Welcome to the website for the Plotkin Research Group!

We do research at the interface of biology and physics.

Plotkin Group News:

Welcome New Group Member!

• Jason Nguyen, PhD, GSAT program, project: Evolution of Multicellularity 

Recent Publications:

• Peng X, Gibbs, E, Silverman JM, Cashman NR and Plotkin SS "A Method for Systematically Ranking Therapeutic Drug Candidates Using Multiple Uncertain Screening Criteria" Statistical Methods in Medical Research https://doi.org/10.1177/09622802211002861 (2021)

• Plotkin SS, Cashman NR "Passive Immunotherapies targeting Aβ and Tau in Alzheimer's disease" Special Issue: Antibody Therapies, Neurobiology of Disease v144 105010 (2020)

• Semmler S, Gagné M, Garg P, Pickles SR, Baudouin C, Hamon-Keromen E, Destroismaisons L, Khalfallah Y, Chaineau M, Caron E, Bayne AN, Trempe JF, Cashman NR, Star AT, Haqqani AS, Durcan TM, Meiering E, Robertson J, Grandvaux N, Plotkin SS, McBride HM, and Vande Velde C "TNF receptor–associated factor 6 interacts with ALS-linked misfolded superoxide dismutase 1 and promotes aggregation" The Journal of Biological Chemistry 295 pp3808-3825 (2020)

Recent Submissions:

• Garg P, Semmler S, Baudouin C, Vande Velde C, Plotkin SS "Misfolding-Associated Exposure of Natively Buried Residues in Mutant SOD1 Facilitates Binding to TRAF6" (submitted)

• Hsueh S, Aina A, Cashman NR, Peng X and Plotkin SS  "Epitope Scaffolding Using α-synuclein Cyclic Peptides to Generate Oligomer-selective Antibodies for Parkinson’s Disease" (submitted)

• Pokrishevsky E, DuVal MG, McAlary L, Louadi S, Pozzi S, Roman A, Plotkin SS, Dijkstra A, Julien JP, Allison WT, Cashman NR "Tryptophan Residues in TDP-43 and SOD1 Mediate the Cross-seeding and Toxicity of SOD1" (submitted)

• DuVal MG, McAlary L, Habibi M, Garg P, Sher M, Cashman NR, Allison WT and Plotkin SS "Physical Properties of Novel Aggressive and Beneficial SOD1 Mutants Predict Phenotypes Consistent with ALS" (posted on bioRxiv)

Recent Recorded Presentations:

We are grateful to the Digital Technology Supercluster, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Alberta Innovates and the Alberta Prion Research Institute, and Westgrid/Compute Canada for supporting our research.