WELCOME TO THE ORTEGA LAB
“THERE ARE NOT SMALL PROBLEMS IN SCIENCE. PROBLEMS THAT APPEAR SMALL ARE LARGE PROBLEMS THAT ARE NOT UNDERSTOOD”. RAMON Y CAJAL.
WELCOME
We are located in Strathcona Anatomy Building at the downtown McGill campus in Montreal. Our lab is in the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology.
McGill is one of the top research-intensive institutions in Canada and our Department houses an impressive number of dynamic research groups. Their interest expand a broad variety of topics ranging from the understanding of the mechanisms of bacterial antimicrobial resistance to the unveiling of the mechanisms for cell division, transport and sorting of proteins in cells and the mechanisms of cancer. The Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology also constitutes the biggest cluster of cryo-electron microscopy expertise in Canada with researchers working in the areas of single particle cryo-electron microscopy , cryo-electron tomography, microscale imaging and computation for the development of image processing tools.
Our laboratory is interested in understanding the structure and mechanisms of enzymes that perform essential roles in bacteria. These enzymes are considered as new targets for antimicrobials. These targets offer the possibility for the discovery of new compounds that work in new ways and are not susceptible to existing resistance mechanisms. However, the most significant obstacles to be used as such has been a struggle to understand the complexity of the biology that underlies these various targets. Thus, our team continues to work for a detailed understanding of these enzymes.