Join us for Graduate Work and Summer Research with ICE and USRA funding

We welcome you to join our group. Western is really nice place to work at. The campus is beautiful and Chemistry is fully equipped. Living is easy and possible very close to campus. The Stillman lab has one of everything we need - complete recombinant protein production facility; new spectrometers - optical (UV-visible, CD, MCD, emission, ... please continue at the end of this column....

November, 2011

No IDW this year because it was held in August as part of the silicon conference. Martin travels to Taka Kohzuma's lab for a week to finish writing papers from the June experiments (Ibaraki University in Mito, Japan). A quick visit as the teaching term continues.

October, 2011

A quiet month as classes continue. Janice Lee, another old-group member, who isn't - came and visited the lab on the eve of Western's Homecoming. The Thanksgiving Weekend was beautifully warm - photos to come- in Parry Sound.
Martin will give a talk "If grass is green, why isn't blood green?" as part of "The International Year of Chemistry during National Chemistry week" in Philadelphia at Drexel University.
Our chapter in the Handbook of Marine Macroalgae: Biotechnology and Applied Phycology”, is published: Ngu, T.T. and Stillman, M.J. (2011) “Metallation of seaweed Fucus vesiculosus metallothionein: As3+ and Cd2+ binding”. Book edited by prof. Se-Kwon Kim, Wiley, Chichester, UK, Ch. 14., pp 302 – 320.

September, 2011

Classes start again. Martin is teaching Chemistry 4441a - the "Advanced structure and bonding" course. Kyle Jeffs joins the group for his 4th year research project "discovering the optical and theoretical properties of a range of push-pull porphyrins', this is a continuation of Lydia Kwan's project. A collaboration with prof. Hong Wang at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
Kelly Summers is back to finish off the BQ project.

August, 2011

Martin and Duncan participate in ICBIC-13 in Vancouver, spending a week in Vancouver. It doesn't rain! We meet up with old-group member Jayna Chan (well, past-group member - she's not that old!).
Anjan and Martin travel to Montreal for the annual ICE Workshop held at the University of Montreal hosted by Garry Hanan. Photos from ICBIC and Montreal at: www.stillmanbioinorganicconfs2011.shutterfly.com
This brings us to the end of the summer.
Martin moves to Georgian Bay to watch the ducks and prepare for the Fall term.

July, 2011

Martin travels to Nanjing to work in the laboratory of prof. Zhen Shen. He visits the Terracotta Warriors in Xi'An and participates with Zhen Shen and Nagao Kobayashi in the Nanjing Bioinorganic Workshop.
Martin spends a day at Fudan University in Shanghai as a guest of profs. Tao Yi and Fuyou Li and is taken round the Shanghai Urban Museum - a must-see museum in the People's Square. The Air Canada flight is 8 hours late leaving so after the museum he takes a ferry across the Yangtze River to watch sunset over Shanghai. Highly recommended. Pictures at www.stillmanbioinorganicconfs2011.shutterfly.com - check out 'visits to colleagues' labs' section.

June, 2011

CanBIC is over - by all accounts better than -1 in 2007 and -2 in 2009. Beautiful weather. A crammed full programme - find the pictures on shutterfly at:
www.stillmanbioinorganicconfs2011.shutterfly.com

Martin travels to Montreal to take part in the Bioinorganic Symposium at the National Chemical Society of Canada Conference. The symposium organized by Scott Bohle of McGill and featered many CanBIC speakers. Was very nice.
We welcome three students from prof. Taka Kohzuma's lab at Ibaraki University in Mito, Japan.
Tomonori Muroya, Takahide Yamaguchi, and Akiko Takashina. A short report on the Western Faculty of Science News site: www.uwo.ca/sci/news/japan_students.html.

May, 2011

May is filled with preparation for CanBIC and with Lydia graduating.
Also, we welcome Anjan Mahrok from University of Calgary for summer work. Anjan is an ICE Award winner as well as a USRA winner. She is working with Kelly on BQ binding to MT. We welcome Daisy Wong who after helping woth CanBIC will join Duncan Sutherland to study the interactions of some drug molecules with MT - this continues work of Lindsay Jackson.
Our paper in collaboration with prof. Zhen Shen in Nanjing is published:
The synthesis and properties of free-base [14]triphyrin(2.1.1) compounds and the formation of subporphyrinoid metal complexes. Xue ZL, Mack J, Lu H, Zhang L, You XZ, Kuzuhara D, Stillman M, Yamada H, Yamauchi S, Kobayashi N, Shen Z., Chemistry. 2011, 17:4396-407.

