young mcgill researchers at ease with making cutting edge discoveries · 2019-10-03 · education...

Volume 2, Number 2, Summer 2007

RESEARCH, DISCOVERY AND INNOVATION AT MCGILL UNIVERSITY

Young McGill researchersat ease with makingcutting edge discoveries

ALSO:Green Chemistry, Digital Music,Stem Cell Debate

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Research, discovery and innovation at McGill University

headway1 MESSAGE FROM THE VICE-PRINCIPAL

2 NEWSInk-jet bone grafts, embryo screening and iceberg avoidance: read about recent McGill discoveries, research initiatives and awards.

NEW WAVE

6 Resistance Isn’t Futile Using international law to fight tyranny and genocide.

IN FOCUS

8 Making Cents of Emerging Markets Why Brazil, Russia, India and China are good for business.

10 Research: The Next GenerationMcGill’s students are taking learning from the classroom to the field.

14 Political Power to the People The McGill Centre for Developing-Area Studies is helping strengthen emergingdemocracies.

NETWORKS

17 Groove Operators Music goes under the microscope.

20 Saved by the Cell How gene-enhanced stem cell therapy is changing medicine.

ACT LOCALLY

24 An Apple a Day? Exploring the ways our eating choices can prevent disease.

IN DEPTH

28 The Green Age of Chemistry A new breed of environmentally friendly chemists is out to save the world.

32 Dem Bones Decoding the mysteries of musculoskeletal disorders.

35 Small Wonder A prototype heart stent promises to radically improve the lives of children.

38 Neighbourhood to NeuronFor neuroscientist Rémi Quirion, effective research on mental illness isn’t just about genes.

INDUSTRIAL IMPACT

42 Dr. Know Stemming the tide of corporate amnesia.

FIRST PERSON

44 Faith to FaithBarry Levy, outgoing Dean of the Faculty of Religious Studies, discusses McGill’s proposed Institute for Interfaith Studies.

45 MAKING HEADWAYHow an undergrad invented the artificial blood cell—in his dorm room.

Headway (ISSN 1911-8112) is published twice a year by the Vice-Principal (Research and International Relations) and McGill Development, Alumni and University Relations.

EDITORJames Martin

CONSULTING EDITORSSusan MurleyJacquie Rourke

SPECIAL THANKS TOLaurie DevineJane JackelMark ReynoldsTara ShaughnessyLisa Van DusenPascal Zamprelli

DESIGNInstructional Multimedia ServicesMcGill University

CORRESPONDENCEHeadway1555 Peel StreetSuite 900Montreal, QuebecH3A 3L8

[email protected] Telephone: 514-398-7404Fax: 514-398-7200

Pour recevoir un exemplaire de cette publication en français, veuillez communiquer avec nous à l’adresse ci-dessus ou consulterhttp://francais.mcgill.ca/headway/

Publication Agreement Number40031154

Headway can be found online atwww.mcgill.ca/headway/

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ResearchMessage from the Vice-Principal

(Research and International Relations)

DiscoveryDenis Thérien

Vice-Principal

(Research and International Relations)

I am often asked if I love my job. There’s a short answer, anda long one.

This spring, the Canadian Council for the Advancement ofEducation honoured Headway with its 2007 Prix d’Excellencegold award for Best Magazine. The award is a source ofpride for our team, to be sure, but it also speaks to the highquality of research being done at McGill.

If a magazine is only as good as its subject matter, thenHeadway is blessed with an embarrassment of riches.Whether they’re working in genomics or nanotechnology,human rights or emerging markets, there are two thingsthat all our researchers share: a passion for discovery and adesire to change the world for the better.

You might say that it’s in their blood. James McGill was abold adventurer exploring Canada’s unmapped wilderness—but he was also a man dedicated to public service, serving asa city magistrate in his unwavering quest to be part of thesolution, not the problem. The university that today bears hisname truly is his living legacy, bringing together as it does acritical mass of researchers who are driven to navigateuncharted territory and serve the greater good. As this issue’scover story about undergraduate researchers shows, it’s alegacy that shines brighter with each day: the University’ssharpest young minds aren’t just learning about cutting-edge discoveries in real time, they’re actually changing howthat research is being done. There’s that word again: change.

