News

Some news still to be added especially from 2024, but please check X/Twitter for more good news posts (@drdeannasanter) or LinkedIn

2024-2025

Nov 2025- The Santer Lab turned 5 years old! Wow time has flown by since I started at UM when the first 6 months people were mostly working from home & slow going, but everyone is doing so well now! I am very thankful for everyone who has joined the lab in the past 5 years and everyone who has supported our growth whether immunology colleagues, fellow ECRs or other collaborators locally, nationally or internationally! Cheers to more years of fun #IFN research!🍻
Nov 2025- Deanna's GSK Endowed Research Chair was renewed for 5 years until 2030!
Nov 2025- Deanna gave a symposium presentation about a B cell project led by Maggie at Cytokines 2025 in Seattle. It was so great to chat with PhD advisory committee members I hadn't seen in ages plus see so many IFN researchers from around the world🌎
Oct 2025- Deanna was a co-chair for the WISDOM Equity Symposium in Health Research! Amazing speakers from UM, Toronto, Halifax and Arizona that could all speak to different aspects of EDIA. Plus 6 learner speakers showcasing a range of projects at UM. Thankful for an amazing organizing committee and co-chair Dr Liam O'Neil.
Oct 2025- Deanna presented our pediatric ulcerative colitis project at PedIBD Sorrento in Italy! A fun time exploring cities I had never visited before also with close collaborator Dr Heather Armstrong 🇮🇹
Sept 2025- Prairie Infection and Immunity (PIIN) 2025 in Saskatoon - great job Maggie and Testimony presenting posters! A wonderful time networking bringing together researchers from Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
Sept 2025- Welcome to new Immunology MSc student Gunjan! She is continuing our exciting work in immunoregulation in ulcerative colitis! A extra congrats on 2 entrance scholarships!!👏
Aug 2025- Farewell lunch to Junel after a successful summer research time in the lab and final farewell to Olamide after over 4 years in the Santer lab from co-op student to tech to MSc grad!
July 15 2025- Olamide Ogungbola successfully defends her Immunology MSc! 2nd MSc graduate from our lab 🥳👏
June 27 2025- Annual Immunology golf outing! Excited for the Santer Team Lambda to win as a group! Lyle, Jude and Padmanie made it such a fun day. No hole in one this year for Hani...
June 2025- Another successful fundraising effort for the Crohn's and Colitis Canada's Gutsy Walk! We joined the Ghia lab to fundraise with direct donations plus a bake sale and also had a booth at the event to talk to people about our funded research programs in IBD.
May 2025- Testimony is awarded a very competitive national CGS-D CIHR studentship for 3 years of funding!
April 2025- Deanna gave an invited seminar at McMaster hosted by Dr. Josh Koenig. Great scientific discussions with many including collaborator Dr. Ali Ashkar.
April 2025- CSI 2025 in Gatineau! A large turnout from our department with over 15 student posters/short talks. Deanna received a New Investigator Travel award and Testimony received a PhD travel award based on his CV/abstract.
April 2025- Welcome to new postdoctoral fellow Dr Monireh Bahrami! 🎉
March 2025- Deanna attended GSK Research Summit in Toronto which was an amazing way to discuss science with GSK Research Chairs from across Canada. Bonus to also see my mentor Dr. Lorne Tyrrell who has been a GSK chair most of his career.
March 2025- Deanna received 2 awards - 1 for being a University of Manitoba Science Co-op supervisor of the year for 2024 and Woman in Health Sciences award through the University of Manitoba Women's centre. Both were through a nomination process so very thankful for the nominations.
Feb 2025- We received a 1yr CIHR Catalyst grant to study IFN-lambda in STBBI field ($200,000) with Dr. Thomas Murooka (UM) as NPI, and Dr. Santer & Dr. Ali Ashkar (McMaster) as co-PI, with Dr. Anna Blakney (UBC) as co-applicant. Very excited to study IFN-lambda in new antiviral contexts.
Jan 2025- We received 5yrs of CIHR Project grant funding ($967,725) to support our studies of IFN-lambda in modulating gut immunity, especially in the context of pediatric ulcerative colitis! Very thankful to work with Dr. Heather Armstrong (UM), Dr. Eytan Wine (UAlberta) and Dr. Simon Hirota (UCalgary) as co-Is! Congrats also to Dr. Thomas Murooka (UM) for his CIHR Project Grant where Deanna is a co-I.
Sept 2024- Very thankful to have received 3yr Crohn's and Colitis Canada Grants-in-Aid funding to support our work in understanding gut IFN-lambda biology, especially in the context of adult primary tissue (control or ulcerative colitis). This grant is with Dr. Heather Armstrong and Dr. Charles Bernstein (UM) as co-PIs. (link)
July 2024- Deanna was awarded a Rosalind Franklin Society award for the best publication in JICR in 2023 by a woman or underrepresented researcher. Sadly, the Rosalind Franklin Society lost funding in 2025 to continue these awards :(

