Keaton Smith

Very excited to share the results from our latest Meta-analysis at the Wilson Pregnancy Lab examining #placental DNA methylation in #IVF pregnancies doi.org/10.1093/mole...

@smithk63.bsky.social @samanthalwilson.bsky.social
@oxfordacademic.bsky.social

Of course our cats waited until I was on a Zoom call before tearing around the apartment and having a loud wrestling match right next to my desk #catdad

Cell-free placental DNA: What do we really know? Author summary Cell-free DNA are fragments of free-floating DNA released by cells into blood circulation. During pregnancy, the placenta releases cell-free placental DNA (cfpDNA) into maternal blood c...

Congratulations to my lab mates for a phenomenal paper from @samanthalwilson.bsky.social lab: journals.plos.org/plosgenetics...

I relate as a Raptors fan. The only games they win are the ones I don't bother watching in the first place

For my colleagues in placental research, the November installment of the North American Placenta Lab Meeting is happening this Tuesday (Nov 19) at 9:00 am PST/12:00 pm EST over Zoom (mcmaster.zoom.us/j/96005378701). See details on our scheduled speakers below!

I'm excited to hopefully connect with fellow grad students and other researchers here, as well as keep up to date on research from my favourite labs and colleagues. Thanks for reading if you've made it this far!

North American Placenta Lab Meeting - mailing list sign-up Sign up below to receive Zoom links to the monthly Canadian Placenta Lab Meeting Please email Keaton Smith (smithk63@mcmaster.ca) for Zoom details if you are interested in joining the January 2024 we...

These days, I also help organize the North American Placenta Lab Meeting, a monthly virtual seminar series where placenta researchers can showcase their work to the community (forms.gle/27VExgd2bQCJ...).

I'm now a graduate student with the lab examining placental multi-omic responses to environmental exposures developing non-invasive models to predict pregnancy complications such as preeclampsia and intrauterine growth restriction.

Wilson Pregnancy Lab Undergraduate Thesis Student - 2023

Looking to venture into human genetics and expand my computational skill set, I was lucky to land a co-op and thesis position with Dr. Samantha Wilson (www.wilsonpregnancylab.com). My project looked at the impact of maternal smoking on cell-free placental DNA methylation.

I learned so much about bioinformatics and had such a good time that when my placement officially ended, I stayed on to lead a team of volunteers formalizing glycopeptide resistance cluster curation.

A standardized nomenclature for resistance-modifying agents in the Comprehensive Antibiotic Resistance Database | Microbiology Spectrum While increasing rates of antimicrobial resistance undermine our current arsenal of antibiotics, resistance-modifying agents (RMAs) hold promise to extend the lifetime of these important molecules. We...

I also managed to land my own short paper for overhauling and standardizing CARD's curation practices and nomenclature for resistance-mofidying agents (doi.org/10.1128/spectrum.02744-23).

My first placement was in the lab of Dr. Andrew McArthur as a junior curator for the Comprehensive Antibiotic Resistance Database (CARD, card.mcmaster.ca). I was mainly responsible for systematic curation, which earned me co-authorship on the 2023 CARD update paper (doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkac920).

3 years, 2 co-op placements, and a thesis later, I graduated from the BioPharm program with an Honours Bachelor of Health Science.

Earlier this year I finished my undergrad at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. After completing my first year in Life Science, I ended up transfering from Biochemistry to the Biology & Pharmacology Co-op program.

I've had a Bluesky account for a little while, but I'm hoping to start getting more use out of it now! I thought I would do a few posts to introduce myself, my experience, and my interests. So hi Bluesky community, I'm Keaton!