News – The Sleiman Lab

2022:

Congratulations to Dr. Daniel Saliba!

We are glad to welcome Quentin as a new Postdoct in our lab!
We are glad Daniel will continue his work in the lab, now as a postdoc!
Jessica, Trisha and Yihao join the lab, welcome!
Congratulations Dr. Hassan Fakih !

Congratulations Dr. Alex Prinzen !

Congratulations Dr. Xin Luo !

2021:

Congratulations to two new Drs in our lab : Michael Dore and Casey Platnich!
Congratulations Ghufran for obtaining the Vanier Scholarship! We are glad to showcase our 2 Vanier students (Ghufran and Christophe) as well as our Banting Postoct (Felix).
Congratulations to Christophe Lachance-Brais for winning a best talk award at ChemEngChem Research Day 2021!
Paty (joint with Prof Cosa) and Son (joint with Prof McKeague) join the lab! Welcome!

2020:

Congratulations to the newest graduate of the Sleiman lab , Dr. Aurelie Lacroix, who defended her Ph.D so beautifully on November 26th! Great work, Aurelie!
Ghufran won best poster at the 22nd Chemistry and Biochemistry Graduate Research Conference (CBGRC) – Congrats, Ghufran!
Casey, Chris, Xin, and Hassan gave talks at the 1st Annual QCAM Student Symposium, while Ghufran, Aurelie, Shayne, Sean, Daniel, Jath, and Alex presented posters! (Nov 2019)
Hassan and Aurelie represented the Sleiman lab at the Oligonucleotide Therapeutics Society (OTS) conference. Hassan gave a poster titled “Sequence Specific DNA-Polymer Conjugates and Their Applications in Drug Delivery” and Aurelie gave a talk (Nov 2019).
Michael’s book chapter on “Sequence-Defined DNA Amphiphiles for Drug Delivery: Synthesis and Self-Assembly” is now online (Nov 2019)! Check it out!
Casey and Amani have published their paper in Acc. Chem. Res in collaboration with Gonzalo Cosa: “Advancing Wireframe DNA Nanostructures Using Single-Molecule Fluoresence Microscopy Techniques” (Nov 2019). Congrats!
Hassan has been crushing it this year. He’s won the Molson & Hilton Hart Fellowship Award, NSERC CREATE PROMOTE Graduate Award and a travel award for OTS 2019. Congratulations Hassan!
Shayne has been awarded 1st place in the 3-Minute Pitch Competition at the 69th annual Canadian Chemical Engineering Conference in Halifax, NS (Oct 2019).
Felix flies to Amsterdam as a finalist of the 2019 Reaxys PhD Prize (Oct 2019).

Sepideh, Fangzhou, Shaun, and Tyler join the lab – Welcome! (Sept 2019)
Hanadi has published a mini-perspective in Nature Chemistry on the future of DNA nanotechnology. Check it out here: “Charting a course for chemistry”.
Christophe has been received a Vanier Scholarship, Congrats Chris!
Christophe has been awarded the McGill Chemistry Outreach Award for spreading the love of Chemistry… again!
Congrats to Casey, who wins the M.A. Whitehead Prize in Chemistry for her research (May 2019)
Mo, Chris, Felix, and Violeta publish their paper in Nanoscale, entitled “Remote control of charge transport and chiral induction along a DNA-metallohelicate” – Congrats, everyone! (May 2019)
Tuan and Donatien have both passed their PhD defenses with flying colours! Congratulations guys!

Beautiful work from Aurelie, Empar, and Donatien is now published in ACS Central Science: “Uptake and Fate of Fluorescently Labeled DNA Nanostructures in Cellular Environments: A Cautionary Tale” (April 2019)
Casey, Felix, Xin, and Alex present their work at FNANO2019 in Snowbird, Utah!

Felix has been awarded ‘Gadolinium‘ on IUPACs Periodic Table of Younger Chemists (March 2019)!
Congratulations to Hassan, Johans, and Danny on the publication of their paper “Minimalist Design of a Stimuli-Responsive Spherical Nucleic Acid for Conditional Delivery of Oligonucleotide Therapeutics” published in ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces! (Feb 2019)

2018:

2018 closes with the Departmental Christmas Party!

