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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
- Dr. Sathiyaseelan and team explore the expression and therapeutic target potential of cysteine protease ATG4 in pancreatic cancer
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Quarmby Lab
Summertime blooms of microalgae on snow cause "watermelon snow." We use the tools of genomics, bioinformatics, ecology and cell biology to study the algae, fungi, bacteria and other organisms comprising the the snow algae microbiome.
If you’ve hiked in the mountains or travelled to one of the poles, you’ve likely seen Watermelon Snow. Large swaths of orange, green, or most often, watermelon-red snow is a sign of a thriving microscopic community dominated by single-celled algae. Watermelon snow is not new: It appears in Captain John Ross’ report of the 1818 expedition in search of the NW Passage and in Charles Darwin’s report of his 1835 hike over the Andes. Because algal blooms reduce the albedo of snow, they accelerate the melting of seasonal snow fields. Alpine snow fields provide an important store of water for cities around the world. We want to understand the blooms and learn whether they are increasing in scope, duration, and intensity with global warming.
For more details, visit our lab website.
Selected Publications
- Engstrom, CB, BB Raymond, J Albeitshawish, A Bogdanovic, and LM Quarmby (2024). Rosetta gen. nov. (Chlorophyta): resolving the identity of red snow algal rosettes. J. Phycology 60(2) DOI: 10.1111/jpy.13438. [Publication accompanied by an “Algae Highlight” focused on our work].
- Engstrom, CB and LM Quarmby (2023). Satellite mapping of red snow on North American glaciers. Science Advances 9 (47) DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adi3268
- Engstrom, CB, SN Williamson, JA Gamon, and LM Quarmby (2022). Seasonal dynamics and radiative forcing of red snow algal blooms in British Columbia, Canada. Remote Sensing of Environment October 2022. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2022.113164
- Yakimovich, KM and LM Quarmby (2022). A metagenomic study of the bacteria in snow algae microbiomes. Can. J. Microbiology, 5 May 2022 https://doi.org/10.1139/cjm-2021-0313.
- Raymond, BB, CB Engstrom, and LM Quarmby. (2022) The underlying green biciliate morphology of the orange snow alga, Sanguina aurantia. Current Biology 32 (2): PR68-R69. doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2021.12.005.
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