April, 2011

The CanBIC conference is only in little over a month now. Over 155 participants. A very full programme. Please go to www.canbic.ca for details takes shape. By the 24th Feb., over 100 registrations had been received. The Local Organizing Committee is hard at work: Mike Tiedemann, Duncan Sutherland, Tyler Pinter, Daisy Wong, Kelly Summers, Tom Stockman, Kalen Swanick and David Stillman. The International Organizing Committee is Martin Stillman, Nagao Kobayashi (Tohoku) and Frank Shaw (Illinois State).
Katie Stillman and Angela Park will provide the music for "Music at CanBIC" during the conference. The participation rate for the conference is ahead of 2009 so it looks like 2011 will be the biggest yet. Join us: May 31st - June 4th in Parry Sound (www.canbic.ca).
“The magic numbers of metallothionein”, is published in Metallomics (Sutherland, D.E.K.; Stillman, M.J. (2011) Metallomics, 3, 444-463) The image of Cd8-MT is featured on the front cover.
pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlepdf/2011/mt/c1mt90018h/2011-05-01?

February, 2011

Reading week has been busy - Lydia's experiments are rolling along with successes at every step: amazing ESI-MS data from the Wang complexes; wonderful MCD data and even the calculations are working.

The CanBIC conference takes shape. By the 24th Feb., over 100 registrations had been received. 86 Invited Speakers had accepted our invitations. The Local Organizing Committee started work: Mike Tiedemann, Duncan Sutherland, Tyler Pinter, Daisy Wong, Kelly Summers, Tom Stockman, Kalen Swanick and David Stillman.
The International Organizing Committee is Martin Stillman, Nagao Kobayashi (Tohoku) and Frank Shaw (Illinois State). Katie Stillman and Angela Park will provide the music for "Music at CanBIC" during the conference. The participation rate for the conference is ahead of 2009 so it looks like 2011 will be the biggest yet. Join us: May 31st - June 4th in Parry Sound (www.canbic.ca). Metallomics accepts our invited critical review: "The Magic Numbers of Metallothionein", by Duncan Sutherland and Martin Stillman.

January, 2011

Martin is teaching "Inorganic macromolecular complexes (MMCs): Advanced structure and bonding", Chem 4441b.

This month was a busy one for new people. Daisy Wong has joined us to help with the CanBIC conference and then work during the summer on Nikosi's phthalocyanine and MT project. Kelly Summers has joined us to work on metal competition studies with metallothioneins. Anjan Mahrok wins a USRA scholarship to study in MJS' lab.

December, 2010

Ms. Anjan Mahrok at the University of Calgary is awarded an Inorganic Chemistry Exchange scholarship (ICE) to work in our lab in the 2011 summer.

The Chemistry 2211a Posters are outstanding as usual. Christmas brings terrible weather.

October, 2010

Summer 2011 projects are available; a new instrument is installed; Fall is really here.

We welcome enquiries for summer 2011 projects from high achieving students in the ICE and MITAC-global programmes.

The Stillman lab offers a large number of exciting summer-long research projects for 2011 in bioninorganic chemistry. Western is a great university to come to - living here is really pleasant in the summer and costs are low. We will train you to use our new state-of-the-art instrumentation and theoretical methods. Current on-going projects involve characterization of novel porphyrins, studies of metallation to metallothioneins, studies of metal exchange between proteins, and studies of the heme-binding proteins in bacteria. We have projects available from metal binding to a range of proteins using ESI-mass spectrometry to porphyrin spectroscopy coupled to theoretical calculations. Please contact Prof. Stillman for more example (martin.stillman@uwo.ca). We look forward to hearing from you.
Our new Bruker micrOTOF-II time-of-flight mass spectrometer is installed - providing enhanced ESI-MS capabilities and much greater sensitivity and resolution. First data looking excellent.

September, 2010

Classes start, new 4th year researchers.

Martin gives an invited lecture at the Japanese Biophysical Society Annual Meeting in Sendai travelling with colleague Prof. Kohzuma from Mito. Martin is teaching "Metals in Life", Chemistry 2211a.

We welcome 4th year students to consider research in our lab on one of the many different topics available - see the 4490 link.

