LBES Escaped LA 1947

We got away with 13 seconds to spare during our most recent Escape Room night out. Rumours say next time will be scary...muhahahaha...!

Manuscript Accepted

Congratulations to Nikita and Mengzhen. Their manuscript "Effects of Media Composition and Light Exposure on the Electrochemical Current Response during Scanning Electrochemical Microscopy Live Cell Imaging" was accepted in Analyst. This study discusses important experimental parameters for accurate SECM imaging of biological samples.

Sabine Receives Merit Award

Sabine was awarded the UMFA/UM Merit Award for outstanding achievements in Research and Service.

Learn more here.

Shubhneet Featured in UMToday

Dhesmon Lima Secures Faculty Position

Shubhneet caught the attention of UMToday and her work on the electrochemical detection of cytochrome c oxidase deficiency was featured in July 2024. Congratulations, Shubhneet!

Find the article here. The feature video can also be accessed under the tab "Gallery".

Dhesmon Lima Secures Faculty Position

Congratulations to Dhesmon who will start his own research group in September 2024 at Mount Saint Vincent University. Dhesmon is an expert in electroanalytical chemistry and a people person. Dhesmon, you will be an amazing group leader and supervisor! We can't wait to see you and your students at conferences.

Prizes at the CSC

We celebrate two first prizes at the CSC 2024. Shubhneet won best undergraduate oral presentation in Analytical Chemistry and Roy won the best undergraduate poster prize in Analytical Chemistry. Congratulation to both!

Graduates 2024

Prizes at the CSC

We congratulate all our 2024 graduates! Jadon (picture), Katherine, Annie, Justin and Melak, our previous summer and Honour's students received their BSc degrees, and Yaser completed his MSc degree. You will always remain group members in our team!

Congrats, Luma!

ECS Canadian Section Meeting

Luma wins the Best Poster Prize at the ECS Canadian Section Meeting for her poster on drug susceptibility testing using electrochemistry. Well done, Luma!

ECS Canadian Section Meeting

What fun it was to host the ECS Canadian Section Meeting this year. Thank you to all volunteers for helping to make this event so successful!

CSC 2024

Congratulations to Shubhneet and Mengzhen for their presentations at the 2024 CSC Meeting in Winnipeg. This is a great milestone to achieve! Both presented oral presentations in the Bioelectrochemistry and Biosensing Symposium, chaired by Dhesmon.

245th ECS Meeting San Francisco

Shubhneet, Kolby and Nikita represented our team at the 245th Annual Meeting of the Electrochemical Society in San Francisco. All three gave oral presentations.

Winnipeg Pride

Michael and Annie Accepted into the Medical School Program

We had a great time at the 2024 Winnipeg Pride. It is fantastic to see so much support by our Faculty of Science and people in Winnipeg.

Michael and Annie Accepted into the Medical School Program

Congratulations to Michael Zarychta and Annie Jiang! Both got accepted this year into the UM Medical School Program. You will become wonderful physicians!

Roy and Kolby Visit WCUCC

Roy and Kolby visited the 2024 Western Canadian Undergraduate Chemistry Conference in Saskatoon and presented two oral presentation and posters. Thanks for representing us!

Roy Receives Thesis Proposal Prize

Katherine and Sabine receive awards

Congratulations to Roy, who received the Shirley Ann Akins Undergraduate Thesis Proposal Prize for his Honours Thesis!

Welcome Searra Warnock!

Katherine and Sabine receive awards

We welcome Searra Warnock, who was awarded a BioCanRx Indigenous Student Summer Internship. Searra will work with us this summer on the electrochemical detection of chemoresistance.

Katherine and Sabine receive awards

Katherine was named most outstanding student in the Faculty of Science and selected Sabine as a mentor who significantly impacted her career. Sabine received the 2024 Teachers Recognition Award last week.

Katherine has been named a McCall MacBain Scholar!

Our Katherine was named a McCall MacBain Scholar. Over 700 students applied and 30 were selected (20 Canadians and 10 international students). We are overwhelmed with joy and are cheering for Katherine, who will start at McGill University in September. Read more here.

Yaser Receives M.Sc. Degree!

Katherine has been named a McCall MacBain Scholar!

Congratulations, Yaser, who successfully defended his M.Sc. degree! We are very proud of him and wish him all the best for his future career (he already has a job offer in his pocket).

Luma advances to 3 MT Final

Luma competed in the 2024 Faculty of Science 3 Minute Thesis competition and was selected to advance to the final on April 10th at the Robert Schultz Theatre. Good luck, Luma!

Katherine Bazin Wins Big!

Luma advances to 3 MT Final

Katherine receives an unheard of number of awards at the 2023 Chemistry Department Awards Night.

