Adamantane—the diamond-like cage molecule—appears in many pharmaceuticals and advanced materials, but one of its key forms (the 2-adamantyl group) has been hard to work with. Chemists have long lacked a practical, stable source of the corresponding reactive “anion” that can reliably transfer this group onto other molecules or metals.

Proteins are ingenious molecular machines that control biological processes. However, designing proteins for applications such as therapeutics and catalysis is challenging. Thus, protein engineers turned to nature’s way of creating new proteins: evolution! 

Name: Qirat Ashraf

MSc or PhD Candidate: PhD Candidate

Location of Undergraduate Education: HBSc., University of Toronto Mississauga

Name of the Lab at CPS: Gunning Group

Selected Awards: CPS Teaching Fellowship (2022, 2026), Special Travel Opportunity Fellowship (2022)

Selected Research Contributions: https://orcid

Spenser Ross, PhD candidate in the Moore Lab, won the best poster award at the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Annual Congress this June! 

His poster titled "The Influence of Taylor Columns on Ocean Dynamics and Sea Ice in the Chukchi Sea” explained the delayed ice melt that has been observed over Herald Shoal in the Chukchi Sea of over a century. 

Archaeocyaths are a diverse group of ancient sponges that first appeared in the Lower Cambrian ~530 million years ago and faced extinction ~510 million years ago. In this short span of 20 million years, archaeocyaths constructed the world's first animal-built reef ecosystems and exhibited a vast degree of morphological diversity. One of the most enigmatic archaeocyaths is Yukonensis yukonensis, which constructed complex stacked chambers with unique bowl-shaped structures known as the 'thorny corolla'.

Name: Xiaohan Zhou

MSc or PhD Candidate: PhD Candidate

Location of Undergraduate Education: HBSc., Nanjing University

Name of the Lab at CPS: Gradinaru Lab

Selected Awards: Best Oral Presentation at the Trainee Session (23rd GPCR Retreat), CPS Research Visit Fellowship Program (2023)

Selected Research Contributions: 

Local Confinement within Plasma Membrane Nanodomain

Iza Pawlowski, MSc student in the Halfar Lab, won the best poster award at the 2026 Queen’s Northern Research Symposium! 

Three new publications from the Shin Lab highlight advances in protein design with potential applications in cancer therapeutics, gene regulation, and biosensors.

The research showcases novel engineered proteins, including tools that target genetic pathways and new approaches using phage-assisted evolution to optimize protein function.