What is your favourite enzyme, and why?

RNA polymerase II, because it’s so central to life, interfaces between DNA and RNA, and is the platform for so many of the interactions that make transcription and functional mRNA production possible.

 

My favourite protein that is not an enzyme is FACT, a highly conserved heterodimer that our lab discovered. FACT modulates the association of histone H2A-H2B heterodimers with the nucleosome, and is essential for life.

 

What is your favourite book?

For the most part, my favourite book is the one I’m reading at the time.

 

What is the most recent book you’ve read?

Most recent book (still reading it) is The Cubs Way, by Tom Verducci. Prior to that I have read One Plus One Makes One by our own John Archibald and The Emperor of All Maladies: a Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee.

 

What is your favourite amino acid, and why?

Lysine, whose long sidechain always pokes through to the outside of a folded polypeptide (and thus is in on the action), and which is so central to protein function through modifications such as acetylation, methylation, and ubiquitination.

 

What are some of your hobbies?

Sports, at low levels. Played competitive tennis at the provincial level for several years, and recreational hockey (at a very low level) until recently. Also coached a bit of minor baseball.

 

What is your dream vacation?

Spending time anywhere warm!

 

What is the coolest project you’ve ever worked on?

No single investigation, but in general using the powerful genetic and molecular facility of budding-yeast model system to learn about cell-cycle regulation, vesicular transport, and transcription in the chromatin environment.

 

What’s the biggest mistake you’ve made in lab?

Too many to remember, but none too critical in the long term.

 

Do you have any advice or anything else you want to say?

What you do in Honours year doesn’t determine your research career: same with graduate work, and the same even with a post doc. I would be open to doing graduate work somewhere else, if only for the breadth of experience.