Martin starts teaching Chemistry 2211a "Metals in Life"

Tyler Pinter joins as a new graduate student

Lydia Kwan joins the group for her 4th year research project; Lydia is working on characterizing novel porphyrins from the labs of Drs. Hong Wang (Ohio) and Berhard Krautler (Austria).

Martin gives an invited lecture at the Annual Meeting of the Biophysical Soc of Japan, Sendai, Japan, "Metalloprotein conformations by ESI-mass spectrometry"

August, 2010

Finishing up projects & Mike Dryden and Martin travel to the ICE Workshop in Winnipeg
ICE Workshop, 19-20 August in Winnipeg: Mike Dryden presents a summary of his work on As-MT and Martin presents a lecture "Why isn't blood green".

July, 2010

ICPP-6 in New Mexico

Martin and Mike Tiedemann participate in ICPP-6. Martin is co-organizer of symposia on "Theoretical Methods in Porphyrinoids" (25) and "Spectroscopy in Heme Proteins" (18) and gives an invited talk about Isd proteins. Mike presents a poster on Isd proteins.

June, 2010

Canadian Society of Chemistry National Conference in Toronto
Martin gives a lecture on Metallothioneins in the Bioinorganic Symposium organised by Deborah Zamble (U of T).

May, 2010

A New Summer Research Starts: New faces - New projects

Mike Dryden joins the group as an Inorganic Chemistry Exchange (ICE) scholarship winner to work on As-metallothioneins.

Tyler Pinter joins to carry out summer research on the Isd system.

Lindsay Jackson joins to finish up her work with the RAPTA compounds in collaboration with Angela Casini at EPFL, Lausanne.

April, 2010

Martin gives a lecture in Hong Kong, China

Mechanism of Arsenic Binding to Metallothioneins from Time -and Temperature-Resolved Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry. Unravelling the complete metal binding mechanism for a multiple-metal binding protein, on April, 27th.

Martin gives a lecture at the Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China

Why isn't grass red and blood green? Understanding spectra of macrocyclic compounds: linking absorption and magnetic circular dichroism data of porphyrinoids with theoretical calculations, on April, 25th.

Martin gives lecture at Fudan University, Shanghai, China

Understanding iron acquisition via the Isd proteins in the human pathogen Staphylococcus aureus - studies using magnetic circular dichroism spectroscopy and mass spectrometry. Can we beat the super bug MRSA this way? April, 22nd.

Martin gives lecture in Hangzhou, China

Mechanism of Arsenic Binding to Metallothioneins from Time -and Temperature-Resolved Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry. Unravelling the complete metal binding mechanism for a multiple-metal binding protein, on April, 19th.

Martin gives lecture in Nanjing, China

Why isn't grass red and blood green? Understanding spectra of macrocyclic compounds: linking absorption and magnetic circular dichroism data of porphyrinoids with theoretical calculations, on April, 14th.

Martin gives lecture in Beijing, China

Why isn't grass red and blood green? Understanding spectra of macrocyclic compounds: linking absorption and magnetic circular dichroism data of porphyrinoids with theoretical calculations, on April, 10th.

Martin will visit China for a tour of research labs

Martin will talk on Porphyrins and Metallothioneins in Beijing, Nanjing, Shanghai and Hong Kong

Talk to IBMB at Waterloo

Martin's talk is on the kinetics of As(III) binding to metallothioneins; 3:30 pm on April, 6th.

March, 2010

4th year conference at UWO and 4490-Day

Each of the 4th year students (Sandra, Kristen, Arthur, Tyler) presented talks on their research successes at the annual 4th year research conference held at Western on Saturday, 20th March.

February, 2010

Duncan Sutherland attends Metals in Biology Gordon Conference

Duncan travels to California to attend the Bioinorganic Chemistry Gordon Research Seminar

Martin visits Grenoble & Lausanne

Martin took part in a site visit of the Metals in Biology Research Centre in Grenoble. He also visited EPFL at Lausanne to discuss recent results from Lindsay with Angela Casini and Paul Dyson; finally visits Steve Sturzenbaum at King's College before flying home for the UWO reading Week.

January, 2010

Ibaraki Univ for UV Res Raman and then to Tohoku Univ

Martin travels to Mito in Japan to visit Prof Taka Kohzuma to try out a new experiment on the Cd-clusters in MT with his group. After this Martin travels with Nagao Kobayashi to Ueda and then to Sendai to work in Nagao's lab for 2 weeks.

