New leader for Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology and Immunology

“I am excited to lead the department and to launch new initiatives aimed at accelerating our faculty members’ research programs. I look forward to collaborating with college and university leaders to develop innovative solutions for infrastructure renewal, and to strengthening partnerships with clinical faculty in the College of Medicine,” she said.  

She began the role on July 1, 2024, replacing Dr. Bill Roesler (PhD), who led the department for 13 years.

Chelico is a virologist, biochemist and cancer biologist and has been a University of Saskatchewan (USask) faculty member since 2009. She finished her undergraduate and graduate studies at USask, before completing a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Southern California.  

Chelico’s lab has two main projects—investigating the human proteins that can restrict HIV replication and examining the origins of mutations in cancer cells. These projects are unified by the protein family her lab studies. These proteins purposefully induce mutations in DNA as part of the human immune response and can have beneficial or detrimental effects. Chelico was the first to purify and characterize multiple proteins from this newly discovered family and her expertise in this area receives international attention.  

Listen to Chelico’s Researchers Under the Scope podcast episode, or check out her recent TEDx Talk to learn more about her work.