Christophe has been awarded the McGill Chemistry Outreach Award for spreading the love of Chemistry!
Casey Platnich, Amani Hariri, and Janane Rahbani publish their paper “Kinetics of Strand Displacement and Hybridization on Wireframe DNA Nanostructures: Dissecting the Roles of Size, Morphology, and Rigidity” in ACS Nano (Dec 2018) in collaboration with Jesse B. Gordon and Prof. Gonzalo Cosa!
Post-doctoral fellow Felix Rizzuto joins the Sleiman lab after completing his PhD at Cambridge University with Prof. Jonathan Nitschke – Welcome, Felix!
Congratulations to Tuan Trinh, Daniel Saliba, Chenyi Liao, Donatien de Rochambeau, Alex Prinzen and Jianing Li on their publication in Angewandte (Oct 2018) ““Printing” DNA Strand Patterns on Small Molecules with Control of Valency, Directionality and Sequence” – Congrats, everyone!
Graduate students Sean Laxton and Jathavan Asohan join the Sleiman Lab! Welcome Sean and Jath!
Dr. Pongphak Chidchob starts a post-doctoral position at Technische Universiteit Eindhoven – good luck Pongphak!
Congratulations to Michael Dore, Johans Fakhoury, and Aurelie Lacroix on their paper “Templated synthesis of spherical RNA nanoparticles with gene silencing activity” published in Chem Comm! (Sept 2018)
Congratulations to Donatien de Rochambeau for his publication in the Journal of Organic Chemistry, “Modular Strategy To Expand the Chemical Diversity of DNA and Sequence-Controlled Polymers” in collaboration with Yuanye Sun, Maciej Barlog, and Hassan S Bazzi. (August 2018)
Congratulations to Nicole Avakyan on her work in collaboration with Robert Harkness and Anthony Mittermaier on “Mapping the energy landscapes of supramolecular assembly by thermal hysteresis” published in Nature Communications! (August 2018)
Congratulations Pongphak Chidchob on your review published in Current Opinion in Chemical Biology on “Recent advances in DNA nanotechnology“!
Congratulations, Danny Bousmail and Pongphak Chidchob on your paper published in JACS “Cyanine-Mediated DNA Nanofiber Growth with Controlled Dimensionality” (July 2018)
Congratulations, Janane Rahbani, John Hsu, and Pongphak Chidchob on your publication in Nanoscale “Single-stranded templates as railroad tracks for hierarchical assembly of DNA origami” (June 2018)
Check out our review by Katherine Bujold and Aurelie Lacroix, “DNA Nanostructures at the Interface with Biology” published in Chem (March 2018).
Congratulations to Pongphak Chidchob on successfully defending his PhD! Well done, Pongphak! (March 2018)
Congratulations, Janane Rahbani, Empar Vengut-Climent, Pongphak Chidchob and Tuan Trinh for your Adv. Healthcare Mater. publication “DNA Nanotubes with Hydrophobic Environments: Toward New Platforms for Guest Encapsulation and Cellular Delivery” (Jan. 2018), in collaboration with Yasser Gidi and Gonzalo Cosa!

Prior to 2018:

Congratulations, Tuan Trinh, on your Nature Chemistry publication “DNA-imprinted polymer nanoparticles with monodispersity and prescribed DNA strand patterns”! (Dec. 2017) And thank you Violeta Toader, Chenyi Liao, Prof. Jianing Li (U. Vermont), Maciej Barlog and Prof. Hassan Bazzi for this collaboration!
Congratulations, Xin Luo, Pongphak Chidchob and Janane Rahbani on your SMALL publication “Encapsulation of Gold Nanoparticles into DNA Minimal Cages for 3D-Anisotropic Functionalization and Assembly“! (Dec. 2017)