July - Sept 2023

Sept 28 - Excellent WISDOM Equity Symposium - "Equity in Research" at the Winnipeg Art Gallery
Sept 24-26 - Prairie Infectious Immunology Network (PIIN) 2023 conference brought together trainees and staff from across Saskatchewan and Manitoba in Hecla, MB! PIIN Chair Dr. Ruey Su, with co-chairs Deanna and Dr. Barbara Porto with so many additional professors and students making the event a success! Leo, Testimony, Olamide and Maggie all attended and congrats to Leo for his Emergent Biosolutions Excellence in Research Award for his poster! https://www.piin2023.com/
Aug 15 - Santer and Armstrong labs hosted the monthly Dept of Immunology social event with food from everyone's home country and some competitive Immunology Pictionary!
Congrats to Testimony for 2 awards!! Judy and Gerry McDole Graduate Entrance Scholarship through the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences and UManitoba Graduate Fellowship (UMGF)!
Aug 10 - Last sister lab workshop covering career options including pros and cons of each
Aug 9 - The Santer and Armstrong lab sister lab team enjoyed a night out at a Winnipeg Goldeyes Baseball game
July 28 - Santer lab's first senior author publication is now out in the Journal of Interferon and Cytokine Research! An awesome collaboration with Dr. Paul Hertzog, Dr. Ray Donnelly and PBL Assay Science to finally have an antibody to quantify protein levels of human IFN-lambda receptor 1!
July 27 - Leo was one of 30 students selected to attend ComSciConCAN to be fully immersed in learning more about effective scientific communication https://www.comsciconcanada.org/
Huge congrats to Olamide for being awarded a Research Manitoba MSc Studentship!

April - June 2023

June 29- Annual Dept of Immunology picnic - another fun event :)
June 15 - Both the Santer and Armstrong labs attended the Key Topics in Gastroenterology Symposium - IBD in 2023 and Beyond. Both Deanna and Heather gave talks at the fundamental IBD session.
June 12 - Leo, Olamide and Testimony present posters and Deanna gives an ECR talk at the Manitoba Student Health Research Forum. Congrats to Olamide and Testimony both ranked in the top 12 of all health research posters!! (poster awards sponsored by Manitoba Medical Service Foundation)
June 6-9 - Deanna, Leo, Olamide plus Hana (Armstrong lab) attend CSI annual conference in Orford, Quebec. In total 8 UManitoba Immunology trainees presented their work in posters with short talk by Olamide as well that won a top poster presentation award!
June 4 - Santer and Armstrong labs supported the annual Crohn's and Colitis Canada Get Gutsy Walk raising ~$1200
May 19 - WISDOM launch event for the first ever Longitudinal Mentorship program for any trainee identifying as a woman to be paired with women mentors for group discussions. Amazing initiative led by WISDOM trainee group and Deanna joined as a mentor!
May 13 - Santer lab was well represented (Vi and Leo) among the Immunology department who organized hands-on activities for kids visiting UManitoba's Science-Rendezvous
May 18 - Deanna was honoured to be nominated to present at the Michael Gold Canadian Society for Immunology ECR Webinar series
May 9-10 - Deanna visited UBC Dept Microbiology and Immunology and BC Children's Hospital Research Institute to give seminars related to our work on type III IFNs in pediatric inflammatory bowel disease! Thanks to Dr. Michael Gold and Dr. Genelle Lunken for the invites and everyone for the wonderful discussions.
Thank you to TRIANGLE for providing summer studentship funding for Sharon Felix to join our lab who also was awarded a CHRIM summer studentship to work full-time May-August!
Apr 24 - Second sisterlab trainee/staff workshop - Answering questions after presenting and being able to give a 1 slide summary of your project