Michael Accepted into the Amgen Scholars Canada Program

Congratulations to Michael, who got accepted into the Amgen Scholars Canada Program. What a recognition! Michael will fly to Toronto this summer to participate in the program.

So Many Awards!

At the annual awards night of the Department of Chemistry, The Kuss team impressed with several award winners. Congratulations, Nikita, Luma, Mengzhen, Kolby, Katherine, Yaser, and Fangqing!

Article Published in PNAS!

Congratulations to Shubhneet and Dhesmon on their published article in PNAS! This work demonstrates how SECM can quantify the inherited disease Cytochrome C Oxidase Deficiency in young infants.

Chasz Accepted to UM!

Chasz is a student at the Winnipeg MET school and has been with us for two years for his science graduation project. Today he got accepted into the Undergraduate Science Program at the University of Manitoba. Congratulations, Chasz!

Congrats, Nikita, on New Publication!

Today we celebrate PhD Student Nikita Thomas and her publication in Analytical Chemistry. This paper demonstrates how even slight temperature variations alter the cellular activity during SECM live cell imaging.

Happy Birthday, Yaser!

We celebrate many birthdays throughout the year, but this month was Yaser's turn. Happy birthday, Yaser! We are glad to know you as a group member, colleague and friend.

Another Win for Roy

Unstoppable Roy received the Best Undergraduate Poster Award at the Manitoba Materials Conference on May 9th, 2023. Well deserved, Roy! You are on a roll.

Michael Wins Best Poster Prize

Michael was awarded the Best Poster Prize in Analytical Chemistry at the Western Canada Undergraduate Research Conference. Congratulations, Michael!

Roy Wins Best Oral Presentation Award

Congratulations, Roy! Roy won a Best Oral Presentation Award in the Analytical Chemistry Category at the Western Canada Undergraduate Research Conference in Edmonton in May 2023.

Double Trouble

Roy Wins Best Oral Presentation Award

Roy and Michael attended the Western Canada Undergraduate Research Conference in Edmonton and brought home two first prizes.

Dhesmon Represents Group at Innovation Pitch

Dhesmon pitched our drug susceptibility detection technology at the Faculty of Science Innovation Showcase and 3K Pitch competition.

Accepted Article in Bioelectrochemistry

Congratulations to Yaser and Dhesmon! Their manuscript “Rapid and Inexpensive Voltammetric Detection of Ochratoxin A in Wheat Matrices” has been accepted in Bioelectrochemistry.

Mengzhen receives UMGF

Mengzhen is off to a great start and received a two-year University of Manitoba Graduate Fellowship (UMGF). Well done and well deserved!

Welcome to LBES, Mengzhen!

We are excited to welcome Mengzhen Lyu as a PhD student to our team. Mengzhen holds an MSc degree in electroanalytical chemistry from Qingdao University in China, and will be working on the electrochemical detection of cancer and chemoresistance.

Sabine Has Been Granted Tenure and Promotion

We are celebrating today, as Sabine has been granted tenure and promotion to Associate Professor after four years at the University of Manitoba. Here is to many more productive and successful years!

Dr Sabine Kuss Recognized as a WXN Canada’s Most Powerful Women: Top 100 Award Winner

Dr Sabine Kuss has been named as a WXN Canada’s Most Powerful Women: Top 100 Award Winner.

This recognition is special, because it’s an opportunity to send a message to young female scientists and leaders that possibilities are endless.

Accepted Manuscript in Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry

Congratulations to Ana Carolina and Dhesmon for the acceptance of their review paper "Green Synthesis of electroactive nanomaterials using plant-derived natural products" in the Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry. This paper discusses the combination of the outstanding physicochemical properties of nanomaterials with the eco-friendly and cost-effective features of green synthetic routes.

Sabine Receives UofM/UMFA Teaching Merit Award

Sabine is the recipient of a 2022 University of Manitoba Faculty Association Teaching Merit Award which recognizes her innovative teaching initiatives in analytical chemistry and meritorious teaching.

Paper Accepted in Analytical Chemistry

Luma, Dhesmon and Muhammad are celebrating this week, as their paper "Electrochemical Quantification of Tobramycin Retention in Pseudomonas aeruginosa as Antimicrobial Susceptibility
Indicator" was accepted for publication in Analytical Chemistry.

Annie Wins 3-Minute Summer Research Competition

Congratulations to Annie, who won 3rd prize in the Faculty of Science Undergraduate Summer Research Thesis Competition. Well done and well deserved.

Paper Accepted in Biosensors and Bioelectronics

Congrats to Nikita, Nafisa and Vikram! Their paper "Single Cell Scanning Photo-electrochemical Microscopy using Micro-Optical-Ring Electrodes" was just accepted for publication in Biosensors and Bioelectronics.

Farewell to Vikram!

After 2.5 highly productive and fun years, we are saying goodbye to Vikram, who is taking on a second postdoc position at McGill University. All the best, Vikram!