Our review “DNA Nanotechnology” with Ned Seeman is out in Nature Reviews Materials! (Nov. 2017)
Congratulations, Amine Garci, on your JACS publication “Efficient and Rapid Mechanochemical Assembly of Platinum(II) Squares for Guanine Quadruplex Targeting“! (Nov. 2017)
Amine Garci will join Prof. Fraser Stoddart’s group at Northwestern University as a postdoctoral fellow. Congratulations! (Oct. 2017)
Congratulations Janane Rahbani for a successful thesis defense! (Oct. 2017)
Welcome to our undergraduates Alexandra-Carla Bobica, Jian Yin (Sally) Xiao, and Keith Husted! (Sept. 2017)
Welcome, Chris Lachance-Brais (M. Sc. candidate) to our research group! (Sept. 2017)
Congratulations Nicole and Justin for your publication in JACS “Long-Range Ordering of Blunt-Ended DNA Tiles on Supported Lipid Bilayers“! (August 2017)
Congratulations Danny, Johans, Hassan and John for your publication in Chemical Science “Precision spherical nucleic acids for delivery of anticancer drugs”! (July 2017)
Congratulations, Xin on receiving a graduate poster prize at the Canadian Society of Chemistry Meeting! (June 2017)
Congratulations, Pongphak on the selection of your JACS paper “Synergy of Two Assembly Languages in DNA Nanostructures: Self-Assembly of Sequence-Defined Polymers on DNA Cages” to appear in the special issue: “Hot Materials in a Cool Country”, in celebration of the CSC’s 100^th anniversary! (June 2017)
Katherine has been offered a postdoctoral position in the group of Prof. Chad Mirkin at Northwestern University. Congratulations! (June 2017)
Kai has accepted a postdoctoral position in Professor Nam Joon Cho’s group at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Congratulations!
Congratulations, Aurelie and Tom Edwardson, on the new JACS publication: “Development of DNA Nanostructures for High-Affinity Binding to Human Serum Albumin”! (May 2017)
Hanadi was elected as the new Vice-President of the International Society for Nanoscale Science, Computation and Engineering (ISNSCE). She will be its President in 2 years. (April 2017)
Congratulations, Tuan on receiving the Leong Fellowship, given to outstanding students in the Faculty of Science! (March 2017)
Congratulations, Sanchit, on receiving an NSERC USRA fellowship to carry out research in our lab this summer!
Congratulations, Amani, for being awarded the 2016/2017 Carl Winkler Award! This is given annually to the PhD candidate who, upon graduation, is judged to be of outstanding academic excellence. (March 2017)
Hanadi joins the Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of Organic Chemistry
Congratulations, Katherine on your successful PhD defense!
Congratulations Katherine and John on receiving a JACS Spotlight “FOR A THERAPEUTIC TRIP, PACK A NANOSUITCASE” for their recent JACS paper! jacs%2e6b11489
Our paper “Optimized DNA “Nanosuitcases” for Encapsulation and Conditional Release of siRNA” by Katherine Bujold and John Hsu appears in J. Am. Chem. Soc.
Our paper “DNA micelles as nanoreactors: efficient DNA functionalization with hydrophobic organic molecules“, by Tuan Trinh, Pongphak Chidchob and H. Bazzi appears in Chem. Comm.
Welcome, Albert Daubry, to our lab as a visiting Master’s student from EPFL!
Welcome, Hammond Sun to our lab for your Chem 396 research project!
Welcome, Hassan Fakih, John Hsu, Daniel Saliba, and Kamila Mustafina as MSc and PhD students to our group!
Congratulations, Amani Hariri, for successfully defending your PhD! Amani will be a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University with Prof. Tom Soh.
Our paper “Minimalist Approach to Complexity: Templating the Assembly of DNA Tile Structures with Sequentially Grown Input Strands“, by Kai Lin Lau, appears in ACS Nano.
Our paper ” “DNA-Teflon” sequence-controlled polymers” by Donatien, Maciej, Tom, Johans, Dr. Robin Stein, and Dr. Hassan Bazzi appears in Polymer Chemistry.
Congratulations, Nicole, on winning the ‘Etudiant-Chercheur Etoile’ Prize from the FQRNT, for the paper “Reprogramming the assembly of unmodified DNA with a small molecule“!
Using DNA as a printing press to create nanostructures | The Chemical Institute of Canada: Our paper in Nature Chemistry, “Transfer of molecular recognition information from DNA nanostructures to gold nanoparticles”, by Tom, Kai, Danny and Chris S. highlighted in Canadian Chemical News.
Our paper “Synergy of Two Assembly Languages in DNA Nanostructures: Self-Assembly of Sequence-Defined Polymers on DNA Cages” by Pongphak Chidchob and Tom Edwardson appears in JACS.
Congratulations, Aurelie, for winning one of the 3 prizes in the McGill 3MT competition (3 minute-thesis)!!! The title of her talk is: “Ciblage thérapeutique avec des cages d’ADN”. Aurélie will defend McGill’s colors at the upcoming Quebec wide competition. Aurélie’s presentation is available at the minute 41 of this video.
