The projects are to be funded through Genome Canada’s  Genomic Applications Partnership Program (GAPP), which partners academic researchers with users of genomics to address problems identified by the user. They will be funded over a maximum of three years.

“I congratulate the successful teams whose projects will address real world challenges and opportunities,” said Minister Duncan. “The federal government is pleased to support these applied genomics research projects where the science has potential to spur innovation and give Canadian companies a competitive edge in global markets, thereby creating jobs and economic growth to help the middle class.”

The first project will see the University of Alberta working with DowAgroSciences to enhance the commercial use of canola oil and meal, while the second has the University of Manitoba partnering with Winnipeg-based Composites Innovation Centre to develop and test a vehicle prototype using a novel biocomposite made of flax fibre and binding resin. The University of Toronto will work with Trillium Therapeutics Inc. to develop novel therapeutics that fight cancer in the third project, and finally, the Université Laval is partnering with GenePOC Inc. to develop a new instrument that can rapidly diagnose infections at the point-of-care in the fourth.

“We are thrilled to add these new projects to a growing roster of genomic application partnerships between scientists and organizations that have a clear use for genomics,” said Marc LePage, president and CEO, Genome Canada. “It is fascinating to see how rapidly genomics is maturing to the point where it is being incorporated across such a diverse range of industries that benefit many regions and many sectors of Canada’s economy.”

For a full BACKGROUNDER of Genomic Applications Partnership Program Funded  Projects in this round (Round 3 and 4 ) click here.

The prize, which comes with a $1 million research grant, has been awarded annually since 1991 to recognize “sustained excellence and overall influence” of research conducted in Canada.

Dr. Kaspi is one of the world’s leading experts on neutron stars, the ancient remnants of the most massive stars in the Milky Way. Using the largest and most powerful radio and X-ray telescopes in the world, Dr. Kaspi studies the physical behaviour of neutron stars, pulsars and magnetars. Dr. Kaspi’s research group has had major impacts in the field of astrophysics, including unique tests confirming Einstein’s long-held theory of general relativity and discovering the fastest rotating star. Her team’s 2002 landmark discovery of powerful X-ray bursts from an enigmatic class of star essentially doubled the number of known magnetars in our galaxy. She is the first woman to win the award.

In addition to the Herzberg Canada Gold Medal, NSERC also awarded prizes to other researchers for outstanding university-industry partnerships, ground-breaking discoveries, excellence in multidisciplinary research, and fellowships to enhance the career development of outstanding and highly promising scientists and engineers.

These award recipients include:
NSERC John C. Polanyi Award: Barbara Sherwood Lollar, University of Toronto

The Brockhouse Canada Prize for Interdisciplinary Research in Science and Engineering: Shana Kelley, University of Toronto, and Edward H. Sargent, University of Toronto

NSERC Gilles Brassard Doctoral Prize for Interdisciplinary Research: Yasser Gidi, McGill University

E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowships: Elena M. Bennett, McGill University, Curtis P. Berlinguette, The University of British Columbia, Zhongwei Chen, University of Waterloo, David Sinton, University of Toronto, Mark Vellend, Université de Sherbrooke, and Stephen I. Wright, University of Toronto

Synergy Awards for Innovation:

Category 1: Small- and Medium-sized Companies: Emil M. Petriu, University of Ottawa, Industrial partner: Rami Abielmona, Larus Technologies Corp.

Category 2: Large Companies: J. David Miller, Carleton University, Industrial partner: Greg Adams, J.D. Irving, Limited

Category 3: Two or More Companies: Jean Caron, Université Laval, Industrial partners: Jean-Paul Guérin, Maraîchers J.P.L. Guérin et fils inc., Daniel Malenfant, Vert Nature inc., Denys Van Winden, Production horticole Van Winden inc., Jean-Bernard Van Winden, Les fermes Hotte et Van Winden inc., and Stéphane Van Winden, Delfland inc.

Category 4: Colleges: Neil Cooke, Red River College; Ray Hoemsen, Red River College; Jose Rizalino M. Delos Reyes, Red River College; Shokry Rashwan, Red River College; Rob Spewak, Red River College; Industrial partner, Lloyd Kuczek, Manitoba Hydro

The evaluation process managed by BIC included the participation of farm organizations, industries currently using agricultural biomass, and technology providers. The study focused on agricultural biomass supply, the economics of biomass conversion technology, and the market acceptance of cellulosic sugar and co-products.

