural glycomics, and carbohydrate-based innovations for the production of food animals. In June 2022, Wade’s team was recognized for their contributions to Agricultural Glycomics with the AAFC Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Science.

Chris Cairo

About Chris Cairo

Christopher W. Cairo is a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Alberta. Chris obtained a BSc in Chemistry from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Albany. He went on to graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, with Professor Laura L. Kiessling where he worked on multivalent carbohydrate-protein interactions (PhD, 2002). Chris then moved to an NIH-funded Postdoctoral fellowship with Professor David E. Golan at Harvard Medical School where he studied the regulation of integrins in T cell adhesion. Chris joined the faculty of the University of Alberta in 2006 as an Assistant Professor of Chemistry and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2012, and Professor in 2019. He was a principal investigator in the Alberta Glycomics Centre (2006-2018) and is currently a Network Investigator with GlycoNet. The Cairo research group studies the function of glycoproteins and glycolipids in cardiovascular disease, cancer, and immunity. Their work takes place at the chemistry-biology interface with major projects targeting the design of inhibitors for the human neuraminidase enzymes, the role of carbohydrates in immune response, and bioconjugate labelling strategies for glycolipids and glycoproteins.

Ratmir Derda

About Ratmir Derda

The Derda research group is working on DNA encoded chemistry and a cross-over of chemistry and information. They are developing genetically encoded and DNA-encoded technologies and using information emanating from these areas for molecular discovery, reaction optimization and material design. They are learning how to use vast datasets enabled by DNA-encoded technologies to train machine learning algorithms and build comprehensive knowledge models. In the area of glycomics, these technologies gave rise to (i) genetically-encoded glycopeptide libraries for lead discovery, (ii) DNA-encoded multivalent Liquid Glycan Array, which can be used to study glycan protein interactions in vitro and in vivo and (iii) neural network models that can predict the strength of protein-glycan interactions.

Shokrollah Elahi

About Shokrollah Elahi

Dr. Shokrollah Elahi, after obtaining multiple academic degrees from the Tehran University of Medical Science, Iran, moved to Australia where he completed his PhD on mucosal candidiasis at the University of Newcastle. Then, he moved to Canada and developed a novel model of porcine pertussis during his first postdoctoral fellowship at Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO). Next, he moved to Seattle and did his second postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Washington
where he studied HIV/AIDS pathogenesis. Finally, he moved to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Centre and investigated the mechanism underlying neonatal infection susceptibility before joining the University of Alberta as an assistant
professor in 2014. Currently, he is a full professor of immunology at the School of Dentistry. Dr. Elahi’s lab has a diverse research portfolio (e.g. HIV/SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis, cancer immunology, and neonatal immunology). However, investigating the role of galectins, particularly galectin-9, in different physiological and pathological conditions has been one of his major research interests.

Denise Hemmings

About Denise Hemmings

The Hemmings Lab is interested in the impact of maternal Herpesvirus (cytomegalovirus) and malaria infections on the function of the human placenta. They focus on a specialized cell layer of the placenta called the syncytiotrophoblast (ST) that forms the barrier between the maternal and fetal circulations and on which unique proteoglycans, important for these infections, are found. Their lab is also interested in how inflammation generated by infections interferes with placental development. Other work in the Hemmings Lab includes studying the inter-regulation of vascular responses to sphingosine 1-phosphate (S1P) and lysophosphatidate (LPA), bioactive lipids that signal through cell surface receptors. Their other focus is deciphering the mechanisms by which chronic cytomegalovirus infections influence breast cancer and metastasis.

John Klassen

Joanne Lemieux

About Joanne Lemieux

Dr. M. Joanne Lemieux is a Professor in the Department of Biochemistry. Trained as a structural biologist, she has made important contributions to understanding protein structure and function. She was the recipient of a CIHR new investigator award, CRC in Protein Structure and Function, and received the 2022 FoMD mentoring award. She is currently the Director for the Membrane Protein Disease Research group. With a diverse research portfolio, her main interests are in the study of proteins in disease states. Her team investigates proteins involved in glycan recognition in pathogenic infection and antiviral response. Her team is also investigating novel antiviral drugs to develop oral formulations, and drug-resistant mutants.

