Cezar Khursigara, PhD
From a very young age, I always had a strong interest in biology and the natural world around us. But it was a summer work-study program at Ryerson University where I first became fascinated with the world of bacteria. Under the guidance of Dr. Debora Foster, I studied how pathogenic bacteria such as enteropathogenic and enterohemorrhagic E. coli (EPEC and EHEC) caused disease in humans.
This early experience opened my eyes to the world of biological research and showed me how exciting, stimulating and rewarding a laboratory environment could be. I then moved from Toronto to Montreal, where I obtained my Ph.D. from McGill University for my work elucidating the mechanisms of iron-uptake by Gram-negative bacteria, under the supervision of Dr. James Coulton. Combining biochemical, biophysical and structural techniques to characterize protein-protein interactions laid the foundation for my drive to apply a multidisciplinary approach to study bacterial processes. In the course this work I realized how the visualization of molecular interactions using microscopy and high-resolution structural techniques could complement and greatly extend conclusions drawn from more traditional methods.
This insight prompted me to move to the United States to work at the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). As a Visiting Fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Sriram Subramaniam, I helped pioneer cutting-edge cryo-electron microscopy techniques alongside molecular and biochemical methods to investigate the molecular architecture of receptor complexes involved in directed bacterial movement, or chemotaxis. My laboratory continues to apply this multidisciplinary approach to the study of a variety of bacterial processes.
Contact Cezar
From a very young age, I always had a strong interest in biology and the natural world around us. But it was a summer work-study program at Ryerson University where I first became fascinated with the world of bacteria. Under the guidance of Dr. Debora Foster, I studied how pathogenic bacteria such as enteropathogenic and enterohemorrhagic E. coli (EPEC and EHEC) caused disease in humans.
This early experience opened my eyes to the world of biological research and showed me how exciting, stimulating and rewarding a laboratory environment could be. I then moved from Toronto to Montreal, where I obtained my Ph.D. from McGill University for my work elucidating the mechanisms of iron-uptake by Gram-negative bacteria, under the supervision of Dr. James Coulton. Combining biochemical, biophysical and structural techniques to characterize protein-protein interactions laid the foundation for my drive to apply a multidisciplinary approach to study bacterial processes. In the course this work I realized how the visualization of molecular interactions using microscopy and high-resolution structural techniques could complement and greatly extend conclusions drawn from more traditional methods.
This insight prompted me to move to the United States to work at the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). As a Visiting Fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Sriram Subramaniam, I helped pioneer cutting-edge cryo-electron microscopy techniques alongside molecular and biochemical methods to investigate the molecular architecture of receptor complexes involved in directed bacterial movement, or chemotaxis. My laboratory continues to apply this multidisciplinary approach to the study of a variety of bacterial processes.
Contact Cezar