It is our immense pleasure to announce this year’s BSC Trainee Awards recipients:
• Adam Yasunaga is the winner of the Trainee Paper Award, for his publication “Quantification of fast molecular adhesion by fluorescence footprinting“.
• Dr. Williams Miranda-Delgado is the winner of the Doctoral Thesis Award, for his dissertation “Uncovering molecular mechanisms in control of cardiac ion channels’ function by combined computer simulations and experiments”.
Heartfelt congratulations to both of them!
Adam Yasunaga
2022 winner of the Trainee Paper Award
Adam is a PhD student at UBC Okanagan working under the supervision of Dr. Isaac Li. “Throughout my time at UBCO, my research has been focused on the development of DNA-based tools for use in mechanobiology and molecular force quantification. My favourite aspect of this research is the ingenuity required to design new DNA-based tools to address existing challenges in the field.”
Williams Miranda-Delgado
2022 winner of the Doctoral Thesis Award
Cardiac arrhythmias are responsible for 80% of sudden cardiac deaths, which accounts for 15% of global mortalities. “My doctoral thesis focuses on membrane-proteins known as ion-channels, which play a critical role in heart arrythmias. Essentially, I used computer simulations to study the molecular mechanisms by which inherited-mutations, cell-membrane components, and commonly prescribed medications affect the function of these channels, leading to cardiac arrythmias. Overall, the new knowledge resulting from my doctoral thesis may help the future development of antiarrhythmic and anticancer therapies and for designing bio-inspired synthetic nanopores with potential industrial applications for water desalination and electricity generation.”
