Dr. Robert Harkness
Principal Investigator
Dr. Harkness obtained his B. Sc. in Biochemistry at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. Subsequent graduate studies leading to a Ph. D. in Physical Chemistry and Biophysics were carried out under the supervision of Professor Anthony Mittermaier in the Department of Chemistry at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. Dr. Harkness’ Ph. D. thesis centered on the study of the dynamics and self-assembly landscapes of nucleic acid structures. Notable systems of interest were G-quadruplexes and i-motifs involved in regulating gene expression and in genome instability, drug binding aptamers, and self-assembling polyadenine-cyanuric acid fibers. With a Bionanomachines Doctoral Scholarship, Dr. Harkness spent time during his Ph. D. at the Frontier Institute for Biomolecular Engineering Research (FIBER) in Kobe, Japan as a visiting scholar where he studied nucleic acid biophysics in Dr. Naoki Sugimoto’s group.
Following his doctoral work, Dr. Harkness completed his post-doctoral training as a Canadian Institutes of Health Research and SickKids Restracomp Fellow in the laboratory of Professor Lewis Kay at the University of Toronto. He studied the molecular mechanisms regulating the formation and activation of supramolecular protein “machines” using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and complementary biophysical techniques. Major areas of study included structure-dynamics-function relationships in proteases from the HtrA family that help to regulate protein homeostasis in bacteria and humans, and RNA deadenylases regulating the life cycle of mRNA in eukaryotes.
Aizaz Humayun
MSc Student
In 2019, I started my undergraduate in biochemistry at the University of Guelph. What became clear to me during my studies was the sheer importance of protein structures and protein dynamics in answering biological issues. Despite this significance, most proteins known to us have not had their structural dynamics characterized. As a result, I became more interested in the biophysical techniques associated with exploring these. This led me to start my Master's in the Harkness lab, where I'd be fortunate enough to explore these techniques and methodologies.
Jacquelin Ogata-Bean
MSc Student
Co-supervised with Dr. Siavash Vahidi
I completed my undergraduate degree in biochemistry here at the University of Guelph. From the beginning of my academic journey, I loved spending time in the lab and knew I wanted to pursue research. Over the course of my studies, I became especially interested in the complex structure-function relationships that allow proteins to carry out their many unique and critical roles in living organisms. Towards the end of my undergraduate, I also fortuitously discovered my keen interest in the use of computational techniques for understanding natural phenomena. Now, as a graduate student, I get to combine both of these passions by using cutting-edge machine-learning tools to probe allosteric modes of regulation in large biomolecular complexes.
Samantha Aberdein
Undergraduate project student
I am a fourth-year undergraduate in Molecular and Cellular Biology. I’m interested in gaining a better understanding of how DNA structure and dynamics impact human health and disease. I hope to use what I learn from this to combat problems in human health such as genetic diseases.
Ayda Madjidi
Undergraduate project student
My name is Ayda, I'm a fourth-year undergraduate student in Molecular Biology and Genetics with a minor in Mathematical Science. I'm interested in working with bioinformatics software to better understand different DNA structures and their functional effects on the genome. I hope to gain experience in bioinformatics programming, as well as a variety of biophysical and biochemical methods for studying DNA structure.