The project was designed to better understand the potential commercial value of agricultural residues and how they could be transformed to support a feedstock supply for bioproducts.

The Cellulosic Sugar Producers Cooperative, an Ontario-based farmer’s cooperative, also accepted the recommendations of the assessment and is now actively collaborating with potential partners to establish a sustainable agricultural biomass supply chain and commercialize cellulosic sugars and co-products conversion technology.

“We have provided our recommendations to the Cellulosic Sugar Producers Cooperative and anticipate that it can now be used as the basis to establish a commercially viable agricultural biomass to sugars value chain within Southern Ontario,” said Dr. Murray McLaughlin, BIC executive director. “This initiative creates significant
momentum for the development of the bioeconomy in Canadian agriculture and supports the building of bio-product clusters across Canada. Knowledge gained through this study is transferrable to other jurisdictions and we look forward to supporting our colleagues in Alberta as they work towards developing similar projects.”

“The creation of cellulosic sugar supply chain in southern Ontario further strengthens Canada’s position as a leader in the global bioeconomy,” J.F. Huc, CEO of BioAmber adds. “We commend BIC and its partners for this important work and we are excited at the prospect of sourcing these sugars for our Sarnia facility when they become commercially available.”

BIC says that in its first phase, the creation of this agricultural biomass to cellulosic sugar and co-products value chain could generate over 100 direct and indirect full-time jobs and inject more than $100 million into the Ontario economy, as well as lead to reductions in GHG emissions and climate change impacts.

This project was funded in part through Growing Forward 2 (GF2), a federal-provincial-territorial initiative. The Agricultural Adaptation Council (AAC) assists in delivery of GF2 in Ontario. The project was also financially supported by BIC and its partners, which include Grain Farmers of Ontario, the Cellulosic Sugar Producers Cooperative, BioAmber Inc., the Integrated Grain Producers Co-operative Inc. (IGPC), Jungbunzlauer Canada Inc., Ontario Agri-Food Technologies (OAFT) and Alberta Innovates Bio Solutions. The initial biomass aggregation demonstration and supply chain study was supported by the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA), La Coop Federée, Agriculture and Agri-Foods Canada (AAFC) and through the national agriculture BioProducts Cluster led by BIC.

Foley, an associate professor in the Department of Chemistry, along with research associate Loghman Moradi and PhD student Hiwa Salimi, have discovered a new financially viable and environmentally friendly way to recover and recycle gold from electronic waste.

“We’ve found a simple, cheap and environmentally benign solution that extracts gold in seconds, and can be recycled and reused,” said Foley. “This could change the gold industry.”

The biggest issue with gold is it is one of the least reactive chemical elements, making it difficult to dissolve, Foley explained. The common practice of mining for gold creates environmental issues because it requires large amounts of sodium cyanide. Meanwhile, recycling gold from electronic scraps like computer chips and circuits involves processes that are costly and have environmental implications.

“The environmental effects of current practices can be devastating,” said Foley, noting that the world produces more than 50 million tons of electronic waste per year and 80 per cent of that winds up in landfills.

What his U of S research team has discovered is a process using a solution — acetic acid combined with very small amounts of an oxidant and another acid — that extracts gold efficiently and effectively without the environmental concerns of current industry practices. In this technique, the gold extraction is done under mild conditions, while the solution dissolves gold at the fastest rate ever recorded.

“Gold is stripped out from circuits in about 10 seconds, leaving the other metals intact,” Foley said.

Foley said it requires 5,000 litres of aqua regia to extract one kilogram of gold from printed circuit boards, none of which can be recycled. With the new U of S solution, one kilogram of gold can be extracted using only 100 litres of solution, all of which can be recycled over again. The overall cost of this solution is only 50 cents a litre.

With lower toxicity, cheaper cost and quicker extraction, Foley’s team has discovered an approach that could revolutionize the industry and be a veritable gold mine, so to speak.

The next step for Foley and his team is to move the process into large-scale applications for gold recycling.

