Mellissa defended her MSc on Baits enriched transcriptomics to study the zebrafish defensome on February 24th! Her project has been an idea for a long time, but required the right person to bring it to fruition! Baits enriched transcriptomics allows us to specifically target and sequence the 500-600 genes involved in chemical defence, allowing Mellissa to examine the sex- and tissue- specific expression of genes in liver, gill, intestine and kidney. Her project gives us an exciting dataset to explore differences in gene expression for tissues that are critical for toxicokinetics. For example, the gill is in direct contact with the external environment and an important organ for uptake of water soluble chemicals while the intestine will be the site of uptake for more lipophilic chemicals coming through the diet. The liver is the most important organ for chemical metabolism and the kidney and intestine both contribute to chemical excretion, through the urine and feces. Mellissa received lots of high praise at her defence, for a great written thesis, clear presentation and awesome defence. One committee member said she has some of the cleanest sequencing data they have ever seen! High praise. Her lab mates made her a themed cake to celebrate – a strepavadin magnetic bead holding on to the baits transcripts. Congratulations Mellissa!

Mellissa is now working in the lab, focused on publishing manuscripts from her MSc and completing a project on molecular docking with CYP1A. The molecular docking work was started in her MSc, with a Michael Smith foreign study supplement to her NSERC CGS-M, in collaboration with Dr. Jared Goldstone at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. I’m so glad we have some time to see that work completed.