Our paper “Reprogramming the assembly of unmodified DNA with a small molecule“, by Nicole Avakyan, Andrea Greschner, Faisal Aldaye, Violeta Toader, Dr. Anne Petitjean, appears in Nature Chemistry. See media coverage here.
Our paper “Transfer of molecular recognition information from DNA nanostructures to gold nanoparticles,” appears in Nature Chemistry (link: http://www.nature.com/nchem/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nchem.2420.html). The authors are: Tom Edwardson, Kai Lau, Danny Bousmail, Chris Serpell and Hanadi Sleiman. See media coverage here.
Amine Garci joined our lab as a Swiss National Foundation postdoctoral fellow. Welcome!
Our paper: “Dynamic DNA Nanotubes: Reversible Switching between Single and Double-Stranded Forms, and Effect of Base Deletions” appears in ACS Nano (link: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acsnano.5b04387). The authors are: Janane Rahbani, Amani Hariri, Gonzalo Cosa and H. Sleiman.
Our paper: “Antisense precision polymer micelles require less poly(ethylenimine) for efficient gene knockdown” appears in Nanoscale (link: http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2015/nr/c5nr05157f#!divAbstract) ; the authors are: Johans Fakhoury, Tom Edwardson, Justin Conway, Tuan Trinh, Farhad Khan, Maciej Barlog, Hassan Bazzi and H. Sleiman.
Justin Conway started a Research Scientist position at the company IntelgenX in Montreal. Congratulations!
Mohammad Askari joined the research group as an NSERC postdoctoral fellow. Welcome!
Alex Prinzen, Xin Luo and Casey Platnich join the research group as new graduate students. Welcome!
Congratulations, Justin, on successfully defending your Ph.D. thesis!
Tom Edwardson moved to ETH Zurich as a postdoc in Prof. Don Hilvert’s group. Congratulations and good luck!
Graham and Janane’s paper, “Sequential growth of long DNA strands with user-defined patterns for nanostructures
and scaffolds” appears in Nature Communications. See media coverage here.
Amani and Graham’s paper, “Stepwise growth of surface-grafted DNA nanotubes visualized at the single-molecule level” appears in Nature Chemistry. This work is in collaboration with Prof. Gonzalo Cosa. See media coverage here.
Fiora, Andrea, Dowine and Kai’s paper, in collaboration with the Mauzeroll group appears in Langmuir.
Glenn Li joins our lab as an undergraduate Chem. 396 student. Welcome!
Michael Dore and Tuan Trinh join our lab as graduate students. Welcome!
Dr. Sleiman is the recipient of the 2016 Izatt-Christensen Award in Macrocyclic and Supramolecular Chemistry. She will receive the award at the ISMSC Meeting in Seoul, Korea in July 2016.
Chris, Tom, Pongphak and Karina’s paper in JACS received a JACS Research Spotlight. Congratulations! (http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ja511555b)
Chris, Tom, Pongphak and Karina’s paper entitled: “Precision Polymers and 3D DNA Nanostructures: Emergent Assemblies from New Parameter Space” appears in J. Am. Chem. Soc.
Congratulations, Katherine for receiving 2nd Best talk award at the CSACS student symposium!
Welcome to our new undergraduate researchers Tolu, John and Kitty!
Welcome to our new graduate students Alex, Aurelie and Donatien!
Justin’s paper entitled “Dynamic Behavior of DNA Cages Anchored on Spherically Supported Lipid Bilayers” appeared in J. Am. Chem. Soc.
Congratulations to Andrea for her new Post-doctoral position at the INRS (Institut national de la recherche scientifique)
Congratulations to Tom for receiving the Pall award from McGill for excellence in graduate research!
Congratulations to Graham for receiving the McGill University D. W. Ambridge Prize, ‘conferred upon an outstanding McGill graduate receiving a Doctoral degree in 2013-2014 in Physical Sciences or Engineering, in recognition of exemplary academic record, thesis excellence and research significance’!
Congratulations to Tom! His paper in Nature Chemistry 2013 entitled “Site-specific positioning of dendritic alkyl chains on DNA cages enables their geometry-dependent self-assembly” was selected as best paper of the year by the Center for Self-Assembled Chemical Structures!
Congratulations to Tom, Chris and Karina! Their paper in Angew. Chem. 2014 was selected as ‘Very Important Paper’ and appeared on the journal cover page!
Congratulations to Graham for receiving an NSERC postdoctoral fellowship!
Congratulations to Andrea for receiving an FQRNT postdoctoral research fellowship!
Congratulations to Graham, Katie and Andrea for the successful defense of their PhD thesis!

News from the Sleiman Lab