That’s the long answer, now for the short one. How couldI not love working with such a vibrant, fertile group, a groupso passionately dedicated to furthering human knowledgewhile improving humankind’s future? From “greening” theway we do chemistry to giving pediatric heart patients afighting chance, these people are going for the gold—and it’smy great pleasure to share their stories with you.

InnovationMcGill University 1

2 Headway Summer 20072

N E W S

The Allure of JihadPolitical science and Islamic studies professor Khalid Medaniwants to understand the rise of Islamic fundamentalism inSudan—and his interest is more than just academic.

Medani was born in Sudan. A 1989 coup made hishomeland the first country to be completely controlled byIslamic fundamentalists. During the first year of its reign,the new government killed a group of black marketeers—including someone Medani knew.

“After that execution, I became obsessed with under-standing the linkages between formal and informal insti-tutions and the notion of identity in Islam,” he recalls. “Iwanted to know how and why they took power.” Medaniwasn’t alone in his curiosity. “When fundamentalism cameto Sudan, with prisons and tortures, my colleagues said tome, ‘Why don’t you research and write about what’s goingon and tell the world?’ Muslims are trying to understandwhat’s happening to their religion and to their countries.”

Medani’s work recently received a big boost when he re-ceived a two-year Carnegie Scholarship worth $100,000.He was the only Canadian-based researcher chosen by theNew York-based Carnegie Corporation, a non-profitfunding organization created in 1911 by businessman andphilanthropist Andrew Carnegie.

Medani will be looking at the different factors thatdrive young Muslims into fundamentalist groups in Sudan,as well as Somalia and Egypt. His approach is multifaceted,interviewing and surveying ordinary Muslims for theirstreet-level perspectives, while also conducting historicalresearch. He wants to get a sense of the various factors—ideological allure, sociopolitical issues, employmenthistories of local populations, levels of poverty, ethnic ortribal loyalties—that facilitate recruitment by funda-mentalist groups.

Medani will also be travelling to Africa to study the ex-pansion of hawwalat (unregulated Islamic welfare organ-izations) and the role of alahi (private mosques) inproviding an environment conducive to recruiting youngmilitants. ■

Good EggsResearchers at Molecular Biometrics LLC, a New Jerseycompany formed by McGill chemistry professor DavidBurns and colleagues, have developed a non-invasivetest to identify embryos capable of producing successfulin vitro fertilization (IVF) pregnancies. IVF is one of the pri-mary treatments of infertility; the technique involvesremoving egg cells, fertilizing the cells, then implantingthem in the uterus.

Current embryo screening methods are inexact, relyingon visual examination of the embryo’s appearance. In con-trast, the new ViaTest-E analyzes the culture mediumthat bathes the developing in vitro embryo. Burns usedspectroscopic analysis to examine the molecular compo-sition of the culture medium three to five days after IVF.These studies, conducted in collaboration with membersof Molecular Biometrics’ Scientific Advisory Board, led tothe development of ViaTest-E. The project expands onearlier research collaborations with Kristine Koski, pro-fessor in the School of Dietetics and Human Nutrition, andDr. Hyman Schipper, professor in the Faculty of Medicineand the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery.

“What we found was a very tight correlation betweenthe probability of implantation and certain measurableproperties in the culture medium or fluid,” says Burns.“Basically, we are determining how metabolically activeeach embryo is in the culture.”

The test promises to increase IVF success rates, whiledecreasing occurrences of multiple births by reducing theneed to simultaneously implant several fertilized egg cells.And that’s welcome news indeed for prospective parents.■ This research is funded by NSERC and CIHR.

Khalid Medani:Carnegie scholarexplores Islamic

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Bone grafts force doctors to rely on ceramics, or harvesting bone from other parts of thepatient’s body. But one day all they might have to do is fire up their ink-jet printers.

A McGill dentistry professor has developed a technique to use the common officetechnology to create three-dimensional bio-ceramic bones.

“We’re a long way from seeing this method used in a hospital setting, but it’s animportant first step toward a revolutionary change in bone-grafting technology,” says JakeBarralet, the Canada Research Chair in Osteoinductive Biomaterials. Barralet, workingwith researchers from Université Laval and the University of Würzburg in Germany, hastaken advantage of the ink-jet printer’s ability to print layer upon layer.

