Mazen Saleh

Biography

Following my undergraduate and Master's studies at the University of Waterloo, I joined the Department of Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto. Under the supervision of Professor Jean Gariepy, my doctorate studies were focused on the biophysics of microbial protein toxins. Prior to joining the Department of Biology at Laurentian University, I spent time as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and Colorado State University.

Research Interest

The area of my expertise is molecular biophysics. My training in this area has been used in the past 15 years to study various aspects of bacterial physiology and their interactions with their environments. Several research programs were carried out in relation to interaction of bacteria with their environments in both pathogenic and non-pathogenic bacteria. In non-pathogenic bacteria, I used bioinformatics techniques to address certain questions on the process of protein secretion in bacteria. Specifically, how the structural features of signal sequences direct the membrane translocation of signal sequence-containing secretory proteins. I currently have a graduate student looking at the involvement of the mRNA of such secretory proteins in targeting the protein to the membrane for translocation and secretion.