Amy represents KerfootLab at the MSSOC Celebration of Champions

Originally posted 2014/10/30

Amy was in Toronto last Friday (October 24, 2014) for the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada’s Celebration of Champions, an event held in each fall to honor top fundraisers from MS Bike events in Ontario. We posted previously about our participation in this year’s Grand Bend to London event, and Amy was invited to the Celebration of Champions to represent researchers funded by the MSSOC.

Amy had the chance to tell attendees about how MSSOC programs, like the endMS Summer School (described here), have impacted her training as an MSc student and influenced her ongoing interest in MS, as well as how funding from the MSSOC has allowed us to discover new things about the B cells that contribute to autoimmune disease and destruction of myelin in the brain.

Thank you again to all supporters of the MS Bike and other MSSOC events! A lot of the excellent MS research currently performed in Canada would not happen without your efforts.

KerfootLab is not very good at gravity

Originally posted 2014/10/09

The new department chair issued a Kinetic Energy Challenge, where labs competed to construct vehicles to travel the length of the sloped bridge between the SDRI and DSB buildings. Our attempt at building a hovercraft out of cardboard, autoclave bags, and air duster canisters failed miserably and KerfootLab got owned, big time.

Congratulations to ArtsLab and DikeakosLab for constructing the only vehicles that made it any real distance.

Meet the Prof Day

Originally posted 2014/09/14

Steve met a bunch of very keen first year students and told them about awesome Immunology (and microbiology) is and encouraged them to enrole in MicroImm courses next year.

Amy submits a manuscript

Originally posted 2014/09/02

Here is Amy pressing "Submit" on her research manuscript describing her work developing a new MOG fusion protein antigen and characterizing the immune response and autoimmune disease that it elicits.

Now she gets to wait to hear back from the reviewers.

KerfootLab joins MS Bike to end MS

Originally posted 2014/07/27

We participated in the MS Bike Ride from Grand Bend to London this weekend! Amy and Rajiv volunteered at one of the rest stations while Heather and Steve joined over 1700 others for the 150km ride.

Amy (left) and Rajiv (right) sporting volunteer T shirts and Heather (centre) in her fancy Club1000 Jersey

In total, the ride raised $1.35 million to support research and services for those living with MS (KerfootLab raised more than $2000! Thanks to our supporters!). Steve had the opportunity to thank riders for their efforts at Saturday night’s main event.

Steve is the shiny person in the glare of the spotlights

KerfootLab teams with London MS Clinic to Walk

Originally posted 2014/04/14

We joined the team from the London MS Clinic to participate in the 2014 Manderin MS Walk held in London on May 4, 2013.

KerfootLab at London Health Research Day, 2014

Originally posted 2014/03/18

The London Health Research Day (LHRD) is an annual event that brings together medical researchers from Western, Lawson, and other research institutes in the London area to share ideas and talk research. Rajiv and Amy were there to show off their stuff!

SPRINT Team visits the lab

Originally posted 2014/02/18

The endMS Research and Training Network, an initiative of the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada, runs a unique multidisciplinary program for research trainees. This program includes a summer school on MS-related topics (read more here) and a year-long mentored project for a select group of senior PhD students and post docs called the SPRINT program (Scholar Program for Researchers IN Training, read more here).

Amy from the lab and I had a chance to attend the 2013 Summer School hosted in Vancouver, and I’m currently leading a small SPRINT team (Julia O’Mahony, Health Economics UofT, and Sandra Meyers, MRI Physics, UBC). In our project, we are reviewing animal models for MS from the perspectives of researchers who normally work with human subjects, with the goal of improving communication between basic bench Immunologists and more clinically-focused researchers.

Sandra (left) and Julia (right) were visiting Western this week to learn about the models we use in the lab. Here they are, trying to avoid getting too close to one of them.