In an era of increasing energy demands, scientists are searching for the holy grail of chemistry: a way to use renewable resources, like solar power, to split water into hydrogen fuel.

When hydrogen is used as a fuel, it leaves behind no pollutants or greenhouse glasses, only water.

Pioneers in the field use electrical energy to split water into its component parts: hydrogen and oxygen. Right now, it is an expensive process, with low net energy output. But with lower electronic barriers, hydrogen could replace petroleum as the vehicle fuel of choice.

Researchers hope to eventually produce hydrogen fuel with zero-emissions energy sources, like solar, mimicking photosynthesis and using existing CO2. But first, the water splitting process must be made more efficient.

Soochow University-Western University researcher Dr. Dongniu Wang and Canadian Light Source scientist Dr. Jigang Zhou are harnessing synchrotron techniques to rationally design a catalyst that could significantly reduce the energy that goes into water splitting.

Wang says the search is on for a cheap, abundant, and high-efficiency catalyst to help along the water splitting reaction. In order to do so, researchers must understand what’s going on during the reaction, as well as the final results.

Without a synchrotron, it was possible to identify materials that improved water splitting efficiency but not how they helped along the reaction. And if researchers are going to design a catalyst to significantly lower the energy barrier for water splitting, they need to know not only what works well, but how it works.

By studying many phases of the chemistry in the water splitting process, the team identified that gamma nickel oxy hydroxide sped up the splitting faster than any other catalyst. The thing is, gamma nickel oxy hydroxide is created during the reaction from the nickel oxide that’s originally added.

“The only way to identify the active phase high efficiency catalyst is through synchrotron scans,” says Wang. “We are lucky at the CLS because we can use the whole range of X-ray to catch the whole transition process.”

Initial results are promising, pointing to highly-efficient catalytic candidates, but solar-powered water splitting is still a long way off. Zhou, however, believes that is exactly why this research is exciting.

“This is the true meaning of innovation. Not looking to present technologies but technologies far in our future.”

Imagine a fertilizer that stays in the ground until plants need to access it, instead of being washed away or giving plants more nutrients than they can handle.

That’s what Carleton University chemistry professor Maria DeRosa and adjunct professor Carlos Monreal are developing: a smart fertilizer that waits to release its nutrients until crops tell it to do so. It’s a technology that could have great benefit for the environment and human nutrition. Currently, unused or excess fertilizer often ends up in lakes and water ways where it creates algae blooms. A more efficient and cost-effective fertilizer can play a leading role in increasing crop yields and addressing malnutrition issues, as well as reducing the amount of fertilizer that farmers need to use, resulting in cost savings.

“If a crop isn’t ready to take up fertilizer when it is applies, it is wasted and it’s estimated we waste about $1 billion per year in unused fertilizer,” says DeRosa. “Our goal is to make fertilizer smart so that it delivers its nutrients to a crop only when the crop needs it.”

To do this, DeRosa uses aptamers, which are small, single-stranded nucleic acids that can bind to large or small target molecules. Her research involves identifying these aptamers, which are the “keys” to finding which DNA sequences will bind to the target molecules. In human medicine, for example, this approach is starting to be used to detect damaged cells and distinguish them from healthy ones so that therapy is only delivered to the diseased cell. Crops like wheat and canola will release chemical signals when they need nitrogen.

It was through partnering with Monreal, who is also a research scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, that DeRosa and her team learned the identity of some of those signals – which allows DeRosa to program the coating of special biodegradable fertilizer capsules she’s developed to release the nutrients only when the plants need it.

“For example, if we place the fertilizer into a coated, biodegradable capsule, the coating will protect the fertilizer until the signal arrives from the plant that it needs fertilizer. That signal will hit the aptamer in the coating, break it down and release the fertilizer,” DeRosa explains, adding that the capsules protect the fertilizer from being washed away or damaged by extreme temperatures, but allow the nutrients to be released over time as the plants need them.

Following successful development of the coating and capsule and lab-based testing, DeRosa and Monreal are now moving their concept into a greenhouse setting to see how well it performs with real soil and plants. If successful, DeRosa says this development could open up a whole new field of using nanotechnology and biodegradable polymers to help feed the world’s growing population, projected to surpass nine billion by 2050.

