End of Summer

Sandy as a 2-month old pup.

With every change in season heralds new family experiences. This summer has proven to be no exception. Perhaps the most overwhelming addition to our family is our new dog Sandy, born on March 17, 2009. He's a male English Cream Miniature Dachshund. He is adorable as most pups are, but every time one of us takes him out we get lots of questions. Sandy has created an entirely new social scene for all of us!

Sandy, 5-months old here, is guarding the Golden Ears campsite while Claire puts a pony tail in Lindsay's hair.

Lindsay and Claire pose on a rock in Gold Creek at the mouth of Allouette Lake.

Work has kept Amy and myself quite busy this summer. I'm not going to speak for Amy here, so I'll just say that my lab, despite its shrinking size (3 M.Sc students graduated in the last year) has been fairly productive. We've published a couple papers in 2009 with others along the way. I spend most of my time at work at my desk writing, which means that I have something to write about.

In between long hours at work for both Amy and myself, we did manage to enjoy a 10-day vacation in Coronado to celebrate the 4th of July and visit with Amy's folks. I went off with some friends on an annual 3-day kayaking trip – this year we went to the Deer Group, which is a set of small islands in the southeast part of Barkley Sound on Vancouver Island. We experienced a mix of weather, but the wildlife including eagles, killer whales, sea stars, and sea lions kept our attention.

Sunset from our islet campsite.

At this point Claire will be entering 3rd grade and Lindsay will be joining her at Queen Elizabeth Annex as she starts kindergarten. Lindsay is going to start a dance class, but I'm convinced that she'll love cross country running when she gets the chance at school. Maybe next year she'll go out for the swim team since she appears to be a natural at backstroke. Interestingly, Lindsay is fairly intense about her math workbooks and in this regard she is just like her mother. Fortunately, her curriculum will be en français, so she will be faced with some healthy academic challenges that will keep her attention. Claire will begin another season of swimming with the Vancouver Pacific Swim Club and playing soccer for the Point Grey Tigers. She's proven to be quite a little powerhouse, particularly with her butterfly and freestyle strokes, and she expects big things from herself in the pool and on the pitch (no pressure). Lately, I've been reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (J.K. Rowling's fifth installment in the series) to Claire. It's quite amusing to get very serious inquiries about spells (e.g., septum sepra, avada cadavra, and expelliarmus) and the wizard world. Both of the girls have been and will continue to be the ultimate joy in this world.

Adam and his petites filles in the ice cold water of Lynn Creek in North Vancouver.

Winter in Vancouver

Traveling this season does provide many challenges, particularly anywhere in North America. Claire & Amy had just barely made it home from Pennsylvania before the weather got severely bad, so Lindsay and I are pleased to have them home. Nevertheless, the heavy snow fall in Vancouver has made for a scenic holiday.

(1) Claire & Lindsay off to school before the holidays start. (2) The Frankel residence during the Dec. 24th blizzard. (3) X-mas Day should always provide a running course that looks like this shot in our neighborhood.

Looking back at 2008 I can say that my laboratory has shifted its focus from generating encoded peptide-like libraries from unnatural amino acids (we haven't given up) to studying the enzymatic mechanism of protein arginine N-methyltransferases (PRMTs). My postdoctoral fellow and I published a paper on human PRMT6 earlier this year, and we have just submitted another manuscript this month detailing the activity of human PRMT2, which has eluded many labs for over a decade. We are writing another manuscript about various techniques to assay PRMT activity, and one of my PhD students is making headway on his project. My laboratory is ramping up in this area, and hopefully research dollars will follow.

The other members of my laboratory have spent the past six months troubleshooting several technical issues to generate mass spectrometry data confirming that we've made encoded peptides. As I scientist I've always gravitated to projects that are straightforward, but this project has taken me outside of my comfort zone. The combination of materials and techniques makes the system inherently complicated. The only way that we are going to succeed with this project is through perseverance and focus. Since funding for this project is running out, 2009 will need to be a productive year to keep it afloat. (I apologize if my comments sound like a business memo, but running a laboratory is like running a small business!) Back to family…

(4) Frankels at the VanDusen Botanical Garden Festival of Lights.

Now that 2009 has fallen into our laps and the world is still ablaze (except in frigid North America), we will continue to hope for peace and prosperity. May President-elect Obama bring the changes promised (and maybe throw in some gay rights). May Stephen Harper's government get ousted after the pirogue of Parliament (I'm feigning interest in Canadian politics here). May the slow march out of the current economic downturn herald a new era of conservation, efficiency, and rational thought (as opposed to wishful thinking). May my laboratory personnel take pride in their work and publish. May we all feel togetherness with our friends and family. May the smiles on my girls' faces broaden.

(5) Lindsay loves puzzles, and (6) Claire loves her new bear.