“I fell in love with research after that semester and knew I wanted to pursue it further.” The 26-year-old relishes the quiet, personal moments of discovery. “Like most students, I was on the fence about medical school or pursuing something else,” he said. It was a third-year mini-thesis project in Brandl’s lab that sparked his interest in research. “There is exciting potential for human health.” Born and raised in Oakville, Ontario, Berg completed his undergraduate degree in medical sciences at Western with an honours specialization in biochemistry and cell biology. “We’re on the forefront of this research,” said Berg. It’s a new frontier in the field of gene expression. tRNA mistranslation may contribute to disease by accelerating the onset or severity of symptoms. The research team is focusing on diseases that are characterized by misfolded proteins, such as neurodegenerative or cardiac diseases.
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“We’ve started to see that some of this variation has the potential to lead to a misreading of the genetic code in humans, which we think has implications in disease,” he explained.
Berg and his colleagues have sequenced tRNA genes from a group of individuals and are now exploring this variation. Humans have 610 tRNA genes, meaning there is a lot of room for variation. “This leads us to ask, if yeast is doing this, what other organisms do the same thing?” said Berg.
During their investigations, members of the Brandl Lab stumbled upon a suppressor tRNA in yeast that misreads the genetic code and translated a dysfunctional mutant protein into a functional one. When tRNAs mistranslate genetic information, errors in protein synthesis occur. tRNAs are a type of RNA adapter molecule that translate genetic information into proteins – a molecular ‘bridge’ between an mRNA codon and the amino acid it codes for. Using yeast models, he is looking at transfer ribonucleic acid (tRNA) biology, mistranslation and the evolution of the genetic code with supervisor Chris Brandl, PhD. “It’s definitely a journey.” Berg is focused on the mechanisms regulating gene expression. “There’s no one result or experiment that makes or breaks my work,” he explained. Matthew Berg, PhD Candidate in Biochemistry, doesn’t expect ‘aha’ moments.
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DrumImage was up and running.Letting go of the 'aha' moment: A series of small steps to reach success A second set was ordered immediately, and at the first competition this band attended, BG and the other bass drummer were swamped with requests for information on how / where / who made their drum head graphics. The first time BG showed up at one of his bands with our heads on his drum, the response was incredible. The end result of this extensive testing was a process that met every one of the requirements above. We achieved items 1 though 5 pretty quickly, but finding a way to achieve items 6 and 7 were a lot more difficult. His critical input – and his ear – were really important to us, because our experience in and understanding of the production process needed to be guided by the musical results our experiments generated. We spent months experimenting with different fabrication methods, various materials and combinations of materials, different application techniques, etc., all with BG evaluating our efforts. be available at a cost both reasonable and competitive. produce a sound mirroring that of a non-graphic head Ĩ. not interfere with the desired tuning of the drum ħ. be able to be stretched tightly over a drum shell Ħ. be able to graphically last – to retain color and image quality – throughĮxposure to all types of weather, also for years ĥ. allow for these graphics to be durable enough to withstand constant beating Ĥ.
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allow for full color, custom, photo quality graphics to be incorporated on to aĢ. The ideal solution, as BG outlined, would:ġ. As we interviewed BG to understand what had been tried in the past, why it hadn’t worked, and what performance characteristics were going to be required of these graphics, we realized that this was going to be substantial challenge – and was going to require a collaborative effort. He’d heard we were pretty good at figuring out solutions for the sign and visual communications industry, so he asked if we could put graphics on a bass drum head-graphics that would last, and not ruin the drum’s sound. BG, we soon learned, was a bass drum instructor for several well known competition pipe & drum bands in the area. Wonder how we got started in this business? It’s a good story, and it started when BG walked into our offices in the spring of 2005.
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