This project has received support from Coop Fédérée and Agrium, as well as Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and Alberta Innovates Bio Solutions.

ONE OF THE FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

3.16. Clean versus Dirty Areas of the Laboratory
In the microbiology laboratory, all the technical work areas of the department are considered dirty. The same concepts of demarcation and separation of molecular testing areas that are described in this section can be used to establish clean and dirty areas in other parts of the diagnostic laboratory.

3.16.1. Clean areas
• Wear different colour laboratory coats in clean and dirty areas of the laboratory (have them available at entrance to clean areas), or require no laboratory coats in clean areas.
• Decontaminate reusable materials and devices (e.g., telephone, clocks, computers, tissue boxes, work books) brought into the clean area unless they are known to be new, and immediately apply laboratory-designated, colour-coded tape.
• A visual reminder on small objects such as workbooks, tissue boxes, and pens can easily identify items located to a clean area.
• Demarcate separation of dirty and clean floor areas with tape (tape must stand up to floor cleaning) to clearly denote clean/dirty area boundaries.
• Develop a policy for cleaning and maintaining clean areas.
• Train all personnel (including service personnel) regarding how to identify and maintain clean areas and to recognize the significance of the demarcation tape and other means of area identification.
• Document training and assess competency in use of and maintaining clean areas.

3.16.2. Offices
Offices (e.g., of supervisors and laboratory director) that open into the clinical laboratory represent hybrid areas within the laboratory. These offices are not typically designed or maintained in a manner that allows for easy or efficient disinfection.
• Keep a supply of hand disinfectant gel in all office and work areas and use the gel frequently.
• Components of offices that should remain clean but may be overlooked include:
-laboratory documents, reports, and records; small equipment; pens; procedure manuals and other items that          have been in the laboratory and could have been handled with gloved hands;carpets and chairs that are difficult to disinfect;
-books, journals, and other reference materials that can be taken into the laboratory or taken for use outside the laboratory;
-personal items (e.g., photographs, awards, briefcases, coats, boots, backpacks, purses, personal electronic devices) that are difficult to disinfect and would not be allowed in the general laboratory;
-and food items.
• Designating office areas as “clean” does not necessarily make or keep them uncontaminated, especially when potentially contaminated items are brought into the office and reference materials and documents move freely between the office and laboratory. The following procedures can help reduce the risk of contamination in laboratory office areas.
-Never bring specimens, cultures, proficiency samples and similar items into office areas.
-Remove PPE before entering the offices and wash hands before entering these areas.
-Establish a dedicated and protected clean area for personal items (e.g., purses, briefcases, and similar items).
-Disinfect desks and personal workspaces, telephones and computer keyboards in office areas regularly.
-Refrain from touching eyes, nose, mouth and lips while in office areas.
-Do not place pens, pencils, eyeglass bows, or other items in the mouth or against the lips.
-Do not apply or permit cosmetics in office areas.
-Do not store food in the office.
-Wash hands after working in the office and before entering common areas such as rest rooms, administrative areas, cafeteria, and the library.
-Avoid clutter in office areas as much as possible. Boxes, papers, and other items make the office difficult to clean and decontaminate.
-Laboratory directors and supervisors are responsible for assessing the exposure risks associated with use of laboratory documents and reference materials in the dirty areas of the laboratory and developing use policies to minimize those risks.

3.16.3. Dirty areas
• All areas of the working laboratory including all equipment, keyboards, waste and surfaces are considered ‘dirty’ areas.
• No standards are currently available that describe operating procedures within dirty areas of the laboratory. Laboratorians must be vigilant in recognizing the potential or risk of transmitting an etiologic agent by touching items in these areas.

The laboratory should establish clear guidelines for the designation of ‘clean’ areas. Uniform, consistent signage should be posted in clean areas and the ‘clean area’ designation should be revoked if the guidelines for working in that area are not followed. The issue of pathologists’ offices and conference rooms comes up for many laboratories. Microscope slides that pathologists are reviewing are usually not considered contaminated if they are fixed slides. If the slides are unfixed the area would be considered contaminated. If the slide trays are clean and slides are fixed, there is less likelihood of contamination. That said, it depends where the offices are and if they are separated from the lab by a closed door.