Luma is Awarded the Bert and Lee Friesen Graduate Scholarship in Chemistry

Wonderful news for Luma, who is the recipient of the 2022 Bert and Lee Friesen Graduate Scholarship in Chemistry, which recognizes excellence in research and academic achievements.

Nikita Wins Scholarship

Group Members at the 241st ECS Meeting in Vancouver

Luma is Awarded the Bert and Lee Friesen Graduate Scholarship in Chemistry

What a year for Nikita, who just won another scholarship. The Faculty of Graduate Studies Research Completion Scholarship is based on her excellent dissertation proposal.

Sabine wins Falconer Rh Award in Applied Science

Group Members at the 241st ECS Meeting in Vancouver

Sabine is the recipient of the 2022 Falconer Rh Institute Foundation Emerging Researcher Award in the Applied Science category. A big thanks goes to all students and researchers involved in our team over the last years.

Group Members at the 241st ECS Meeting in Vancouver

Luma, Shubhneet, Nikita, Melak, Dhesmon and Sabine attended the 241st ECS Meeting in Vancouver. Congrats on their successful oral and poster presentations.

Sabine Kuss Receives Student's Teacher Recognition

Sabine received a 2022 Student's Teacher Recognition award by the University of Manitoba Centre for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning.

Nikita Receives NSERC PGS-D Scholarship

Congrats Nikita, who was awarded a Postgraduate Scholarship (PGS-D) by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). This is a wonderful recognition of Nikita's hard work and achievements and we are proud to have her as a member in our team.

Shubhneet wins Jack Prior Award

Congrats to Shubhneet, who was selected for The Jack Prior Memorial Undergraduate Summer Research Prize 2022. Another great example that hard work usually pays off. Well done and well-deserved!

Armaandeep and Anantjot win Gold Medal at Science Symposium

Anantjot and Armaandeep won gold medals at the annual Manitoba Schools Science Symposium and were designated as provincial delegates to advance onto the Canada Wide Science Fair. Congratulations to both!

2022 Summer Research Students Eager to Start

We welcome Annie Jiang, Justin Liba, Ali Kandil, Roy Daou and Michael Zarychta as new group members! Michael received an NSERC Undergraduate Research Award, Justin, Annie and Roy were selected for Undergraduate Research awards from UofM, and Ali is the recipient of a Phil Hultin Award. Congrats to all on these prestigious recognition!

Insight into Electrochemical Antimicrobial Detection

Congrats to Melak and Vikram on the publication of their manuscript in Electroanalysis!

Insight into Bacterial Trans-membrane Transport

Congratulations to Alon, Luma and Vikram on the publication of our recent paper "Pharma-molecule transport across bacterial membranes; detection and quantification approaches by electrochemistry and bioanalytical methods" in Angewandte Chemie International Edition. This paper reports the quantitative monitoring of pharma-molecule transport in bacteria to investigate the relationship between membrane transport and antibiotic resistance. Well done all!

The article can be found here.

CONGRATULATIONS to Rafiqul!

Congratulations to our recent graduate Rafiqul, who submitted his MSc thesis and successfully defended his work. Rafiqul has already accepted a job offer from a local company in Winnipeg as Junior Researcher. We wish Rafiqul all the best for his future career.

Muhammad Hayat Undergraduate Student Research Award (USRA)

Congratualtions to Muhammad, who received one of the 2021 USRAs. Muhammad will join us this summer to work on the detection of antibiotic resistance by electrochemistry.

Shubhneet Thind receives Undergraduate Research Award (URA)

We are welcoming Shubhneet to the group this summer, who received one of the prestigious URAs in 2021. Shubhneet will work on the detection of cytochrome c oxidase deficiency by electrochemistry.

Nafisa Ahmed receives NSERC Summer Award

Congratulations to Nafisa, who will join our group this summer as an NSERC Research Student. Nafisa is currently in her first year in chemistry/biochemistry.

Research Excellence Award

Dr Kuss received the 2020 Faculty of Science Early Career Research Excellence Award at the University of Manitoba. Members from the Department were well represented at this year's Faculty of Science Awards. Other awards went to Jennifer van Wijngaarden (Innovation in Teaching Award), David Herbert (Outreach Award), John Sorensen (Established Researcher Best Mentor Award), Georg Schreckenbach (Established Career Research Excellence Award)

CFI Funding Awarded

Dr Kuss has been awarded funding by the Canada Foundation for Innovation and Research Manitoba. This $260,000 funding will be used to upgrade our SECM into a Scanning Photoelectrochemical Microscope (SPECM) in 2021.

Philip Hultin Pedagogy Award

Congrats, Karishma! She was awarded the 2020 Philip Hultin Pedagogy Award, which she will use to implement electroanalytical chemistry to the second year chemistry curriculum at UofM. Welcome to the group and we can't wait to work with you.

