BIOCAPS Spotlight: Dr. Eden Fussner-Dupas
BIOCAPS Spotlight: Dr. Eden Fussner-Dupas
Assistant Professor of Teaching
This month’s BIOCAPS Spotlight is on Dr. Eden Fossner-Dupas, our newest faculty member!
Tell us about your background and how you got to where you are today.
I completed my PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Toronto in the lab of Dr. David Bazett-Jones. I had the very good fortune to have an excellent supervisor and landed a fantastic project. We used a specialized type of electron microscopy and combined it with tomography in order to *see* our genome – beautiful 10-nm chromatin fibres inside the cell in three dimensions for the first time. I then went on to two postdocs, one in the lab of the late Dr. Anthony Pawson where I studied protein phase transition and the second in a very young lab of a mathematician where we looked at the pathways involved in regulating both cell size and cell cycle – here I overcame my fear of computers and picked up some invaluable tools for image processing. Throughout all these fun years of working at the bench I was incredibly fortunate to have advisors who really valued and supported my passion for teaching. I was a teaching assistant throughout grad school and had the opportunity to be course coordinator for a lab course at U of T during my postdoc fellowship. I turned towards the classroom entirely a few years ago – and have been enjoying it ever since – initially at the University of Toronto in the Department of Biochemistry, last year at TMU (formerly Ryerson) in the Faculty of Science and now here in the awesome Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at UBC.
What course will you be teaching this fall/winter?
I’ll be teaching BIOC302 this year, it’s a course designed for students from diverse backgrounds in science and expands their understanding of metabolism and introduces them into the world of molecular biology.
What excites you most about teaching university students?
I really enjoy sharing my passion for science and letting students in on the absolute beauty of the molecular world. I enjoy watching students grapple with and then grasp difficult concepts and cheering them on through the challenge that is an undergraduate experience in the sciences.
What are you most looking forward to living in BC?
Everything. Being a part of such a vibrant and interesting Department filled to the brim with outstanding science and teaching. And more broadly just about the environment here – honestly, coming from Toronto, it seems like Disneyland here on the UBC campus. Everything is gorgeous. The mountains, sea air, forests – it still seems surreal.
What do you enjoy outside of work.
Easy answer; I love spending time with my family. My partner and I have two great kids. Our oldest is at the moment really into Pokémon and Minecraft and the little guy likes “swimming” aka wading into the ocean up to his belly and leaping over the small waves.
Message to everyone
We’ve all just arrived in Vancouver a few weeks ago and welcome new friends. Come say hello.
Dr. Miffy Cheng Receives the 2022 Michael John Page Postdoctoral Fellow Award
Congratulations! Dr. Miffy Cheng in the Dr. Cullis Lab has received the 2022 Michael John Page Postdoctoral Fellow Award.
Join Dr. Cheng for her presentation: Passing the shuttlecock around: How the bounces in
my career helped me to achieve science excellency
Thursday October 6, 1:00 – 2:00pm at LSC 3 and on Zoom (To receive Zoom information, contact Kristine Ho kristine.ho@ubc.ca )
Abstract: We don’t often associate science with a sport like badminton, but they surprisingly have a lot in common. In this talk, I will share how those two aspects of my life have taken me from place to place, allowing me to meet new people, establish lifelong friendships and explore new ideas. As well as my scientific journey that has allowed me to transition from being a porphyrin chemist to becoming a transdisciplinary nanomedicine scientist. Lastly, I would like to highlight my current research in siRNA and mRNA delivery using lipid nanoparticles, a revolutionary technology developed here at UBC that is now recognized by many.
About Michael John Page Postdoctoral Fellow Award
The Michael John Page Postdoctoral Fellow Award recognizes a Postdoctoral Fellow who reflects Dr. Page’s academic excellence and his passion for life.
Michael John Page was born and raised in Thunder Bay, Ontario where he graduated from the Port Arthur Collegiate in 1994. Mike then attended Carleton University in Ottawa graduating with his B.Sc. degree in biochemistry in 1998. Mike entered the UBC Biochemistry & Molecular Biology graduate program under Ross MacGillivray’s supervision and supported by competitive graduate studentships from Canadian Blood Services. During his time in the MacGillivray lab, Mike designed, created and hosted the first web site for the UBC Centre for Blood Research. Mike successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis entitled Bioengineering coagulation factor Xa substrate specificity into Streptomyces griseus trypsin in 2004. During his graduate studies, his fellow graduate students recognized Mike’s achievements by selecting him for the 2001 Zbarsky Prize. Dr. Page then completed a highly productive postdoctoral fellowship studying the biological activity of thrombin with Dr. Enrico Di Cera at Washington University in St. Louis. In 2010, Mike moved to a junior faculty position at the University of California, San Francisco supported by a grant from the American Heart Association and mentored by Dr. Charles Craik. At UCSF, Michael developed a peptide-based probe that was able to detect blood clots in real time. He and his team won a major biochemical entrepreneurship competition that also stimulated him to patent his discovery and to form a spin-off company called Biopaint Inc. Tragically, Mike collapsed and died suddenly in June 2013 at age 36. In addition to Mike’s sustained academic success, he was well-liked by his peers and friends. As one colleague describes him:
Mike was the essential glue in keeping our group coherent during grad school and made those years so memorable for all of us.