Guidelines about contaminated versus clean areas should be followed, including the removal of contaminated lab coats before going in to clean areas. If a conference room is deemed to be an uncontaminated area, the same guidelines would apply– removal of contaminated lab coats, closing the door, keeping surfaces free of contamination, and no eating or drinking outside of clean areas. Gloves should not be necessary in any area considered ‘clean.’

Reference:
1. CDC, Guidelines for Safe Work Practices in Human and Animal Medical Diagnostic Laboratories, accessed at http://www.cdc.gov/ mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/su6101a1.htm

This article was originally published in the Canadian Journal of Medical Laboratory Science (Summer 2013) Vol .75 no. 2. It appears here with permission from the Canadian Society for Medical Laboratory Science (CSMLS). For more information, visit www.csmls.org.

About the Author
Gene Shematek is Occupational Health and Safety Consultant to Canadian Society for Medical Laboratory Science.

Hamilton, ON-Infectious diseases such as hepatitis C and some of the world’s deadliest superbugs—C. difficile and MRSA among them—could soon be detected much earlier by a unique diagnostic test, designed to easily and quickly identify dangerous pathogens.

Researchers at McMaster University have developed a new way to detect the smallest traces of metabolites, proteins or fragments of DNA. In essence, the new method can pick up any compound that might signal the presence of infectious disease, be it respiratory or gastrointestinal.

“The method we have developed allows us to detect targets at levels that are unprecedented,” says John Brennan, director of McMaster’s Biointerfaces Institute, where the work was done. This new method is described online in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition.

“The test has the best sensitivity ever reported for a detection system of this kind – it is as much as 10,000 times more sensitive than other detection systems,” he says.

Using sophisticated techniques, researchers developed a molecular device made of DNA that can be switched ‘on’ by a specific molecule of their choice—such as a certain type of disease indicator or DNA molecule representing a genome of a virus—an action that leads to a massive, amplified signal which can be easily spotted.

Another important advantage of the new test, say researchers, is that the method does not require complicated equipment so tests can be run at room temperature under ordinary conditions.

“This will be the foundation for us to create future diagnostic tests”, explains Yingfu Li, a professor in the Departments of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences, Chemistry and Chemical Biology.

“This invention will allow us to detect anything we might be interested in, bacterial contamination or perhaps a protein molecule that is a cancer marker. Our method can sensitively detect all of them, and it can do so in a relatively short period of time.”

Researchers are currently working to move the test onto a paper surface to create a portable point-of-care test, which would completely eliminate the need for lab instruments, allowing users—family physicians, for example—to run the test.

Additionally, the Biointerfaces Institute has developed a series of paper-based screening technologies which enable users to generate clear, simple answers that appear on test paper indicating the presence of infection or contamination in people, food or the environment.

A complete copy of the study can be found here.

The Pacific Water Research Centre will focus on addressing key global concerns around the impact of climate change on water usage and availability

Simon Fraser University Faculty of Environment Dean Ingrid Leman Stefanovic will announce the creation of the faculty’s new Pacific Water Research Centre (PWRC) at two events about water issues in Vancouver next week.

The events are SFU Blue on June 24 at the University’s Morris J. Wosk Centre and the  6th annual Canadian Water Summit on June 25 at Vancouver’s Bayshore Inn. SFU President Andrew Petter will address the summit.

The summit will bring together 250 plus national and international industry, governmental, community and academic leaders to discuss pressing issues related to water availability and usage in a constructive light.

At SFU Blue, SFU researchers collaborating with industry, government and the University on water-related research will participate in discussions about how the world needs to adapt to conserving stressed and dwindling water resources.

Steven Conrad, an SFU School of Resource and Environmental Management (REM) PhD candidate, will be a presenter and moderator at SFU Blue.

“Just as we can no longer rely on the climate being stationary, we can no longer rely on water cycles being stationary,” says Conrad, who researchers water issues and public response to them in the Okanagan. “However, as the PWRC is located in a province with a long history of managing uncertainty in its fisheries and forests, the centre is well positioned to consider British Columbian approaches to climate change and water issues.”

