Hello Panthers!

With the upcoming holiday season, if you are staying on the UPEI campus or in PEI, and are looking for some fun activities to do, the UPEI Campus Life Program, the International Student Office, and the UPEI Residence Life team, in partnership with the UPEI Alumni Association, has put together a fun calendar of events for you to participate in, enjoy, and celebrate the holiday season. There are fun events, activities, gifts, draw prizes, food, and lots of togetherness written in the books for these two weeks. 

Visit the UPEI events calendar for information about individual events, or follow us on Instagram at @upeicl for more updates and information. 

We look forward to celebrating this holiday season with you!

The excitement for this Saturday's Gold Rush draw is growing as big as the pot! With no winners in the last TEN draws, the total pot has grown to more than $42,400 and the LARGEST Gold Rush pot to date, with half going to the winner of the draw.

Gold Rush is a virtual fundraising initiative that raises funds for UPEI’s athletic and recreation programs. You can now select a specific team, club, or program to direct your proceeds from each of your tickets. 

Play today and every week for a chance to win! Download the UPEI Panther Recreation app from the App Store or on Google Play, or play from your computer. The weekly draw is held at 8:00 pm every Saturday.

Save the tax on select items at the UPEI Bookstore!

All of our print books including textbooks are now tax free. You can also save the tax on snacks, drinks, candy, puzzles, plush dolls, and more. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram for all the newest items and promotions. 

Research Ethics Board (REB) applications involving "more than minimal risk" must be reviewed by the full UPEI REB. The next deadline for submitting these protocols is Friday, January 3, 2025, for review at the January 30 meeting.

Other ethics protocol submissions, including new applications that do not involve more than minimal risk, renewals, and amendments, may be submitted at any time. They will be sent for delegated review as soon as all necessary materials are received.

All research compliance applications, including for the REB, must be submitted through the UPEI Researcher Portal (https://upei.researchservicesoffice.com/Romeo.Researcher/). Instructions for using the site are available at https://www.upei.ca/research-services/forms.

Please contact the Compliance Coordinator at researchcompliance@upei.ca for more information about the Researcher Portal, or the REB application, review, and approval process.

The next deadline for submitting biosafety applications, including new applications, renewals, and/or amendments, is Friday, January 3, 2025. These applications will be reviewed at the January 16 meeting.

All research compliance applications, including biosafety application forms, must be submitted through the UPEI researcher portal. Information about the researcher portal, including instructions for using the site, is available at https://www.upei.ca/research-services/forms.

Please contact the Research Compliance Coordinator at researchcompliance@upei.ca if you have any questions about accessing or using the researcher portal, or about the biosafety application, review, and approval process.

Student Affairs, Dalton Hall (fifth floor) will close at noon for the day on Friday, December 20, 2024. We will re-open at 8:30 am on Monday, December 23, 2024.

Student Affairs can be reached at 902-566-0488 or studentserv@upei.ca.

Please note that Accessibility Services will close early for the day at 11:00 am on December 20.

For general inquiries, please email accessibility@upei.ca.

For testing inquiries, please email astesting@upei.ca.

Thank you,

Accessibility Services Team

Folks in the TLC are reviewing Internal Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) Grants and are so focused on SoTL that we found a 12 Days of SoTL blog to share as our final Tea(ching) break for 2024.  

UPEI and ACENET are pleased to announce that Akshay Ghosh has joined the ACENET team as a research consultant.

Based at UPEI, Akshay will support researchers and their teams using the digital research tools available through ACENET and its national partner, the Digital Research Alliance of Canada. These include high-performance and cloud computing, large file storage and transfer, and research data management. Akshay will work with new and experienced clients to use these tools throughout the life cycle of projects, helping with small and large problems. Akshay will also deliver workshops that teach the skills to effectively use digital research tools.

Most recently, Akshay was part of the ACENET network as an Advanced Digital Skills Instructor.  If you would like to discuss your digital research needs with Akshay, please email akshay.ghosh@ace-net.ca.

The Department of Physics invites you to join us on the winter solstice at the Earl L. Wonnacott Observatory for our final public event of 2024. From 6:00 to 8:00 pm on Saturday, December 21, we will be pointing our telescope at various objects of interest, which may include planets, stars, nebula, and galaxies, depending on sky conditions. Please come to Memorial Hall, Room 417, to join the event.

