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June 7, 2022

Congratulations to Nik Akkerman on successfully defending his MSc thesis today! What is the best way to celebrate if not to have some delicious BDI ice cream! Congratulations Nik!

June 6, 2022

Pelka Lab representation at CSV 2022! Lauren and Scott presenting their research:

May 26, 2022

Congratulations to the Pelka Lab on securing an NSERC RTI grant for a new western blot and gel imager. Our ageing film developer is not going last us that much longer and supplies for it are getting harder to get, so this came just in time!

April 8, 2022

Sushi lunch for the team, first time out together since 2020!

August 1st, 2018

Congratulations to Andrea! She successfully defended her M.Sc and is starting an exciting new chapter in Med School at the University of Manitoba! We wish her all the luck!

July 31st - August 4th, 2018

The University of Madison - Wisconsin played host for this year's DNA Tumor Virus Meeting. Lee was the lab representative this year, and presented a study in "Temporal Dynamics of Adenovirus 5 Gene Expression in Normal Human Cells."

July 13th, 2018

Big CONGRATULATIONS to Leandro for being awarded the University of Manitoba Graduate Fellowship for his studies of Nek9! Way to go!!

Another HUGE congratulations to Andrea for being accepted into the MD/PhD program at the University of Manitoba starting this August! Great work!

July 3rd, 2018

Congratulations to Peter for being awarded TENURE effective July 1st, 2018!

I could not have been granted this honour without all the help of my students and those who have worked for me over the last 6 years. It is their hard work and dedication that have made this possible. So thank YOU all!!!

Oh, and be sure to check out our latest papers:

http://jvi.asm.org/content/92/14/e00439-18.abstract

http://www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/9/12/387

June 18th - June 21st, 2018

Virologists take over the Canadian Society of Microbiologists conference!

This year marks a special event in CSM history as the field of virology has been designated it's own section for seminars and talks. The section for virology was christened with a keynote speech by the esteemed guest; Dr. Peter Palese.

Dr. Mark (University of Manitoba, Fort Garry Campus), Dr. Kindrachuk (University of Manitoba, Bannatyne Campus) and Dr. Darwyn Kobasa (University of Manitoba, Public Health Agency of Canada) also contributed to the virology section.

July 17th - July 22nd, 2017

Planet Pelka is Europe bound! The annual DNA Tumour Virus meeting took place in Birmingham, UK. Jasmine, Andrea and Lee were excited to partake in the conference and meet other distinguished colleagues in the field.

After the conference, the three members of Planet Pelka took some time off and traveled to Scotland to visit castles, try haggis and enjoy fine Scotch at a distillery!

February 15, 2017

It was a great pleasure to meet Prof. zur Hausen today! The Pelka lab was very fortunate to have a one-on-one session with the 2008 Nobel Laureate. We had a very interesting discussion with Prof. zur Hausen on virology, cancer and research in general. Thank you, Prof. zur Hausen, for your time and for inspiring us all!

January 27, 2017

Congratulations to Ola Olanubi for getting her first-author paper accepted in the "Journal of Virology". Based on her graduate work, we are so proud and pleased for her! Way to go, Ola! If you want to read it, please go to the following link:

http://jvi.asm.org.uml.idm.oclc.org/content/early/2017/01/19/JVI.02484-16.abstract

October 24th, 2016

Congratulations to Jasmine and the rest of the Pelka lab for their newest paper in Virology! Way to go Jasmine and the gang!

Jasmine is now a published author as this is her first ever paper. You can read the paper here:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0042682216302987

July 12, 2016

Welcome to the new Pelka Lab website (and thanks to Jo Holness for designing it)!

My lab studies how a viral oncoprotein reprograms the cell in order to support virus replication. I use the human adenovirus as a model system to study how E1A reprograms the infected cell.

The purpose of my research is to understand several key areas of infection, immunity, and disease:

Understand how oncogenes work
a) what pathways are responsible for initiation of the oncogenic events;
Study the mechanisms of viral reprogramming
b) focusing on the role of transcription factor and chromatin in virally-driven cellular reprogramming after infection;
Examine how viruses evade the innate immune systems of the infected cell
a) this has potential for understanding immune function and deregulation in disease.

Ultimately, the goal of my research is to use viral oncogenes in order to identify pathways critical for cancer formation. The idea is that viruses have evolved sophisticated mechanisms that ensure they replicate, thus they target every single pathway that can block or drive their growth. As we use a DNA tumour virus, we can exploit these properties and identify these crucial cellular pathways in our quest to understand cancer development.

Peter P.