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- 2024
- Fiona Brinkman Recognized with Excellence in Science Public Engagement, Communication & Outreach Award
- Lionel Pereira receives Faculty of Science Graduate Student Excellence in Teaching Award
- Scientists develop tool to predict sepsis in apparently healthy newborns
- Dr. Lynne Quarmby, cool new discoveries about Watermelon Snow
- Dr. Valentin Jaumouillé and Dr. Amy Lee, Molecular Biology and Biochemistry researchers receive Michael Smith Health Research BC Scholar awards
- Dr. Ryan Morin has been honored with the Bernard and Francine Dorval Prize from the Canadian Cancer Society
- Verheyen Lab breakthrough identifies gene that may reverse Parkinson’s disease
- MBB researchers awarded $2 million in funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research
- Dr. Glen Tibbits honoured as Distinguished SFU Professor
- Reflecting on barriers and progress towards equity in science
- Royal Society of Canada bestows Dr. Vocadlo with country’s highest academic honour
- Decoding the genome to predict the clinical course of lymphomas
- 2023 Award for Excellence in Supervision: Esther Verheyen
- In a recent Nature Communications paper, the Audas lab demonstrates that proteins can act as microscopic thermometers to sense and respond to changing environmental conditions
- 2023
- Dr. Dustin King speaks to Molecular Cell about sustainability and molecular biology
- Science Advances paper by new MBB PhD, Casey Engstrom and Professor Lynne Quarmby uses satellites to study the impact of Watermelon Snow on glacier loss in North America
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Esther M. Verheyen
Areas of interest
In the Verheyen lab we use molecular, genetic and biochemical approaches to understand organismal growth and patterning. Specifically, we are interested in how cells control their growth and how certain tissues regulate their pattern formation. To do this, we use Drosophila melanogaster, the fruit fly, as a genetic model organism.
Our studies of Drosophila development allow us to ask questions about how cells respond to cues from neighboring cells. We have focused our efforts on two protein kinases that regulate cellular processes. These kinases, Nemo/Nlk and Hipk, both act during many stages of development and are essential for organismal survival. They exert their effect through regulation of key evolutionarily conserved signal transduction pathways, including those implicated in causing cancer when improperly regulated. Our goal is to gain an understanding of the mechanisms used by cells to ensure properly regulated growth and tissue formation.
Education
- B.A., Biology and Society, Cornell University
- Ph.D., Genetics, Yale University
Selected Publications
- Liao, J.Z.*, Chung, H.*, Shih, C., Wong, K.K-L., Dutta, D., Nil, Z., Burns, C-G., Kanca, O., Park, Y-J., Zuo, Z., Marcogliese, P.C., Sew, K., Bellen, H.J.# and E.M. Verheyen#. (2024) Cdk8/CDK19 promotes mitochondrial fission through Drp1 phosphorylation and can phenotypically suppress pink1 deficiency in Drosophila. * joint first authors, # joint corresponding authors. In press, Nature Communications,15, 3326. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-47623-8
- Yu, K., Ramkumar, N., Wong, K.K.L., Tettweiler, G. and E.M. Verheyen (2023) The AMPK-like protein kinases Sik2 and Sik3 interact with Hipk and induce synergistic tumorigenesis in a Drosophila cancer model. Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology, https://doi.org/10.3389/fcell.2023.1214539.
- Gignac, S. J.*, MacCharles, K.R.*, Fu, K., Bonaparte, K., Akarsu, G., Barrett, T.W., Verheyen, E.M.# and J.M. Richman#. (2023) Mechanistic studies in Drosophila and chicken give new insights into functions of DVL1 in dominant Robinow Syndrome. * joint first authors, # joint corresponding authors. Disease Models and Mechanisms, 16, doi:10.1242/dmm.049844.
- E.M. Verheyen (2022) The power of Drosophila in modeling human disease mechanisms. Invited editorial, Disease Models and Mechanisms, 15 (3): dmm049549.
- View more publications
Courses
Fall 2024
Spring 2025
Future courses may be subject to change.