If cloudy weather causes this event to be cancelled, we will post an update on our website by 10:00 am on Saturday: https://projects.upei.ca/astronomy/2024/09/17/fall-2024-public-viewings/

Hello, UPEI Staff and Faculty members! 

The UPEI M365 Project will be sending out an e-mail to additional campus community members as part of the telephone data verification survey based on having multiple extensions.  

We would ask that you please fill out the appropriate survey based on the instructions in the e-mail you receive from M365Project@upei.ca. 

We thank those who have participated in our ongoing telephone data verification activity and encourage those who have not yet done so to complete the activity following the relevant instructions provided in the e-mails sent by us.  

By participating in this activity, you are supporting the planning and implementation of our new telephone systems once we are ready to deploy them on campus. 

Thank you for your time and support.  

M365 Project Team 

The deadline for Winter 2025 tuition waivers is December 20, 2024.  We encourage you to have tuition waivers submitted as soon as possible to assist in the timely processing. Tuition waiver forms must be submitted electronically.  

Online employee and spouse/dependent tuition waiver fillable forms can be found on the main page of MyUPEI under UPEI Forms.

If you have any questions, please contact Human Resources at (902) 566- 0514 or hrgeneral@upei.ca.

Presenter: Mukhayyo Sultonova

Date/Time/Location: Thursday, December 19, 2024, 1:00 pm, AVC 207N

Title: “Global Proteomic Analysis of Abundance and Activity During Nutrient Stress”

Proteomics is a rapidly growing field that focuses on the comprehensive study of proteins within biological systems. Unlike genomic and transcriptomic studies, proteomics offers a direct approach to understanding cellular functions and disease mechanisms by measuring protein abundances, modifications, interactions, and structures. Mass spectrometry-based quantitative proteomics, especially techniques like 2D-LC-MS/MS and isobaric peptide labeling reagents, have made it possible to explore global proteome alterations across different biological conditions. These techniques have enabled determination of global differences in protein solubility and stability during ligand-protein interactions, contributing to an understanding of cellular responses to various perturbations. These perturbations include changes caused by external influences such as changes in nutrient availability. Nutrient stress has been shown to induce proteomic adaptations and has been investigated vastly at the protein abundance level. However, not much is known about changes in protein state (stability or activity) during proliferative and quiescence conditions.

This thesis explores global proteome and protein thermal stability changes under nutrient stress in bacterial models such as E. coli during logarithmic and stationary phases of growth, as well as human cell lines, HEK293T, and MDA-MB468 during 24h glucose starvation, to investigate metabolic changes during nutrient limitation. By integrating proteome abundance and thermal stability measurements into one analysis, this study aims to discover alterations in protein state across differing nutrient conditions that may be associated with important metabolic and metabolism-related diseases. Ultimately, these findings could contribute to the identification of potential therapeutic targets for metabolic disorders and cancer.

Everyone is welcome.

IT Systems and Services is preparing virtual student computer lab applications for the Winter 2025 semester. We kindly ask that all faculty and/or lab facilitators who require access to virtual lab applications for their courses please submit their requests via the form provided on the myUPEI portal.

Please complete this form if you are facilitating a course in the upcoming Winter 2025 semester and your students will require virtual lab access to complete their course.

Please note that any virtual lab access previously provided for courses will be removed by January 2, 2025. If your students still require access during the Winter 2025 semester, please re-submit the above form.

In some specialized cases, there may be costs and approvals associated with provisioning virtual labs, and in these cases, ITSS will contact you to discuss next steps.

Research Ethics Board (REB) applications involving "more than minimal risk" must be reviewed by the full UPEI REB. The next deadline for submitting these protocols is Friday, January 3, 2025, for review at the January 30 meeting.

Other ethics protocol submissions, including new applications that do not involve more than minimal risk, renewals, and amendments, may be submitted at any time. They will be sent for delegated review as soon as all necessary materials are received.

All research compliance applications, including for the REB, must be submitted through the UPEI Researcher Portal (https://upei.researchservicesoffice.com/Romeo.Researcher/). Instructions for using the site are available at https://www.upei.ca/research-services/forms.

