News Archive

February 2010 - Our paper demonstrating the high-force capabilities of holographic optical tweezers is published in the Journal of Biophotonics.

February 2010 - Our paper on simulating molecular motor properties of molecular spiders is published in Physical Review E.

October 2009 - Astrid van der Horst is awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from the Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter (FOM) in the Netherlands, which will enable her to continue her work on elastin at the VU in Amsterdam.

August 2009 - Rob Welch receives an award for his poster on single-molecule studies of elastin, at the prestigious Rising Stars of Research national undergraduate science conference.

August 2009 - Rob Welch receives one of the top prizes at the departmental poster session for summer students.

August 2009 - Laleh Samii wins the top prize in her poster session at the International Society for Math Biology conference at UBC, for her "well-thought out and constructed mechanistic model of processive motion."

January 2009 - Nancy is quoted in an Analytical Chemistry article about optical tweezers systems.

December 2008 - Our article on calibration of holographic optical tweezers is published in Optics Express.

October 2008 - Benjamin Downing receives one of the top prizes awarded at the annual departmental poster session.

October 2008 - Ruobing Yang and Jos One present their work at the Canadian Undergraduate Physics Conference in Toronto. Ruobing's talk is chosen best in Biological Physics!

August 2008 - Jos One receives one of the top prizes at the departmental poster session for summer students.

March 2008 - Benjamin Downing is awarded a trainee scholarship from the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research - congratulations, Ben!

March 2008 - Benjamin Downing is awarded an NSERC CGS scholarship for his M.Sc. studies in Physics - congratulations, Ben!

March 2008 - Nancy Forde is awarded a Discovery Grant from NSERC that will support research in our group.

January 2008 - Suzana Kovacic is appointed to NSERC Council. Congratulations, Suzana!

January 2008 - The whole group enjoys a stimulating and fun day at the Frontiers in Biophysics forum. Congratulations to group member and forum organizer Michelle Lee on a job well done!

December 2007 - Our work on Brownian motion in a modulated optical trap is featured in this month's Europhysics News.

November 28, 2007 - Michelle Lee successfully defends her Master's thesis, entitled "Quantitative characterization of forces and fields in a magnetic tweezers instrument". Congratulations, Michelle!

November 2007 - Astrid van der Horst receives one of the top prizes awarded at the annual departmental poster session.

August 2007 - Gina Chang receives first prize at the departmental poster session for summer students.

July 2007 - Our publication on Brownian motion in a moduated optical trap appears in the Journal of Optics A.

June 4, 2007 - Yi Deng successfully defends his Master's thesis, entitled "Calibration and characterization of static and modulated optical traps". Congratulations, Yi!

May 2007 - Our first group publication appears! Yi Deng, Nancy Forde and John Bechhoefer wrote a comment to Physical Review Letters, that has also been selected for inclusion in the Virtual Journal of Biological Physics Research.

April 26, 2007 - Philip Johnson successfully defends his Master's thesis, entitled "Toward single molecule DNA uptake by Haemophilus influenzae". Congratulations, Philip!

April 2007 - Nancy Forde is awarded a Cottrell Scholar award from the Research Corporation. This is one of only ten awards given this year to applicants in Physics, Chemistry and Astronomy departments from across North America who wish to excel at both research and teaching.

March 2007 - As part of an international team, Nancy Forde is awarded a Research Grant from the Human Frontier Science Program. The other team members are Heiner Linke (Department of Physics, University of Oregon, USA), Paul Curmi (Centre for Immunology and Department of Biophysics, University of New South Wales, Australia) and Dek Woolfson (School of Chemistry, University of Bristol, UK). Martin Zuckermann of SFU will also be participating in this project. Three of this year's HFSP research grants are awarded to teams involving SFU researchers! (John Bechhoefer in Physics and Erika Plettner in Chemistry are the other two.)

November 2006 - Michelle Lee receives one of the top prizes awarded at the annual departmental poster session.

October 2006 - Braden Brinkman presents a poster on his summer research project at the Canadian Undergraduate Physics Conference in Fredericton, New Brunswick. He is also a member of the SFU student delegation successful in bidding to host next year's CUPC meeting at SFU!

October 2006 - The whole group enjoys a stimulating and fun weekend at the first-ever Frontiers in Biophysics retreat, organized by graduate students at SFU and UBC. Congratulations to group members and retreat organizing committee members Michelle Lee and Yi Deng on a job well done!

August 2006 - Braden Brinkman receives one of the top prizes at the departmental poster session for summer students.

April 2006 - Philip Johnson is the only Canadian participant selected to attend the OIST Workshop on Single Molecule Analysis, in Okinawa, Japan.

March 2006 - Michelle Lee is awarded an NSERC CGS scholarship for her M.Sc. studies in Physics - congratulations, Michelle!

June 2005 - Nancy Forde is awarded New Opportunities funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation to support the development of new optical trapping techniques as well as equip our molecular biology wet lab.

June 2005 - Nancy Forde is invited to attend the Nobel Symposium on Controlled Nanoscale Motion in Artificial and Biological Systems in Sweden.

May 2005 - Nancy Forde is awarded a Scholar award from the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Reserach.

May 2005 - The group finally moves into our renovated lab space! The renovations are almost complete...

March 2005 - Nancy Forde is awarded a Discovery Grant and a Research Tools and Instrumentation grant from NSERC that will support research in our group.