A farewell to Dr. Boffa!
Dr. Michael Boffa has been a faculty member in the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry since July of 2008. As of July 1, 2016, Dr. Boffa has taken up a position in the Department of Biochemistry at Western University. Over the past eight years, Dr. Boffa developed into a first rate researcher, becoming a world renowned expert in elucidating the physiological and pathophysiological roles of thrombin-activatable fibrinolysis inhibitor (TAFI). He was very successful in attracting research funding from NSERC, HSFO, and the Windsor Essex County Cancer Centre Foundation. Dr Boffa also was able to build a research group composed of a cadre of very enthusiastic and accomplished undergraduate and graduate students. Michael is an excellent teacher/mentor and his service to the Department and the University was unparalleled. We are very sorry to see him go!
Michael, a heathy farewell and best wishes for continued success at Western!
On behalf of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UWindsor,
Bulent Mutus, Ph.D.
Head of Chemistry and Biochemistry
As part of its commitment to laboratory safety, the Department has
recently launched several initiatives of which all faculty, staff and
students need to be aware.
First, the Department has constituted a Departmental Safety
Committee. The mandates of this Committee include reporting on safety to
the Departmental Chair and council, reviewing safety-related incidents
and complaints and recommending actions in response, pro-actively
devising safety policies, and performing laboratory inspections. The
Chair of this Committee and Departmental Safety Officer is Dr. Michael
Boffa. The Committee's members are Nedhal Al-Nidawy (staff); Stephanie
Kosnik (graduate student), Dr. Stephen Loeb (chemistry faculty) and Dr.
Bulent Mutus (biochemistry faculty).
Inquiries regarding safety can be addressed to Dr. Boffa or to any of the committee members.
The second initiative is a Laboratory Safety Orientation Checklist
that must be filled out by all existing faculty, staff, graduate
students, and undergraduate students performing research. These
checklists are intended to be a standardized platform to direct and
document safety training for all Department members engaged in
laboratory research.
Over the next few months, a departmental safety web page will be developed.
Please click here to visit the current incarnation of this page.
Congratulations to Otis Vacratsis and Rob Schurko, who are recipients of the new Golden Jubilee Research Excellence Awards announced by VP Research Michael Siu and Dean of Science Marlys Koschinsky. Made possible through the research stimulus fund, the two-year awards
come with $40,000 a year in research funding and one course release per
year.
Dr. Vacratsis said the funding will help him hire graduate students
and post-doctoral fellows who will utilize a variety of analytical and
biological techniques to better understand the cellular processes
involved in CMT, a neuromuscular disorder characterized by loss of
muscle mass and touch sensation across various parts of the body.
Currently incurable, the disease is one of the most common inherited
neurological disorders and affects about one in 2,500 people.
“We do very basic, fundamental science in my lab, but hopefully
people will be able to use our findings in a clinical setting,”
Vacratsis said.
Congratulations also to Michael Boffa and Jichang Wang, who received infrastructure grants in support of their research programs.
Click here to access the full story from the Daily News.
Marlys Koschinsky and Michael Boffa join the department...This past summer, two new faculty members with expertise in Biochemistry joined the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry: - Marlys Koschinsky has come to the University of Windsor from Queens University as the new Dean of Science, and will be heading up a research program focusing on the use of molecular biology, protein chemistry, cell biology, and proteomic techniques for the study of the relationships between structure and function in the apolipoprotein apo(a).
- Michael Boffa also joins us from Queens' University. His research focuses on the protein TAFI (thrombin-activatable fibrinolysis inhibitor) and its function as a novel mediator of the balance between coagulation and fibrinolysis.
Welcome to the department!