Please contact the Compliance Coordinator at researchcompliance@upei.ca for more information about the Researcher Portal, or the REB application, review, and approval process.

The next deadline for submitting biosafety applications, including new applications, renewals, and/or amendments, is Friday, January 3, 2025. These applications will be reviewed at the January 16 meeting.

All research compliance applications, including biosafety application forms, must be submitted through the UPEI researcher portal. Information about the researcher portal, including instructions for using the site, is available at https://www.upei.ca/research-services/forms.

Please contact the Research Compliance Coordinator at researchcompliance@upei.ca if you have any questions about accessing or using the researcher portal, or about the biosafety application, review, and approval process.

Student Affairs, Dalton Hall (fifth floor) will close at noon for the day on Friday, December 20, 2024. We will re-open at 8:30 am on Monday, December 23, 2024.

Student Affairs can be reached at 902-566-0488 or studentserv@upei.ca.

Please note that Accessibility Services will close early for the day at 11:00 am on December 20.

For general inquiries, please email accessibility@upei.ca.

For testing inquiries, please email astesting@upei.ca.

Thank you,

Accessibility Services Team

Please join us in the Faculty of Education (Memorial Hall, Room 306) on December 19, 2024, from 3:30-5:00 pm. 

Share in some holiday cheer and help us recognize and thank Dr. Ron MacDonald for his years of service to UPEI. Ron will retire from UPEI on December 31, 2024.

All are welcome!

Depending upon the work requirements of University Departments, the holiday schedule will be in effect from December 24, 2024, through January 1, 2025, inclusive. Office and regular business hours will resume on Thursday, January 2, 2025.

PAY DATE DEADLINES:

For the December 6 pay: The deadline for submitting timesheets and overtime pay is November 25 at 10 am. The deadline to submit PTFs, pay changes, etc. (November 15) has passed.

For the December 20 pay: The deadline for submitting timesheets and overtime pay is December 9 at 10 am. The deadline to submit PTFs, pay changes, etc. (November 21) has passed.

For the January 3, 2025, pay: The deadline to submit PTFs, pay changes, etc. is December 5 by noon. The deadline to submit timesheets and overtime is December 16 at 10 am.

For the January 17, 2025, pay: The deadline to submit PTFs, pay changes, etc. is December 17 by noon. The deadline to submit timesheets and overtime is January 6 at 10 am.

GIFT DAYS:

The following days will be given to permanent and term staff as paid time off: December 24, 27, 30, and 31, 2024 (4 gift days). For those employees who must work on any of these days, time off will be given at a later date. 

Please note: Students and casual employees are not eligible for the “gift” days of December 24, 27, 30, and 31. 

SCHEDULE FOR SPECIFIC DEPARTMENTS:

The holiday schedule for specific departments is as follows:

Security Services will continue over this period, 24 hours a day. 

Shipping/Receiving and Mail Services will resume regular hours on January 2, 2025.

Development and Alumni Engagement will be open December 30 and 31, 2024 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Veterinary Teaching Hospital will be available for emergency service only throughout the holiday period; it will resume regular hours on January 2, 2025.

Chi‐Wan Young Sports Centre will be open on December 15, 9 am to 8 pm; December 16 to 20, 6 am to 8 pm; December 21 and 22, 9 am to 8 pm; December 23, 8 am to 8 pm; December 26, 9 am to 5 pm; December 27, 8 am to 8 pm; December 28 and 29, 9 am to 8 pm; December 30, 8 am to 8 pm; January 2 and 3, 6 am to 8 pm; and January 4 and 5, 9 am to 8 pm. It will be closed on December 24, 25, and 31, and January 1. Regular operating hours will resume on January 6, 2025. Hours are also posted at https://www.upei.ca/ar/athletic-facilities/chi-wan-young-sports-centre/hours

Diagnostic Services will be closed on December 25, 26, and 29, and January 1. It will be open on December 24, 28, and 31 from 8 am to 12 pm, and on December 27 and 30 from 8 am to 4:30 pm. Regular operating hours will resume on January 2, 2025.

SUPPORT STAFF DURING THE HOLIDAY:

Departmental authorities who require support staff over the holiday period should make their requirements known to the Human Resources Department no later than two weeks prior to the holiday.