Responding to growing regional, national and global concerns about the world’s dwindling water resources, Stefanovic, a researcher with a multi-disciplinary background, envisioned the PWRC.

The centre will be a mecca of cross-disciplinary collaborative research applied to mitigating real world water crises globally; its research agenda will be driven by community concerns.

“Traditionally, academics have engaged in research and, at best, then sought to apply it to the real world,” explains Stefanovic. “The goal of the PWRC aims to inform research questions on the strength of local and regional priorities, to ensure that community-engaged research leads to positive, community-relevant changes.”

REM professor Murray Rutherford, PWRC’s interim director, adds:“Communities that have directly experienced water scarcity are at the forefront in creating innovative programs to conserve water and better manage its provision and use.A big part of the PWRC’s mandate will be to help researchers and policymakers learn from the experiences of these communities and communicate the lessons to other settings.”

The PWRC’s birth follows the World Economic Forum’s identification of a critical water shortage, due to climate change and other factors, as a major risk to global stability.

“From infrastructural renewal challenges to maintaining water quality and quantity, water issues are intimately tied to broad environmental changes that are affecting us on a planetary scale,” says Stefanovic.

WATER SAFETY
ENDETEC, a global company focused on innovative sensor solutions for water safety, in collaboration with Drs. Heinz-Bernhard Kraatz (University of Toronto) and R. Stephen Brown (Queen’s University), will develop a DNA biosensor for simple, low-cost, fast, on-site detection of bacteria in water samples.

Current culture-based techniques for water monitoring are time-consuming and expensive, which can lead to delayed results and decision making for users that manage water resources.

The PBDF funding will support proof-of-concept experiments validating the performance of the DNA biosensors with environmental samples. The first applications will be for recreational water (including beaches) and treated wastewater. “DNA biosensor technology can potentially be a game-changer for water monitoring, providing truly rapid monitoring and expanding the range of organisms that can be detected,” said Doug Wilton, VP Operations for ENDETEC.

CANCER TREATMENT
Formation Biologics Inc. (formerly AvidBiologics) is an oncology drug development company dedicated to anti-cancer biologics. Through PBDF funding, the company aims to develop AVID200, a novel anticancer agent targeting a protein expressed by a variety of solid tumours including lung, breast, and head and neck. Specifically, Formation Biologics is developing antibodies that are linked to highly toxic chemotherapeutic drugs, and these antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) target a specific cell surface receptor known to contribute to the etiology of various cancers. ADCs can selectively recognize specific proteins in cancer cells without damaging most normal tissues. This type of cancer therapeutic has the potential for superior safety and efficacy compared to older generation treatments.

Using the PBDF investment, the company will perform a pilot safety study of this ADC to accelerate their drug development process for AVID200.

“We are very grateful to have received an investment from the Ontario Genomics Institute to further development of this important anti-cancer therapeutic,” said Ilia Tikhomirov, president and CEO of Formation Biologics. “Programs like OGI’s Pre-commercialization Business Development Fund are crucial to the success of early stage biotechnology companies in Ontario,” he continued.

SAFE CROPS
Global soybean production is threatened by an aggressive fungus responsible for Asian Soybean Rust (ASR), which can cause yield losses of up to 80 per cent. ASR is currently controlled by fungicides. However, resistance to these chemicals can be seen.

Dr. Charles Després (Brock University) is identifying activators designed to stimulate soybean plant immunity, an alternative mode of action to protect the crop. These chemicals can be used alongside traditional fungicides to ensure long-term global food security.

With the help of the PBDF and support from Syngenta, Dr. Després will validate his product. Potentially, his technology platform will allow the agriculture industry to identify new chemicals that will optimize production and safety from ASR and support precision agriculture for better decision making, and high yields.

“These are promising areas of research to solve some of life sciences’ challenges,” said Dr. Mark Poznansky, president and CEO, OGI. “The development of products, technology platforms and therapeutics through PBDF funding are excellent examples of Ontario companies translating research into applications that have significant impact on health, water safety and agriculture.”

OGI’s PBDF program invests in opportunities — based in genomics, proteomics or associated technologies. Previous recipients have included Ontario universities, research institutes and companies.