After his arrival in Vancouver in 1998, Mike hosted the annual biochemistry hockey tournament in Vancouver and whether in Vancouver, St. Louis or San Francisco, he continued to host the tournament and to maintain his support for his beloved Vancouver Canucks hockey team. Mike was always there to help and support his colleagues. Mike was a great guy who was fun to be around – he really had a passion for life. As one of his graduate student colleagues recalls:
Mike had an endless excitement and drive for science, sports and life in general and he shared all of those interests with his friends
Find the Past winners
Awards Highlight 2021-2022: Dr. Pieter Cullis
Dr. Pieter Cullis, a professor in the department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, has been honoured with a number of prestigious awards and prizes for his contributions to the development of COVID-19 messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines. Below is a collection of his achievements, prizes and awards.
The 2022 Bloom Burton Award
The Bloom Burton Award honours an individual scientist, inventor, executive, entrepreneur, industry leader, or policy maker who made the greatest contribution to Canada’s innovative healthcare industry in the previous year. Nominees were accepted from any of the biotechnology, pharmaceutical, medical device, diagnostic/imaging, research instrumentation, consumer health, services or healthcare IT sectors, and equal consideration was given to contributions across any stage of development – from discovery to commercial-end markets.
Read the full announcement in the Bloom Burton & Co. Website.
WATCH: Dr. Cullis discusses how LNPs ended up accelerating mRNA vaccine development against COVID19 in this video from Bloom Burton.
Life Sciences BC Global Impact Award 2022
LSBC awards recognize the achievements of individuals, companies, and organizations that have had success in advancing successful health innovations and contribute to BC’s life sciences ecosystem.
Read the full article in the LSI Website and full details about this award in the Life Sciences BC Website.
2022 Tang Prize
Dr. Pieter Cullis has been awarded the 2022 Tang Prize in Biopharmaceutical Science for his work developing the lipid nanoparticle technology that enabled mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines.
The Tang Prize recognizes biomedical research that has led to significant advances in human health by helping prevent, diagnose or treat major diseases. Winners are selected by a committee of internationally-renowned experts and several past recipients have gone on to receive the Nobel Prize.
Read the full article in the Faculty of Medicine Website.
2022 Canada Gairdner Award laureate
In April 2022, Dr. Cullis named a 2022 Canada Gairdner International Award laureate, alongside Dr. Katalin Karikó, senior vice president of RNA Protein Replacement Therapies at BioNTech SE and a professor at the University of Szeged and Dr. Drew Weissman, director of the Penn Institute for RNA Innovation at the University of Pennsylvania.
The Gairdner Awards annually recognize scientists whose discoveries have had a major impact on biomedical and global health research. The highly prized accolade is known to foreshadow further recognition: Many Gairdner laureates have gone on to receive the Nobel Prize.
Read the full article here.
Gairdner Awards 2022 Announcement
2022 Governor General’s Innovation Award
Lipid Nanoparticle Team, Dr. Pieter Cullis, Dr. Michael Hope, and Dr. Thomas Madden received 2022 Governor General’s Innovation Award in April 2022. The objectives of the Governor General’s Innovation Awards are to celebrate excellence in innovation across all sectors of Canadian society and inspire Canadians, particularly Canadian youth, to be entrepreneurial innovators.
Read the full article in the LSI website.
Governor General Innovation Awards website
2021 Prince Mahidol Award
Dr. Cullis, together with his peers Drs Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman, was awarded with the 2021 Prince Mahidol Award in November 2021. The annual Prince Mahidol Award recognizes outstanding achievements in medicine and public health worldwide. The award is conferred by the Prince Mahidol Award Foundation, founded by the Thai Royal Family in 1992. The 2021 awardees were selected out of a pool of 86 nominations from 35 countries.
Read about the 2021 Prince Mahidol Award in NMIN Nano News.
Watch the news in NBT WORLD and Prince Mahidol Award Channel.
Camurus Lipid Science Prize
Dr. Cullis and Dr. Katalin Karikó (University of Pennsylvania, BioNTech) were awarded the 2021 and 2022 Lipid Science Prize on April 4 by the independent research foundation Camurus Lipid Research Foundation at a symposium and prize ceremony in Lund, Sweden.
Read about the 2021 and 2022 Lipid Science Prize in the LSI website.
Appointment as an Officer to the Order of Canada
In December 2021, Dr. Cullis was named among the new Officers, in recognition of his contributions to the advancement of biomedical research and drug development, and for his mentorship of the next generation of scientists and entrepreneurs.
Read the full article in the LSI website.
Link to the official announcement from the the Governor General of Canada
Read more articles & watch interviews featuring Dr. Cullis:
- Research2Reality, November 2022
- Prince Mahidol Award Conference, January 2022
- Prince Mahidol Award Conference (Group Interview) January 2022
- The Globe and Mail, November 2021
- Nature online, September 2021
- UBC’s Beyond, June 2021
- CBC Radio, June 2021
- UBC News, April 2021