KELLY ROSALYN THICKETT
302-858 Davenport Road • Toronto, Canada • M6G 2B4 • (416) 458-9882 • kelly_thickett@hotmail.com
OBJECTIVE
To explore career opportunities in crop or food science particularly in the areas of plant pathology,
breeding, sustainable crop production, product development and quality control.
EDUCATION
 September 2006 – June 2009
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO, Toronto, ON
M.Sc., Department of Molecular Genetics, Graduate student representative
Thesis: " Downregulation of cohesin activity prior to anaphase" (chromosome biology in yeast)
 January 2002 - April 2006
UNIVERSITY OF WINDSOR, Windsor, ON
B.Sc., Biology honours with thesis, biochemistry minor
LABORATORY SKILLS
• Protein, nucleic acid isolation/expression/purification, cloning, PCR, sequence analysis
• Agarose and SDS-PAGE, Western blotting, flow cytometry, light/fluorescence microscopy, IF
• Cell culture, transformation/transfection/infection (virus, bacteria, fungi, yeast, mammalian)
• S. cerevisiae: tetrad dissection, genetic analyses, growth and cohesion assays, chromatin spreads
EXPERIENCE
Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON
June 2009 - present
Laboratory Manager/Research Technologist in Cell Biology/Microbiology
• Manage daily activities of CL2 lab; maintenance (waste disposal and lab safety as per government
and hospital regulation); employee training, database set-up/organization, purchasing, inventory
• Tissue culture, cloning, membrane protein preparations, receptor function assays, envelope binding,
recombinant retrovirus and lentivirus production and gene transfer, RNAi
University of Windsor, Windsor, ON
September 2002 - August 2006
Research Student, TA: Ecology
• Teaching Assistant (Biology lab); data analysis (SPSS, ANOVA), greenhouse maintenance
• DNA isolation, purification, PCR, AFLP, electrophoresis (O. humifusa, species at risk)
• Developed protocol for fungal isolation and disease assessment in chickpeas
Agriculture Canada (GPCRC), Harrow, ON
October 2001 - August 2004
Research Student: Soybean pathology
• Research project: Disease resistance of Glycine max seedlings to D. phaseolorum var. caulivora
• Seed prep, planting, maintaining plants, harvest of soybean test plots, D. phaseolorum inoculum
production and varietal resistance screening, tissue isolation, maintaining fungal culture collections,
mung and adzuki bean disease cataloguing
• Soil sampling, dilutions, plant counts in field, plot maintenance, grain analysis, statistical analysis
EXPERIENCE continued....
Kelly Rosalyn Thickett, Page 2
Steichenlab Limited; Toronto, ON
May 1998 - September 2001
Payroll, Purchasing and Payables Manager
• Purchasing for lab; receipt, allocation, entering and payment of all invoices (SAS)
• Administration and recording of benefits, vacation time and payroll of 30 employees, ROE
• Month/year end reports, inventory; government remittances; daily cash sales and bank deposits
PUBLICATIONS
• Hussain N, Thickett K, Na H, Leung C, Tailor C (2011). Feline leukemia virus infection requires a postreceptor binding envelope dependent cellular component. (accepted, Journal of Virology)
• Thickett K.R. and Brigitte D. Lavoie (2011). Pre-anaphase downregulation of cohesion function
underlies the requirement for condensing for robust sister chromatid cohesion. (in prep)
•Lovett-Doust L, VanDerWal JJ, & Thickett K (2010) Genetic diversity of Opuntia humifusa throughout
Ontario based on DNA-AFLP fingerprint analysis. (Parks Canada, Ottawa, Canada), 98pp.
• Thickett K, VanDerWal J, Lovett-Doust L, Anderson TR (2007). A Method for screening soybean
seedlings for resistance to Northern stem canker caused by Diaporthe phaseolorum var. caulivora.
Canadian Journal of Plant Science 87(2): 443 - 447
AWARDS/ CERTIFICATIONS / COURSES
• MOH and City of Toronto Food Handler’s Certification [Sept 2011]
• Agricultural Plant Identification for Urban Gardeners (91%), U of Guelph [May 2011]
• 2011 workshops: cold frames, backyard composting, build a global garden, container gardening
• Perth-Dupont community garden and The Stop member [2011]
• Sustainable Urban Crop Production (93%), U of Guelph [Sept 2010]
• Flow cytometry training (BD FACS Calibur) U of T Immunology, UHN Flow facility [2010]
• University of Toronto Fellowship [2006-08]; Millennium Bursary [2004-2006]
• M. Franklin & Holder-Franklin Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research in Ecology [2005]
• Radiation, Biological, Chemical safety and WHMIS certified
COMPUTER
• PC/Mac, MSOffice, Photoshop, Illustrator, Endnote, FileMaker Pro, FlowJo, CellQuest, MacVector
INTERESTS
• Camping, gardening, fishing, painting, canoeing, cheese-making, molecular gastronomy,
appetizer creation and catering (http://kellythickett.blogspot.com/)
REFERENCES
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Dr.
Dr.
Dr.
Dr.
Brigitte Lavoie, brigitte.lavoie@utoronto.ca
Terry Anderson, andersont@agr.gc.ca
Jeremy VanDerWal, jeremy.vanderwal@jcu.edu.au
Lesley Lovett-Doust, lld @nipissingu.ca