January-March 2023

Mar 24 - New catalyst grant awarded from the MS Society of Canada to Dr. Armstrong as PI and Dr. Santer as a co-investigator! So lucky to have such a collaborative environment and be involved with work that directly aims to benefit human health outcomes
Mar 24 - First trainee/staff workshop spearheaded by Dr. Armstrong for both our teams - Designing and thinking about scientific presentations!
Mar 3-5 - Dr. Santer attended her first Canadian Digestive Diseases week (CDDW) conference in Halifax and presented a poster showing the lab's recent work on pediatric inflammatory bowel disease! She met many people she had only known virtually until then plus the joint conference with the Canadian Liver Meeting meant seeing some old friends too including 3yr collaborator Dr. Feld for all IFN-lambda/COVID-19 work!
Feb 24-25- Beyond Sciences Initiative International virtual conference attendance by the whole Santer lab with Olamide's abstract ranked in the top 5%!! She gave an amazing talk and was awarded her 2nd presentation award for being voted one of the top presentations!
Feb 17- First "state of the lab" meeting with our sister lab (Dr. Armstrong) too - lots of discussion thinking back to all we accomplished and what to look forward to in the coming year! The growing teams meant we could fill up the whole conference table now :)
Feb 11- International day of women and girls in science and also a surprise birthday celebration for Dr. Santer
Welcome to Testimony Olumade who finally had his study permit approved and joined the lab at the end of January 2023 for his MSc in Immunology!
Olamide Ogungbola transitioned from technician to MSc Immunology student and we are so happy she decided to stay for another couple years!

October- December 2022

Congrats to Olamide for her 2 year Rady Faculty of Health Sciences MSc studentship!
Dr. Santer participated in the CIHR Reviewer in Training program and really learned a lot about peer review of project grants! Thanks to her mentor Dr. McCormick for all his advice and guidance!
Nov 21- Welcome to new research associate Dr. Maggie Ouyang!
Nov 16- Our first manuscript with data collected at UManitoba is officially online at Nature Communications for our work on using pegylated-IFN-lambda1 as a treatment of mild COVID-19! Co-op student Dhanvi's summer project data is included so amazing work for a few months to help us understand how immune responses could be altered in COVID-19 +/- peg-IFN-Lambda1!! (LINK)
Nov 1- Welcome to new technician and lab manager Vi Vu!
Nov 1- Our lab's 2nd birthday!!! What a challenging, but fun 2 years with the lab thriving now with more trainees and staff and multiple projects speeding ahead related to IFNs and antiviral immunity, chronic inflammation, and direct immune regulation
Fun monthly department of immunology events continue with a great Halloween party with the Santer lab even making a super IFN-lambda pumpkin!
Technician Olamide presents her research at CHRIM research days and is awarded a Gold Medal for top presentation for a non-trainee! Amazing for her first ever presentation at a conference!
Dr. Santer begins her role as an executive team member of WISDOM! Excited to continue her work advocating for women in science at the University of Manitoba (and beyond) with upcoming events planned over the next year to promote mentorship and networking. (LINK)

