This story is republished from the MSL website. All photo credits go to Emily Cooke. Read the full story here: https://www.msl.ubc.ca/marie-johns-and-karol-buda-awarded-2023-24-william-and-dorothy-gilbert-scholarships.
Congratulations to Marie Johns, one of the recipients of the 2023-2024 William and Dorothy Gilbert Scholarship in Biomedical Sciences. This award was established in 1995 by Professor Terrance Snutch in honour of William and Dorothy Gilbert of Santa Fe, New Mexico. The award is presented annually to recognize outstanding doctoral students at the Michael Smith Laboratories.
PhD candidate Marie Johns
Marie Johns joined the MSL in 2021 as a graduate student after completing her Bachelor of Science at UBC. Her interest in biology and love of the lab environment encouraged her to join the Jefferies lab (MSL, Department of Medical Genetics, Department of Microbiology and Immunology) as a Master’s student in Medical Genetics, before she transferred into the Medical Genetics PhD program.
“I’ve always been fascinated with biology, especially neuroscience and genetics. After joining the lab, I was very content with my supervisor, my lab mates, our research, and especially my thesis project, so when my supervisor suggested I fast-track to the PhD program, I was very excited to extend my studies that way,” shares Johns.
Johns’ research involves the use of both mouse and human stem cell-derived models to study Alzheimer’s disease. Her work aims to identify some of the molecular processes and mechanisms of Alzheimer’s, with the hope that this will lead to new targets for drug therapy. As part of this, Johns is looking for targets that might even be acted upon by existing drugs as a means of making new treatments available more quickly in the future.
Johns has particularly enjoyed how, through her work, she’s been able to identify and try to fill research gaps in real time. Her project grew from an extensive literature review to see what had been done before, and what still needed to be investigated in the field.
“It was really exciting to be able to design my PhD project specifically around filling current Alzheimer’s disease research gaps, then put the project right into practice in the lab.”
Johns hopes that, once finished her PhD project, she may have the opportunity to follow-up on her findings, and to follow the progress that is made in this area in the future.
Reflecting on what this award means at this time in her studies, Johns emphasizes, “it’s really important that awards like this are available to students to receive recognition and support for their research, especially as early-career scientists. It’s a great encouragement to keep going even when the research can be challenging.”
Congratulations again to Marie! We’re excited to take part in celebrating her achievements thus far, and look forward to following the outcomes of her research projects.