December, 2009.

End of term and Christmas break

November, 2009.

Visit to Europe

Martin travels to labs in Eindhoven (Merkx), Zurich (Freisinger), Lausanne (Casini & Dyson), King's (Sturzenbaum) and Warwick (Blindauer & Sadler) to give talks and discuss collaborative projects. Martin and Claudia Blindauer run a week-long workshop on Bioinorganic Methods and Ideas in Warwick - "Metals in Life's Processes".

October, 2009.

Nothing happened in October!

September, 2009.

A New Year: New faces - New projects

Tyler Pinter, Arthur Yu, Kristen King and Sandra Krecisz join for their 4th year research projects.

Lindsay Jackson (in 4th year Biology) has joined the group as a research assistant to work on metal binding to metallothioneins. See 2010 for report of her successes with compounds from EPFL.

July, 2009.

ICBIC 14 in Nagoya, Japan

The group travels to Japan.

Martin Stillman, Mike Tiedemann and Duncan Sutherland all travel to Japan to attend ICBIC-14 in Nagoya. Martin gives lectures at the Ibaraki University in MTO (Isd studies), and Tohoku University in Sendai (Isd studies), then at ICBC-14 (As-MT ESI-MS studies) and finally at the post-ICBIC Mito Bioinorganic Symposium (As-MT ESI-MS studies).
Duncan and Mike present posters at ICBIC-14.

June, 2009.

Thanh officially graduates with her Ph.D.

May, 2009.

The Stillman group members organize the 2nd Georgian Bay International Conference on Bioinorganic Chemistry in Parry Sound

Martin is the Conference Chair, with Nagao Kobayashi and Frank Shaw as the organizing committee
John, Duncan, Mike, Janice, Tyler, Carly, Susan H?, David Stillman are the local organizing committee

Our group makes several presentations and posters
Tiedemann, M.T., Muryoi, N., Heinrichs, D.E., Stillman, M.J. “Heme Transfer Pathway in Staphylococcus aureus using Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry and Magnetic Circular Dichroism spectroscopy.”
Hewson, C. J.; Tiedemann, M. T.; Stillman, M. J. “Spectroscopic Properties of Myoglobin as a Function of Axial Ligand.” 
Lee, J.A.; Ngu, T.T.; Rushton, M.K.; Stillman, M.J. “The Arsenic Metallation Pathway in Seaweed Fucus Vesiculosus Metallothionein.” 
Pinter, T.B.J.; Lee, J.A.; Ngu, T.T.; Stillman, M.J. “Domain Dependence of the Arsenic Metalation of Metallothionein.”
Sutherland, D.E.K., Stillman, M.J. “Metallation properties of alpha and beta human metallothioneins.” May, 2009.

Carly Hewson and Tyler Pinter join the group as summer students

April, 2009.

Duncan and Mike receive travel scholarships to attend ICBIC-14 in Nagoya

February, 2009.

Martin goes to South Africa to give two talks

To the Joint JSPS/NRF South Africa Workshop: “Spectroscopic and theoretical studies towards answering the question: Why isn’t grass red and blood green?” 

To the Department of Chemistry, University of Cape Town: “Mechanism of Arsenic(III) binding to Metallothioneins: Time- and temperature-dependent kinetic studies using electrospray mass spectrometry”.

November, 2009.

Lee joins the group as a research assistant

The group participates in the Inorganic Discussion Weekend at Brock University

September, 2009.

Martin is a Topic Lecturer at the European Chemical Congress in Turin       

Martin gives an invited talk: “Metal binding mechanisms in metallothioneins”. September, 2008.

Duncan is awarded a travel scholarship to attend the Tohoku University Summer School.
Duncan gives a talk entitled “Metal thiolate cluster motifs in the protein metallothionein”, to the Tohoku University Global Center of Excellence (COE) Summer School, Sendai, Japan.

July, 2008.

Martin and Mike travel to Moscow for ICPP-5
Martin gives an invited lecture "Theoretical and spectroscopic advances in the interpretation of the electronic spectra of porphyrins and phthalocyanines"
John Mack, coauthored with Martin and Nagao Kobayashi, gives an invited talk: "MCD spectroscopy and the effect of porphyrinoid ligand non-planarity: core modified tetrabenzoporphyrins”
Mike presents a poster.