September 2022

Sept 30- Our collaborative Gastroenterology publication with Dr. Heather Armstrong is now officially online!! So exciting to see this out with Dr. Armstrong leading this work for the past few years studying fiber induced inflammation especially in certain patients with IBD. Check it out! (LINK)
Sept 24-25 - Dr. Santer was a co-organizer for the IFN-lambda 2022 satellite conference following Cytokines in Hawaii for 2 half days bringing together IFN-lambda experts from around the world! So fun to meet many had only met virtually before, new collaborations and lots of great talks with unpublished data! Dr. Santer gave a short talk and hopes to have that data written up soon...
Sept 20-23 - Dr. Santer was in Hawaii for Cytokines 2022 conference where she presented a poster and gave a lightning talk!
Sept 16- Dr. Santer is very honoured to have been awarded the Graduate Student Excellence in Teaching award for the Dept of Immunology based on graduate student feedback for 2021-2022. These were new lectures developed for this school year, so looking forward to teaching again starting Winter 2023.
Sept 1 - Santer lab is awarded a 2 year Research Manitoba New Investigator Operating grant to study IFN regulation of adaptive immunity!

June-August 2022

Aug 29- Santer lab is awarded a 1 year CHRIM Operating Grant which focuses on pediatric inflammatory bowel disease!
Aug 4- Additional CoVaRR-Net funding is awarded to our Pillar 10 team! Check out the UM Today article for how us and Dr. Jason Kindrachuk (Pillar 2) are contributing to this national network. (LINK)
July 29- Annual Dept of Immunology Faculty golf outing! Lots of fun and Dr. Santer may have had the top score....
June 30- Dept of Immunology annual picnic - games, good food and conversation :)
June 23- Santer lab is awarded a 5 year NSERC Discovery grant to study fundamental aspects of type III IFNs!!
June 17-20 - Dr. Santer attends CSI 2022 in Halifax presenting a poster, giving a short talk and chairing a workshop. Amazing time with fellow immunologists across Canada and thank you to CSI for the New Investigator Travel Award!
June 13- Leo presented his first ever poster at the Manitoba Health Research competition and won an Honourable Mention!
June 5-7- Dr. Santer attends CSV 2022 in Edmonton presenting a poster and meeting so many newPIs for a fun few days also seeing old friends at UAlberta. First in-person conference in 3yrs!

March-May 2022

May 27 - The Santer lab hosted the monthly Dept of Immunology social with video games, basketball, ping pong and of course food! Happy to say this will be a regular occasion going forward after over 2 years of less socialization with a different lab hosting each time.
May 17- First official joint lab meeting between the Armstrong and Santer labs! Lunch and cake to welcome all the new trainees and staff :) This will be a regular occurrence to hang out and also have data presented or journal club.
May 9- Rebecca and Nancy started their summer co-op work term!
April 20- Exciting to see the final online game for kids now out with La Liberte where Dr. Santer recorded answers in the studio for questions tackling Facts vs Fake News for COVID19 - also with Dr. Jason Kindrachuk, Dr. Ruey Su and Dr. Julie Ho - check out the game here
Mar 29-31 - Dr. Santer participated in the CIHR New Investigator Forum (virtual)
Mar 30- Dr. Santer joins CoVaRR-Net as a Deputy in Pillar 10- Antiviral Strategies and Antiviral Therapeutics with research funding through 2023.
Mar 14- Ramsha Mahmood officially started as a Technician for the Santer/Armstrong labs!
Mar 11- The Santer lab is awarded a 1 year UManitoba UGRP grant to study IFN-lambda immunological pathways!

