BIOCAPS Spotlight: Pamela Dean

Our last spotlight of 2022 goes to Pamela Dean, the Lab Manager in the Roskelley Lab!

Pam is originally from Vancouver Island. She moved to Vancouver to study at UBC for her bachelor’s degree in Microbiology and Immunology. In the co-op program, she worked on leukemia in Connie Eaves lab at BC Cancer and also at a lab in Montreal. Pam decided to return to Montreal to obtain her master’s degree. She then returned to Vancouver and started working for Drs. Cal Roskelley and Michel Roberge as a technician in 2004. She worked on a project that was a collaboration between the two labs, finding inhibitors of tumor cell invasion, and resulted in two first-author publications. When the funding ran out for that project and after returning from her second maternity leave, she started working full-time for Dr. Roskelley and has been the Lab Manager of the Roskelley lab ever since.

Pam has an amazing array of talents and her dedication knows no bounds. In addition to running the lab, she coordinates multiple projects with other groups both inside and outside the LSI. To do this, Pam works with other PI’s on project development, other staff on reagent, methodology and infrastructure support and other trainees with all aspects of their projects. Pam also drives her own projects and, to top it off, is currently developing commercialization strategies for discoveries she has contributed significantly to.

Dr. Calvin Roskelley, Professor

Your PI speaks highly of you. What motivates you?

I’m highly motivated by the interest of the research that we do in the lab. Having a lot of cancer in my family motivates me to understand more about the disease.

What do you like most about your job?

I like doing experiments, working on a project, analysing data, and figuring out the next steps. As science always leads to more questions, sometimes it is nice to have more finite tasks in the lab as well. As such, I like also having the more administrative jobs that I have being a lab manager and the chance to use my organizational and management skills.

What do you think makes you an excellent mentor?

I really enjoy the hands-on teaching environment in the lab and working through problems together. I have a lot of patience and care for the students in the lab. In fact, students have been known to refer to me as their ‘lab mom’!

What is something most people don’t know about you?

I love to travel. Two of the most memorable trips I’ve been on have been on a safari in Tanzania and to Canada’s arctic, in Nunavut.

You’re happiest when?

Having a nice dinner out with my family, running, baking, or gardening.