Contact information: john[dot]laver[at]utoronto[dot]ca
Research: John has pioneered the production and use of phage-displayed synthetic antibodies to study RNA-binding proteins in Drosophila embryos (Laver et al. 2012). He then used these antibodies to globally identify the target mRNAs, binding specificity and functions of several RNA-binding proteins: Staufen (Laver et al. 2013), Brain tumor and Pumilio (Laver et al. 2015). He played a key role in high-throughput design and production of synthetic antibodies that recognize RNA-binding proteins (Na, Laver et al., 2016). John is co-supervised by Craig Smibert.