February 2022

Santer and Murooka lab were awarded CFI-JELF infrastructure funding from the Canadian government ($344,000) which will be used to purchase essential, cutting-edge equipment for our currently under renovation containment level 2+ space (LINK)
IFN-lambda satellite meeting (Sept 24-25 in Hawaii) website officially live where Dr. Santer is on the organizing committee! https://interferonlambda.cytokinesociety.org/
Feb 3- Advanced Immunology lecture all about interferons! As per usual, immunology graduate students so engaged and lots of great discussion :)

December 2021-January 2022

Congrats to Leo for his 2 year Rady Faculty of Health Sciences MSc studentship!
Dec 17- Immunology department holiday party!
Dec 5- Faculty strike ended!
Busy time for Dr. Santer doing media interviews about immunology of COVID-19 and rapid tests plus another couple grants submitted

October/November 2021

Nov 22-23- Dr. Santer was one of 6 academic presenters at the University of Manitoba Flow Cytometry symposium (virtual). Awesome talks by keynote speaker Dr. Matt Macauley (UAlberta) and other invited professors/students :)
Nov 2- University of Manitoba faculty officially on strike to fight for fair compensation and benefits to be competitive within Canada to retain and attract faculty
Nov 1- Santer lab turns 1 year old! We celebrated with cupcakes and drinks and did some team bonding at an escape room. Thank you to everyone who worked so hard in our 1st year!!
Oct 29 - Immunology department Halloween party! It was fun to finally be able to get together with pumpkin carving and games
Oct 17-20 - Cytokines 2021 Virtual conference! Dr. Santer presented a poster discussing the latest results from our COVID-19 immunology project
Oct 12 - Renovations begin to convert our tissue culture room to BSL2+!
2 grants were submitted to support our work and a cool collaboration and 2 additional grants in development....

September 2021

Graduate student interviews have begun for May/Sept 2022! Plus lots of grant writing and data collection ongoing :)
Sept 19 - After many months, some department PIs finally have a social outing (golfing!)
Starting this month some in-person events are possible (<25) with people double vaccinated, wearing masks and distancing including our weekly department Journal Club (hybrid with Zoom)
Dr. Santer officially becomes a Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba (CHRIM) member and looks forward to expanding her projects focused on improving child health
Sept 1 - the new school year begins and that means Xinyun (Leo) begins his Immunology MSc!

July-August 2021

Aug 30 - We are sad to say goodbye to Dhanvi after she presented her end of summer short talk to the department. We wish her luck in finishing her BSc this year!
Aug 19 - Department of Immunology picnic! Excellent food and company at Birds Hill Park :)
Aug 10 - Canadian Society for Virology summer virtual symposium! Dhanvi presented her COVID-19 data as a 3MT talk
A 2nd CIHR COVID-19 operating grant is successfully funded this time to partially fund a Phase III trial testing Pegylated IFN-lambda1 as a treatment for mild COVID-19 where Dr. Santer is a co-investigator (LINK- Dr. Jordan Feld, PI, ranked #1 in the variant committee)

June 2021

Dr. Santer was one of the featured scientists in La Liberte Sciences Mag Junior "Teamwork Against the Coronas" magazine. All 3 editions are perfect for explaining immunology, COVID-19 and vaccines to kids! (LINK)
June 30 - Everyone should watch "Picture a Scientist" describing multiple stories about the challenges women in STEM face and to hear perspectives of how to make science more equitable and diverse. WISDOM organized a post-screening panel discussion 'Diversity in Science: Unscripted'
June 22-24 - Li Ka Shing Institute of Virology COVID-19 symposium (virtual)- Our initial COVID-19 immunology data was presented as a poster by our collaborator's student, Dr. Santer acted as a poster judge and participated in a student mentorship session
June 14-15 - Dr. Santer networks with students interested in a career in academia and judges the national poster competition for the Canadian Students Health Research Forum (virtual)

May 2021

May 31-June 2 - Canadian Society for Immunology Annual Meeting! Looking forward to presenting an abstract and meeting many immunologists from across Canada (virtually)
May 21- First lab meeting with the full team! Dhanvi presented a great journal club discussing neutralizing antibodies in COVID-19
May 19 - Dr. Santer's research seminar to UManitoba MMID dept
May 18- Xinyun (Leo)'s first official day in the lab as a technician until Sept!
May 4 - Dhanvi's first day in the lab as our 2nd co-op student!

