Quinn Neale, Recipient of the 2025 UM Distinguished Master’s Thesis Prize
Meet Quinn Kelly Neale, the recipient of 2025 UM Distinguished Master’s Thesis Prize
Quinn Kelly Neale is a Winnipeg-born student at the University of Manitoba who recently graduated with MSc from the Department of Chemistry and has started his PhD program in the Department of Biochemistry and Medical Genetics. Neale has received the 2025 University of Manitoba Distinguished Master’s Thesis Prize. The award recognizes the thesis to be a ground-breaking piece of original work. The Faculty of Science communications team reached out to Neale to learn more about his experience as a MSc student, his research and his plans for the future.
Please tell us about your research and its importance.
My master’s research was in the field of proteomics, where we used analytical chemistry practices such as liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) to identify thousands of proteins in the analysis of human tissues or cell cultures. A fundamental step in this process is to predictably break down proteins into smaller pieces called peptides, then separate these peptides by their chemical properties. The goal of my research specifically was to characterize how post-translational modifications, chemical modifications of proteins which serve a biological function, affect their separation on the peptide level. These characterizations served to generate prediction models that can be used to complement other validation tools, increasing the confidence of a researcher’s results during their proteomics investigations of human diseases, or can be used by companies in the quality control of commercial protein products.
Whom did you collaborate with in your research, and how was the experience for you?
My research project entailed minimal collaboration, but we did have one collaboration with a chromatography company, PolyLC, which provided materials and insights for us to generate a predictive model, which resulted in a paper. Nonetheless, I had a great experience. Despite being a chemistry student, my lab was on the Bannatyne campus in the Manitoba Centre for Proteomics and Systems Biology, a research centre with multiple research groups from different departments. Each week, we would have a research seminar for the centre where a student was given the opportunity to present their results and receive advice on their projects. This not only allowed me to gather knowledge from outside chemistry but also allowed me to benefit from the perspectives of different disciplines and learn to present outside of my field. In the end, this bolstered a novel sense of direction for my research and development of my communication skills.
Who were your mentors (committee members, supervisors, other professors or graduate students) throughout your MSc studies, and what were the biggest lessons you learned from them?
I had many mentors during my studies. From my co-supervisors, Dr. Oleg Krokhin and Dr. Helene Perreault, my committee members Dr. Sabine Kuss, Dr. Gregg Tomy, and Dr. Rene Zahedi, and to my other lab members Dr. Darien Yeung and Vic Spicer, I had many opportunities to learn where and how to improve. Each of them deserves some credit for my success over the last few years. By far, the biggest impact on my studies came from the support Dr. Krokhin and Dr. Perreault provided, always answering my questions and considering my ideas, no matter how outlandish they may have been. Dr. Krokhin trained me directly, which is quite different from many graduate experiences where senior students are responsible for training the new students. The biggest lesson I learned from my mentors was a line I heard often, “you have one chance in life”, which obviously isn’t always true, but comes with the notion that you need to be careful at every step. One mistake will set you back and delay your progress. Write out your ideas, think about them, plan, adjust if necessary, and then convert them into something actionable. Reminds me of the saying my dad used to say, “measure twice, cut once”.
What is your vision for the future of your research, and what do the next steps look like in your journey?
After some thinking, I decided I wanted to learn more biology and I have recently started a PhD with Dr. Rene Zahedi where I plan to venture into spatial proteomics where we will investigate not only at the protein content of samples, but how they are organized in tissue samples and the modifications that those proteins carry. I am interested in the idea of applying for medical school to go into the MD/PhD stream. This would open the door for clinical science research directly related to human diseases. Only time will tell.