It’s conference season once again, and the Wiebe group had an excellent time at two conferences this summer! Emerson represented VIU at the Western Canadian Undergraduate Chemistry Conference in Vancouver, where his poster presentation on his work studying tautomerization and dimerization in 6PPDQ was well received. Emerson and Savannah also attended x2026 in Toronto, where Emerson received the Best Undergraduate Poster Award for his presentation in the Stormwater Contaminants and Treatment Technologies symposium and Savannah presented her exciting new results on the interaction of carfentanil precursor molecules with the µ-opioid receptor in the Sex, Drugs and Rock’n’Roll: The Chemistry & Biology of G Protein-Coupled Receptors symposium. Well done!

In collaboration with Erik Krogh’s group at VIU, we have published our work using direct mass spectrometry and computational methods to study the properties of the salmon toxicant 6PPDQ. Check it out here: https://doi.org/10.1039/d5em00153f

The Wiebe group had a great time at CSC in Ottawa this summer! Rosie was invited to be part of the organizing committee for the Emerging Scholars symposium, which focused on undergraduate research in chemistry and featured talks by undergraduate students as well as a panel discussion. The symposium was incredibly well attended. Rosie also won the Best Undergraduate Poster Award for her poster presentation on her CHEM 491 project using density functional theory to design and test an antimicrobial molecular machine – well done Rosie!  Savannah gave an excellent poster presentation in the New Advances in Molecular Biophysics from Experiments and Computations symposium, and Gabe presented his first ever poster in the Physical, Theoretical and Computational General Session. Well done everyone!

Congratulations to Rosie Munro, who graduated this summer with a BSc in Chemistry! Rosie will soon be starting her Master’s degree in Chemistry at the University of Victoria.

Congratulations to Jae Chung for receiving an NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Award and to Rosie Munro for receiving the VIU REACH Award. Well done to both of you!

Our first insights into the possible biophysical origins of pressure resistance in the proteins of deep-sea organisms is now available! Check it out here: https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcb.4c04771

The Wiebe group had a wonderful time at conferences this summer! We presented at the CSC in Winnipeg and at CSTCC in Halifax. Rosie was invited to give a flash talk in the Chemistry in 2067 symposium about her work on pressure-controlled molecular machines, and Simon won the Best Undergraduate Poster Award from the Environmental Division for their poster presentation on using DFT to investigate the tautomerization of the environmental contaminant 6PPDQ. Heather was part of the organizing team for the Breaking the Barriers and Biases in Sciences: From Systemic to Scientific symposium, which had a fantastic turnout, and she also gave an invited talk on the high pressure lactate dehydrogenase work in the Biomolecular Dynamics – Experimental and Computational Advances symposium. At CSTCC, Savannah presented a poster on her work studying the toxicity of opioid precursors, and Heather was invited to chair the Biochemistry symposium. Well done everyone!

Congratulations to Simon and Savannah, who graduated this summer with a BSc in Chemistry!

Check out our latest work, published in collaboration with Hans-Peter Loock’s group at the University of Victoria! Link: https://doi.org/10.1039/D4NJ00047A

Congratulations to Savannah Mercer for winning second best flash presentation for the Chemistry in Canada 2067 Symposium at CSC2023, Vancouver! She presentation gave an overview of her poster which she also presented at CSC2023!