Matthew Macauley

Lara Mahal

About Lara Mahal

As the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Glycomics, Lara Mahal is an expert in glycomics and systems-based approaches to understanding glycan regulation and function. She developed lectin microarray technology, a high-throughput method for glycomics that is now widely applied to understand a multitude of systems, from clinical cancer research to host-pathogen interactions. The Mahal Lab is working to (i) identify and leverage glycan-control mechanisms to decode the functional glycome, i.e., the miRNA Proxy Approach (ii) determine the roles of glycans in host-pathogen interactions and host response and (iii) identify the glycans driving cancer pathogenesis.

Michael Meanwell

About Michael Meanwell

Michael completed his PhD studies in organic chemistry at Simon Fraser University under the supervision of Professor Robert Britton where he worked on C-H functionalization, organocatalysis, and glycoside synthesis. Michael continued his training as a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow in the laboratories of Professor Phil Baran at the Scripps Research Institute working on electrocatalysis and natural product synthesis. Dr. Meanwell began his independent career in July 2022 as the Manley and Marian Johnston Professor in Chemistry. His current research interests include synthetic methods, glycoside synthesis, medicinal chemistry, and natural product synthesis.

Marek Michalak

About Marek Michalak

Dr. M. Michalak is a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, University of Alberta, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. After completion of his MSc degree in Cell Biology at the University of Warsaw he obtained a PhD degree in Biochemistry from the Nencki Institute for Experimental Biology, Warsaw, Poland. He served as Chair of the Department of Biochemistry from 2005-2009 and as a Vice-Dean (Research), Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry (2009-2013). He has been recognized by numerous prestigious distinctions including the University Cup, which is among the highest honours that the University of Alberta confers on its faculty members, a Canada Institutes for Health Research Scholar, Scientist and Senior Scientist.

His lab’s research interests are in the areas of molecular chaperones, protein folding, regulation of calcium homeostasis and role of glycan in cancer. His research group established a role for membranes associated molecular lectin-like chaperones in heart and neuronal human diseases. They study the role of lectin-like chaperone and cellular signalling and synthesis, folding and posttranslational modification of glycoprotein substrates. Recent work is also focused on the role of fructose transporter in cancer growth, metastatic behaviour and its impact of glycan processing in cancer cells. Their work provides insights into mechanisms and interventional strategies for protein folding disorders and cancer. They have published over 300 peer-review papers.

Ravin Narain

About Ravin Narain

Ravin Narain, PhD, PEng, FRSC is a Professor in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, University of Alberta, Canada. Prof. Narain has made significant contributions to research on the design, fabrication, and characterization of novel carbohydrate based materials (glycopolymers, hydrogels and nanomaterials) for a wide range of applications. His research has also covered biomaterials, nanomedicine and regenerative medicine, with an emphasis on developing advanced materials as cancer therapeutics, anti-fouling and anti-microbial uses, and cell/tissue engineering advances. He has published over 180 articles in peer-reviewed and high impact journals and has edited several books, namely Engineered Carbohydrate-Based Materials for Biomedical Applications (Wiley), Chemistry of Bioconjugates (Wiley), Glycopolymers: Synthesis and Applications (Smithers & Rapra), and Polymers and Nanomaterials for Gene Therapy (Woodhead Publishing & Elsevier). He was section editor for the second edition of the book – Comprehensive Glycoscience (Elsevier). He is also on the Editorial Board for Frontiers in Chemistry (Polymer Chemistry), Polymer Chemistry (RSC), Biomacromolecules (ACS) and Polymers (MDPI). He was the recipient for a Distinguished Visiting Scientist Award from CSIRO (Manufacturing), Melbourne, Australia (2017-2018).

