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The Queen’s Applied Biotechnology (QAB) Club recently held its annual Queen’s Biotechnology Conference, a student-run conference intended to bring together like-minded students from diverse backgrounds, with industry professionals and faculty to discuss emerging topics in the biotechnology industry.

This year’s event brought together more than 80 students, researchers, and industry professionals for a full day of keynote talks, panel discussions, poster presentations, and networking. The student organizing team coordinated the entire conference including speakers, sponsors, programming, and outreach, with support from organizations including , , , and .

“The conference is important as we want to improve each year and showcase the great work undergraduate students are doing,” says Kaden Kowalyshyn, co-chair of the QAB with Mackenzie Watson. “We want to build a foundation for creativity and confidence among undergraduate students to pursue ideas and design projects they are interested in. To me, this conference reflected something bigger - students at Queen’s are not just participating in biotechnology, they are actively shaping the community around it.”

What made this event especially impactful was the level of industry engagement, according to Kowalyshyn. Several of the speakers were founders of leading biotechnology companies, and one of the sponsors, , has supported the growth of biotech ventures across North America totalling over $39 billion in value.

QAB was created in 2019 and started several undergraduate research projects in 2022. The first conference was held in 2025, and this year’s edition was built on that success.

The aims of QAB include:  

• To offer opportunities to conduct undergraduate research projects to further understand the field of biotechnology through hands-on exploration of topics.  
• To generate student interest in biotechnology and expose individuals to biotechnology applications such as industry or commercialization.  
• To facilitate a social environment where like-minded individuals can gather to discuss biotechnology and related interests.

“In September we take on five undergraduate research projects,” Kowalyshyn explains. “We review the projects and hire a team of students to work on the projects throughout the year. They present these projects at the annual QAB conference. We fully fund these projects so students can explore what they are passionate about. As an undergraduate student interested in research, I found it hard to find opportunities to pursue that research. We help them gain the confidence and find opportunities to work with established researchers.”

Second year undergraduate student Allie Goodyear (Department of Biology) presented her project Agricultural Biosensors for Pathogen Detection. The goal of her project was to create a device that could be used in the soil of Canadian potato farms for early detection of Pectobacterium, a group of bacterial pathogens that cause potatoes to rot from the inside out

“While potatoes are Canada’s top vegetable crop, and fifth overall crop, they can be difficult to monitor for pathogens because they grow underground,” Goodyear explains. “We designed a three-signal biosensor that would sense for three target molecules involved in Pectobacterium infection: a bacterial communication molecule, a potato stress molecule, and a toxin precursor associated with Pectobacterium infection. This product would benefit Canadian farmers by reducing costs and labour associated with constantly sending soil samples for testing, and the time associated with walking the fields to look for infection. Many biosensors could be on one farm to provide larger-scale coverage, to help identify pathogens more efficiently and reduce crop loss.”

Goodyear says QAB provides students with the opportunity to conduct research in collaborative groups over the school year. “Students develop skills in literature review, scientific inquiry, scientific writing, and a variety of online software related to protein modelling and synthetic biology design. This club provides the opportunity to build on content we have learned about in the news or our coursework, but with an applied, solution-oriented approach.”

“The hands-on research experience is invaluable, as it helps students develop the critical and creative thinking skills that future cutting-edge researchers need. Additionally, getting experience in presenting research and translating complex concepts into easy-to-understand information are transferrable skills that are useful both in coursework and future careers.”

Second year undergraduate student Umaya Krishnathas presented her project Biodegradation of Ethinylestradiol (EE2) in Wastewater.

“My project focused on tackling a growing environmental and public health issue: hormonal pollution from ethinylestradiol (EE2), a synthetic estrogen found in most birth control pills. Even at extremely low concentrations, EE2 can pass through wastewater treatment systems and disrupt the development and reproduction of aquatic organisms, which can ultimately impact ecosystem health and, indirectly, human health.”

Her project explored whether natural enzymes such as laccases, dye-decolorizing peroxidases, and cytochrome P450s could help break down EE2 into less harmful substances. She used computational tools to model how these enzymes interact with the hormone and to see which ones might work best. Overall, the goal was to explore more sustainable, biology-based approaches to improving the treatment of contaminated water.

“The Applied Biotechnology Club and its conference gave me the opportunity to learn more about biotechnology beyond the classroom and apply those concepts to a real-world problem,” Krishnathas says. “I gained hands-on experience working with different computational tools and software used in the biotech field, such as PyMOL, which was something I hadn’t been exposed to in my courses yet. It was also a great opportunity to collaborate with peers, learn how to approach research as a team, and get a better understanding of how the biotechnology industry works. The conference itself was especially valuable because it allowed us to present our work, learn from other student projects, and gain early exposure to research and scientific communication.”

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