January, 2008.

Michael Tiedemann wins scholarshipstrong>

Michael Tiedemann has been awarded a Graduate Thesis Research Award which helps to provide travel funds to attend and present his work at ICPP-5 in Moscow in July, 2008.

Thanh Ngu Heads to London, England for 3 weeks research with Stephen Sturzenbaum's group!

Thanh Ngu is spending 3 weeks in King's College, London, with Stephen Sturzenbaum working on metallothionein (she comes back after a week in Paris!)  Thanh's travel was supported by an ASPIRE Award.

June, 2008.

Biochemical Society Focused Meeting, Norwich, UKstrong>

Martin Stillman was invited to speak at the Biochemical Society Focused Meeting entitled Transition Metals in Biochemistry in June, 2008.

Martin speaks at his old University on the occasion of Andrew Thomson's retirement
“Understanding iron acquisition in Staphylococcus aureus using MCD spectroscopy and mass spectrometry”.

Martin travels to Alberta to speak at the University of Calgary and 92nd Canadian Chemical Conference
“Understanding geometrical control of the colours of porphyrins – understanding novel magnetic circular dichroism spectroscopic spectra of a saddled porphyrin.  Or, why isn’t our blood green and grass red?”
 “Understanding iron acquisition in Staphylococcus aureus using MCD spectroscopy and mass spectrometry”  in the  “Symposium on Bioinorganic Chemistry” 
“The Mechanism of Arsenic Binding to Metallothioneins from Time and Temperature-Resolved ESI-MS”  in the  “Symposium on Bioinorganic Chemistry”

Stillmangroup at IDW 2007!

The Stillman Group went to The University of Toronto for the Inorganic Discussion Weekend conference (IDW). Photos can be found here!

Welcome New Group Members!

We welcome two new graduate students: Michael Tiedemann and Duncan Sutherland. We also welcome our two undergraduate thesis (490 Project) students: Meredith Gullons and Alex Easton! For more information please see the people section.

1st Georgian Bay International Conference

The 1st Georgian Bay International Conference on Bioinorganic Chemistry will be held in and around the Parry Sound area in May 2007. For more information please see the conference website.

A few photos

Joining our group for graduate studies, summer research or for your 4th year project

If you are interested in joining the Stillman Bioinorganic Group for graduate school have a look here for more information about submitting an application. Research in our group offers a wide range of stimulating experiences at the boundary between inorganic chemistry and biology. Metals control life!

Joining the Stillman Bioinorganic Research group, continued..... Join us for Graduate Work

The Stillman lab has one of everything we need - complete recombinant protein production facility; new spectrometers - optical (UV-visible, CD, MCD, emission, atomic absorption) and just this year a brand news Bruker micrOTOF II ESI-MS instrument; excited state lifetime capabilities; low temperature measurement capabilities; electrochemistry and photochemistry facilities; access to as much computation as you want both in the lab in through our accounts on Sharcnet; a wonderful group of staff members helping us work. We collaborate with groups around the world with everybody in the lab travelling outside Canada most years to work in our lab or attend a conference - visits from both our collaborators and their students are frequent. In other words: please consider us for your graduate work. Oh yes, we are considered to be the happiest chemistry department in the country. We are.
Current research topics available for new students: Studies of the metal binding kinetics in metallothioneins using optical, mass, and stopped flow techniques (see our papers on As(III)); studies of heme transport proteins; studies of the electronic structures of nonsymmetric porphyrins and corroles using MCD and theoretical methods.

Summer 2012 projects are available; a new instrument is installed; Fall is really here.

We welcome enquiries for summer 2012 projects from high achieving students in the ICE and MITAC-global programmes.

The Stillman lab offers a large number of exciting summer-long research projects for 2011 in bioninorganic chemistry. Western is a great university to come to - living here is really pleasant in the summer and costs are low. We will train you to use our new state-of-the-art instrumentation and theoretical methods. Current on-going projects involve characterization of novel porphyrins, studies of metallation to metallothioneins, studies of metal exchange between proteins, and studies of the heme-binding proteins in bacteria. We have projects available from metal binding to a range of proteins using ESI-mass spectrometry to porphyrin spectroscopy coupled to theoretical calculations. Please contact Prof. Stillman for more example (martin.stillman@uwo.ca). We look forward to hearing from you.