Jason Plemel

About Jason Plemel

Dr. Jason Plemel is a Canada Research Chair in Glial Neuroimmunology and Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Neurology, Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry. His laboratory investigates microglia – our brain and spinal cord’s primary immune cells – and the role they play during regeneration and injury to white matter in multiple sclerosis (MS), a disorder where our immune system attacks our central nervous system. Microglia are part of a larger family of cells called glia, which we now know are vitally important to the health and wellness of the brain and spinal cord. His lab is making strides to understand how these microglia are both critical for white matter regeneration, but also contributing to white matter injury. They are working to understand the mechanisms of cell death and white matter degeneration, as well as the complex immune response following white matter injury. In addition to helping people with MS, Dr. Plemel’s discoveries could also help people with other central nervous system diseases.

Chris Power

Simonetta Sipione

About Simonetta Sipione

Simonetta Sipione is a neurobiologist and a professor in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Alberta. Her laboratory focuses on the role of glycolipids, in particular gangliosides, in brain health and disease. Work in the Sipione Lab has led to the identification of gangliosides as important players in the pathogenesis of Huntington’s disease (HD), a genetic neurodegenerative disorder, and to the discovery that restoring normal ganglioside levels has therapeutic effects in HD animal models. The Sipione Lab is also investigating novel functions of gangliosides in misfolded protein diseases and in neuroinflammation.

Warren Wakarchuk

About Warren Wakarchuk

Dr. Warren Wakarchuk received his PhD degree in Microbiology from the University of British Columbia. He was a Research Officer at the National Research Council Canada for 19 years, before taking a position in 2012 as Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biology at Ryerson University in Toronto (now known as Toronto Metropolitan University). He was Chair of the Department from 2016-2019. The Wakarchuk Lab relocated to the University of Alberta in 2019 where he was recruited as the next scientific director of GlycoNet. At the University of Alberta, he is a Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences. Within GlycoNet, he is on the research management committee, helped to form the EDI committee and was part of the renewal application team for the second GlycoNet funding cycle. He became scientific director in November of 2020. The Wakarchuk Lab investigates the structure and function of the enzymes which make and degrade various glycoconjugates. This work has been enabling the chemo-enzymatic synthesis of bioactive glycoconjugates both in the laboratory and for industrial projects. Currently the lab is using synthetic biology to examine O-glycan biosynthesis on therapeutic proteins. In collaboration with colleagues, he has contributed to several firsts in the field, among them being cloning and characterization of the first bacterial sialyltransferase, structure determination of the first sialyltransferase from any source as well the structure determination of the first mammalian sialyltransferase. Google Scholar reports 11180 total citations from 140 publications, an h-index of 62, and i10-index of 137.

Fred West

About Frederick West

Frederick West is a professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Alberta, working in the fields of organic and medicinal chemistry and chemical biology. Research in the West group includes novel reactive intermediates, new catalytic processes, antiviral drugs, and cancer therapeutics and imaging agents. In the glycoscience space, the group has a longstanding focus on small molecules targeting facilitated hexose transporter proteins (GLUTs), which have relevance in cancer, immunology, and metabolic disorders. Professor West received his BSc at the University of Arizona, his PhD at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and was an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow at Columbia University. He has previously served as Interim Chair of Chemistry, Co-Director of the Cancer Institute of Northern Alberta, and Vice Dean of Science. He is currently the Acting Dean of Science, and holds the Allard Research Chair in Oncology.

Lori West

Ben Willing

About Ben Willing

Dr. Ben Willing is an Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in the Microbiology of Nutrigenomics at the University of Alberta. He has made important contributions in the understanding of microbes in intestinal development, inflammatory bowel disease, infection resistance, and metabolic health. His research group is working to understand both fundamental and applied questions in gut microbiology. Fundamental research includes identifying mechanisms through which specific core members of the microbiome regulate host physiology using germfree rodent and piglet models. Applied questions include utilizing diet and microbiome to shape immune development to support resistance to enteric pathogens and general disease resilience. He is particularly interested in the role that glycans play in microbe-host interactions in the intestinal tract.