May 21, 2021

April 2021

Apr 30 - Olamide's last day as a co-op student after she really got to experience what starting a new lab was all about! Thank you for all your hard work and we are especially happy you are staying on as a technician starting in a few weeks!
Apr 29- Happy International Day of Immunology!
Apr 28- Dr. Santer's first lecture at UM for IMED 7190 entitled "COVID-19 Immunology and Immunopathology"
Apr 7- After moving to Winnipeg, Dr. Santer supervised student Kaelie long distance and she did an excellent job in her 4th year UAlberta honours thesis presentation and report!

March 2021

Mar 22 - Dr. Santer was interviewed for UM Today article to discuss her recent recruitment to the University of Manitoba and studying interferon-lambda biology in various projects including COVID-19 (LINK)
The lab is fully running experiments and our -80 freezer even arrived!
Dr. Santer is co-editing a research topic in Frontiers Immunology called "Type III Interferons: Emerging Roles Beyond Antiviral Barrier Defense" - deadline for abstract is April 30, 2021 (LINK)

February 2021

The lab's first 2 grants are submitted!
Feb 19 - Dr. Santer discussed COVID-19 immunology at UManitoba's Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) Day with high school students (LINK)
Feb 11 - Dr. Santer was 1 of 2 professors in the Virtual UManitoba Discover Your Future in Healthcare series talking about what it takes and what is great about being a Health Researcher (video LINK)
Feb 5 - The COVID-19 IFN-lambda1 clinical trial results are officially published online at Lancet Respiratory Medicine! See here for the paper and story in the Globe and Mail (LINK)

January 2021

Jan 19 - Dr. Santer was 1 of 3 Cafe Scientifique panelists - "Vaccines and Therapeutics for COVID-19" (LINK) and also saved on YouTube
Jan 14 - Virtual UManitoba Immunology Dept Open House for prospective students
Jan 11- Olamide's first day in the lab!

The lab is almost ready to start experiments!

November-December 2020

Dec 18 - Virtual department game night over Zoom which was very fun
Biosafety permit and ethics protocol approved, startup funds activated and ordering started! Plus of course grant writing has begun...
Nov 26 - Undergraduate research opportunities at Bannatyne campus info session featuring 6 early career investigators including Dr. Santer - small group breakout room sessions
Nov 8 - Santer lab recruits it's first student! Olamide Ogungbola will join for a co-op term from January - April 2021
Nov 1-4 - Cytokines 2020 Virtual Conference - Dr. Santer presents her abstract as a lightning talk about type III IFNs and inflammatory bowel disease
Nov 1 - Santer lab opens! (in the middle of a pandemic...)

October 2020

Oct 20 - Dr. Santer presents at the Prairie Infectious Immunology Network (PIIN) conference on Zoom PIIN program
Oct 19- Our collaborative Nature Genetics COVID-19 dACE2 discovery paper is officially online! Link
Oct 15- Initial results released for the IFN-lambda1 COVID19 clinical trial we are a part of showing promising accelerated SARS-CoV-2 viral clearance in mild non-hospitalized patients with the highest virus titers! Press release
Oct 15- Dr. Santer and her family make the long drive to Winnipeg and move into their new house!
Oct 5- Dr. Santer's post-doctoral supervisor Dr. Michael Houghton is 1 of 3 scientists awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of the hepatitis C virus! UofA Folio article Nobel Prize summary page

Earlier 2020

CIHR COVID-19 operating grant awarded to Dr. Lorne Tyrrell (UAlberta), Dr. Jordan Feld (UHN), Dr. Adam Gehring (UHN) and Dr. Deanna Santer! Ranked #1 of 339 :) Analyses involving samples from the IFN-lambda1 COVID19 clinical trial led by Dr. Feld continues with part of the analysis to be done at the University of Manitoba.

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