Dane Sands and Xianya Qu awarded the 2024-2025 Zymeworks Fellowships

By Sarah Anderson, PhD and Emily Cooke

We are excited to extend our congratulations to Dane Sands and Xianya Qu, the 2024-25 recipients of the Zymeworks Fellowship in Advanced Protein Therapeutics. The award, created in part in recognition of the Nobel laureate Michael Smith, is a partnership between Zymeworks Inc., the Michael Smith Laboratories, and the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of British Columbia. Each year, one student from each department is provided a one-year fellowship of $20,000 to support health science research that aligns with Zymeworks's focus on immune-based treatments for disease.

Fellowship recipient Dane Sands is pursuing a PhD in biochemistry and molecular biology and recently joined the lab of Thibault Mayor, a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and the Michael Smith Laboratories.

“I am extremely excited to see Dane’s project supported by the Zymeworks Fellowship, which will help our lab establish new high-throughput methods for the production of biologics using cell factories,” said Mayor.

Focusing on the yeast Komagataella phaffii, Sands studies how to take advantage of the organism’s genetics to mass-produce antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), an alternative to traditional small-molecule antibiotics. Using an approach called transposon sequencing, Sands’s goal is to identify key genes involved in protein production. These genes can then be modified to increase the output of peptides, enabling large-scale, cost-effective production of AMPs that target antibiotic-resistant microbes.

The Zymeworks Fellowship will support Sands in purchasing essential reagents and other lab supplies as he advances his research. 

“I am deeply grateful to Zymeworks for this opportunity and for believing in my project and its potential impact,” Sands said. “It is truly rewarding to have my work recognized and supported, and I will carry this motivation throughout the rest of my academic career.”

Qu is a fourth-year graduate student pursuing a PhD in microbiology and immunology in the lab of Jim Kronstad, a professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, the Michael Smith Laboratories, and the Faculty of Land and Food Systems. There, she investigates mechanisms of drug resistance by Cryptococcus neoformans, a fungus that can cause fatal meningitis infections in immunocompromised people. She recently published a study on how phosphate uptake influences the susceptibility of C. neoformans to the antifungal drug caspofungin. She has also pioneered a project investigating the role of the endoplasmic reticulum in the fungus’s capacity for destruction within a host. 

“Xianya is fearless in taking on new challenges and in pursuing her own ideas,” said Kronstad. “In addition to her dedicated and hard work on her main projects, Xianya also contributes to our research through her highly collaborative efforts to support other scientists in our group.” 

Qu is honored to be named a recipient of the Zymeworks fellowship. “It not only provides valuable financial support but also serves as motivation, encouraging me to overcome challenges and continue striving for growth and improvement,” she said.