Lisa Willis

About Lisa Willis

Dr. Willis received her BSc in Biochemistry from the University of Victoria and PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology in the lab of Dr. Chris Whitfield at the University of Guelph. She did her postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Mark Nitz in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Toronto, where she received the prestigious Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship. In 2019, she started as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Alberta, where she is also an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology. In 2018 she founded InclusiveSTEM, a literature-based and data-driven framework for improving the participation and lived experiences of people from marginalized groups in STEM.

Stephanie Yanow

About Stephanie Yanow

Dr. Yanow is a Professor in Global Health within the School of Public Health and cross-appointed in the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Alberta. She trained at McGill, University College London (PhD), and Caltech. She spent 8 years working at the Alberta ProvLab in diagnostics and in 2015 became a full faculty member in the School of Public Health. She leads a research program focused on malaria in pregnancy. Together with her partners in Uganda, Colombia, Brazil, the US and Australia, she is developing a novel vaccine approach to protect pregnant women in Africa from the devastating consequences of malaria infection. Another major area of interest is to study the cellular and molecular host-parasite interactions that mediate the pathophysiology of placental malaria.

Trainees

Fatima Afkhami

Ako Azimi

About Ako Azimi

Ako graduated from Tabriz University of Medical Sciences in Medical Laboratory Sciences and received his Master’s degree in hematology from the same university. He joined Dr. Elahi’s lab as a PhD student in 2021. Currently, he is investigating the role of CD71+ erythroid progenitor cells on the progression of murine models of triple negative breast cancer as his PhD projrct.

Tigist Batu

About Tigist Batu

Tigist is originally from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. She graduated from Addis Ababa University (AAU) in Applied Chemistry (BSc) and received her Master’s degree (MSc) in Medical Biochemistry from the same university. Tigist joined Dr. Mahal’s research group as a PhD student at the U of A in 2020. Her current research focuses on studying the role of glycans in immunity and the identification of enzymes involved in glycan binding to lectins via CRISPER/cas9 Editing.

Duong Bui

About Duong Bui

Duong joined the Klassen group and Mahal lab on a joint PhD project in 2020. Duong received her BSc with honors in Chemistry from Belgorod State National Research University, Russia in 2016 and MSc Analytical Chemistry from Tartu University, Estonia and Uppsala University, Sweden in 2018. Duong is working on developing mass spectrometry methods for detection and quantification of protein-glycan/ glycan conjugate interactions.

Helia Dehghan Harati

About Helia Dehghan Harati

Helia is a PhD student who joined the Mahal Lab in September 2019. She received her Bachelor of Science in Applied Chemistry from Khajeh Nasir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran. She also received a Master of Science in Phytochemistry (semisynthesis of natural products) from Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran. She is currently working on the regulation of O-glycans.

Daniel Ferrer Vinals

About Daniel Ferrer Vinals

Daniel completed his PhD degree in chemical biology at University of Alberta under the mentoring of Professor Ratmir Derda, where he worked on the development, characterization and screening of chemically modified libraries of glycopeptides, displayed on bacteriophages. Dr. Daniel continued his education as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Professor Stephanie Yanow at the University of Alberta. His current research interests includes the design of peptide-based vaccines using peptide array screenings, peptide chemistry, and structural biology tools.

Uwa Iyamu

About Uwa Iyamu

Uwa Iyamu is a third-year doctoral student in Dr. Stephanie Yanow’s laboratory at the School of Public Health. He completed his bachelor’s in Biochemistry at the University of Benin, Nigeria, and a master’s in Biomedical and Health Science at Monash University, Australia. His master’s research project on serological cross-reactivity among Plasmodium proteins led to his current focus on placental malaria and understanding the mechanism that underlies cross-species immunity in malaria. More so, he is looking at the interaction between a Plasmodium protein with the placental glycosaminoglycan, chondroitin sulphate A.

Faezeh Jamechenarboo

About Faezeh Jamechenarboo

A native of Iran, Faezeh Jame-Chenarboo received a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from the Alzahra University of Tehran and a Master’s degree in Chemistry from the Medicinal Plants and Drugs Research Institute at Shahid Beheshti University. She joined the Mahal Lab in September 2019 as a PhD student and is currently working on the regulation of sialylation.