And the 2020 Summer NSERC Award goes to...

Alon Golubchik! Congratulations and we are looking forward to welcoming you to the group. This is a great and well-deserved achievement. Alon will be working on the detection of drug resistance in bacteria.

2020 Summer Faculty of Science Award

Well done, Simran, who received a 2020 Summer Faculty of Science Award (USRA). Simran will continue his work with us in collaboration with Dr Denice Bay from the Department of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases.

Undergraduate Research Awards

Congratulations to Aishat and Huy! Both were awarded one of only 70 University of Manitoba Undergraduate Research awards (URA) for summer 2020.

Review Paper Published

Congrats to Rafiqul and Huy, who just published their first review paper! This publication is about an increasingly important approach to study and detect drug resistance. Click here to access the paper.

Funding Success

We are excited to strengthen our collaboration with the faculty of medicine (especially Dr Mark Nachtigal) with new awarded funding through a University Collaborative Research Program grant. This funding will support our research on drug resistance in ovarian cancer.

Welcome Nikita and Vikram!

This term we are welcoming our new graduate student Nikita Thomas to the group, as well as Dr Vikram Singh. Nikita will work on Scanning Photoelectrochemical Microscopy and its application to biological samples. Vikram is an expert in SECM already and will work on the advancement of the instrument and quantitative approaches for biological SECM studies.

Gordon Research Conference Electrochemistry

Huy and Rafiqul visited the Gordon Research Conference for Electrochemistry in January in Venture, California, to present and discuss their research with leaders in our field. Well done, both!

Research visit at UCSB

Huy and Sabine conducted research at the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) during the reading week in November. Huy received training in the research group of Dr Lior Sepunaru at UCSB in the technique of impact chemistry, a quantitative electrochemical method soon to be used in the Chemistry Department at UofM. Many thanks to Lior and his team for the excellent training and welcome.

Huy Wins Poster Prize

Congratulations to Huy, who won the Best Poster Prize during the Faculty of Science Poster Competition 2019 in the category Physical and Computational Sciences.

New Equipment

Our very own Scanning Electrochemical Microscope (SECM) arrived at the Parker Building. Manufactured by HEKA Instruments (Harvard Bioscience) and funded through an NSERC-RTI grant, this instrument will support our research on drug resistance and cancer development.

Early Career Analytical Electrochemistry Prize 2019

Dr Sabine Kuss was awarded the Early Career Analytical Electrochemistry Prize 2019 by the International Society of Electrochemistry in recognition of her achievements in analytical electrochemistry. What an honor!

https://www.ise-online.org/

Research Manitoba funds Electrochemical Research on Antibiotic Drug Resistance

Antibiotic resistance has become a global problem and various national and international health organizations have called for the urgent development of new treatment and diagnostic strategies.
Our lab is developing tools to diagnose antibiotic drug resistance quickly and cost efficient at the point of care. This research has now been recognized with additional funding by Research Manitoba to accelerate our progress towards personalized care.

Faride Wins UMGF Award

Congratulations to Faride, who won one of three University of Manitoba Graduate Fellowships in 2019. This award recognizes demonstrated superior intellectual abilities and academic accomplishments.

We also congratulate Dmitry Vrublevskiy (Bieringer group) and Jonas Nguyen (C. Kuss group). Well done all!

First Poster

Congratulations to Rafiqul for presenting his first poster entitled "Electrochemical Characterization of Antibiotics and Antibiotic Hybrids" at the Canadian Chemistry Conference and Exhibition 2019 in Quebec City. Well done!

Congrats and Welcome!

We congratulate Faride, Rafiqul, and Jonas for successfully completing their annual progress review and welcome our undergraduate researchers for this summer.

Funding Success

Dr Kuss received one of the first New Frontiers in Research Funds, awarded by the Canada Research Coordinating Committee. This funding will give us a running start in our endeavor to combat antibiotic resistance. Find more information here and see the related available postdoc position under "openings".

First Poster

Congrats to Faride for presenting her first poster after only 4 months of work in our group. Faride presented her poster entitled "Fabrication and Electrochemical Characterization of Micro-Optical-Ring Electrodes (MOREs)" at the Manitoba Materials Conference 2019 and will next bring her poster to the Canadian Chemistry Conference in Quebec City in June.

Congrats to Huy and Christina!

Both Tran Le Huy Luu and Christina Yiebiyo have been awarded Undergraduate Research Awards for summer 2019. Huy will investigate drug resistance in cancer cells, whereas Christina will be working on distinguishing between drug efflux pump activity and efflux pump expression in cancer by electrochemistry.

Welcome Simranpreet!

We welcome Simranpreet Dhaliwal to the group, who was awarded an Undergraduate Research Award to conduct research on bacterial drug resistance with us this summer.