Jung Ah Kim

About Jung Ah Kim

Jung Ah (Kim) joined the Mahal lab as a PhD student in February 2023. She received her BSc in chemistry from Angelo State University, Texas, U.S. Then she received her master’s degree in organic synthesis in Chemical and Biochemical engineering from Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea. She is currently working on lectin microarray analysis.

Payton LeBlanc

About Payton LeBlanc

Payton is currently a masters student in the Yanow Lab in the Department of Medical Microbiology & Immunology. She received her BSc. in 2023 from the University of Alberta and her project is focusing on the development of peptide decorated antigenic liposomes as potential vaccine candidates against placental malaria.

Xinghai Liu

About Xinghai Liu

Xinghai is a PhD student who joined the Mahal Lab in September 2020. He received his Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from the University of Alberta. He is currently working on the mechanism study of regulating miRNA.

Kristin Low

About Kristin Low

Kristin completed her PhD at Queen’s University in 2014 in Biochemistry. She joined Dr. Lynne Howell’s lab at SickKids in Toronto, ON for a postdoctoral fellowship working on bacterial exopolysaccharide biosynthetic machinery. She then joined Dr. Wade Abbott’s group at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in Lethbridge, AB in 2018 for a second postdoctoral fellowship, and has stayed on since as the senior research assistant. Her research focuses on carbohydrate-active enzyme discovery and characterization, and agricultural glycomics.

Sogand Makhsous

Niloufar Mir Fallah

About Niloufar Mir Fallah

Niloufar joined Mahal lab as a PhD student in September 2022. She received her BSc with honours in Chemistry and Master of Science in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran. She is currently working on lectin microarray analysis.

Ifthiha Mohideen

About Ifthiha Mohideen

Ifthiha is a postdoctoral fellow who joined the Mahal Lab in October 2021. She completed her PhD in Biology at Concordia University, Montreal in the summer of 2021. During her PhD, she worked in the lab of Dr. David Kwan, where she focused on researching and harnessing the substrate flexibility of enzymes involved in natural product glycosylation towards better therapeutics. Before joining Concordia, she obtained her BSc (Honors) in Plant Biotechnology from the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. She is currently working on lectin microarray analysis.

John Monyror

Dinithi Rajapaksha

Ken Reyes

About Ken Reyes

Ken is a graduate student in the Sipione lab at the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Alberta. Ken graduated with a BSc. with Specialization in Biochemistry. His project revolves around how lipids and glycolipids in the cell modulate inflammation in protein-misfolding diseases, specifically Huntington’s disease.

Stephanie Stitt

About Stephanie Stitt

Stephanie obtained her Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences from the University of Alberta in 2020. She joined the Mahal Lab in February of 2021 and fills a role as laboratory support staff.

Our Commitment to Diversity

Members

Trainees

Have questions or feedback?

CANADA EXCELLENCE RESEARCH CHAIR

Our Commitment to Diversity

Members

Wade Abbott

Chris Cairo

Ratmir Derda

Shokrollah Elahi

Denise Hemmings

John Klassen

Joanne Lemieux

Matthew Macauley

Lara Mahal

Michael Meanwell

Marek Michalak

Ravin Narain

Jason Plemel

Chris Power

Simonetta Sipione

Warren Wakarchuk

Fred West

Lori West

Ben Willing

Lisa Willis

Stephanie Yanow

Trainees

Fatima Afkhami

Ako Azimi

Tigist Batu

Duong Bui

Helia Dehghan Harati

Daniel Ferrer Vinals

Uwa Iyamu

Faezeh Jamechenarboo

Jung Ah Kim

Payton LeBlanc

Xinghai Liu

Kristin Low

Sogand Makhsous

Niloufar Mir Fallah

Ifthiha Mohideen

John Monyror

Dinithi Rajapaksha

Ken Reyes

Stephanie Stitt

CK Wong

Have questions or feedback?

CANADA EXCELLENCE RESEARCH CHAIR