“It’s similar to a CT scan, in that the image iscreated one layer at a time. The result is three-dimensional,” says Barralet. “Rather than printingon paper, we’re printing on a bed of cement pow-der using an acid instead of ink, which reacts withthe cement to print whatever pattern we want.”

These artificial bone sections, composed mostlyof calcium phosphate, can be precisely constructedto include holes that will guide the growth patternsof new bone—effectively acting as biodegradablescaffolds for regrowing bones. The new processmay eventually be used in reconstructive surgery orother types of bone repair, and could prove muchmore effective and less risky than harvesting bonefrom elsewhere in the body.■ This research is funded by the Québec Ministère desRelations Internationales’ Québec-Bavaria ExchangeProgram.

Our genes are busy little multitaskers. Take PTB1b. At normal levels, PTB1b‘senzyme helps regulate cell growth and celldivision. Too much PTB1b, however, causescells to grow out of control. Now Dr.Michel Tremblay, Director of the McGillCancer Centre, has found that 40 per centof breast cancer cases in women presentoverexpression of PTB1b.

A mere seven years ago, Tremblay linkedthis same gene to obesity and diabetes—and at least one pharmaceutical companyis already doing human trials for PTB1b-suppressing drugs. This quick progress maymean that a breakthrough breast cancerdrug is just on the horizon. “Adaptingthese compounds is all that is needed toattack breast cancer,” Tremblay explains.

Of course, just as one gene can be linkedto more than one disease, a disease likebreast cancer involves a number of genesworking in concert. Fortunately, researchers such as Dr. William Foulkes are continu-

ously furthering our understanding of thesedeadly tangles of DNA segments. Foulkes,Director of McGill’s Program in CancerGenetics and Chief of Cancer Genetics atthe Jewish General Hospital Cancer Pre-vention Centre, recently characterized twomutations on the PALB2 gene that seem torelate to a particular breast cancer “signa-ture.” Foulkes and his colleague Dr. MarcTischkowitz collaborated with researchers

at Harvard’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute,the Institute of Cancer Research in Britainand the Netherlands Cancer Institute.Foulkes describes their discovery as another“factual brick” in our still-under-construc-tion understanding of breast cancer.

“Approximately 10 genes, includingPALB2, have now been associated with atwofold or greater risk for breast cancer,”says Foulkes. “We’re not yet clear on theexact importance of PALB2, but carriers ofmutations in these genes do have a higherthan average risk for breast cancer—andtherefore require special surveillance,including magnetic resonance imaging,and may opt for preventive surgery.” ■ Dr. Tremblay is the Jeanne and Jean-LouisLévesque Chair in Cancer Research; his researchis funded by the Cancer Research Society, theCanadian Institutes of Health Research, theWeekend to End Breast Cancer and RethinkBreast Cancer. Dr. Foulkes’s research is funded bythe Canadian Breast Cancer Research Alliance.

Knee Bone’s Connected to the… Ink-jet Printer?

Breast Cancer Breakthrough

Jake Barralet: Ink-jet printers make forbetter bone grafts

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Researchers first discovered that overexpression of the PTB1b gene led to obesity in mice. They now know that this same gene also plays a key role in breast cancer.


Killam QuartetPatrick Selvadurai and Rod Macdonald are the latest McGill scholars to win Canada’smost prestigious lifetime research award: the Canada Council for the Arts’ $100,000Killam Prize.

Selvadurai is William Scott Professor andJames McGill Professor in the Department ofCivil Engineering and Applied Mechanics. He isinternationally recognized for his work intheoretical, applied and computational mech-anics. His work in geomechanics—applyingengineering principles to soil and rock—hasled to the creation of safer storage facilities fornuclear waste.

Macdonald, former Dean of Law and currentF.R. Scott Professor of Constitutional and PublicLaw, is a public intellectual known for wide-ranging interests that include child abuse, smallclaims court and aboriginal justice. ■

Taylor TakesTempletonOn May 2, during a private ceremonyat Buckingham Palace, the Duke ofEdinburgh presented McGill philoso-phy professor emeritus Charles Taylorwith the 2007 Templeton Prize forProgress Toward Research or Discov-eries About Spiritual Realities. Theprize is worth £800,000 (approxi-mately $1.7 million, making it theworld’s largest annual monetaryaward for an individual.

The award recognizes Taylor’slongstanding investigations into thesecular and spiritual dimensions ofproblems such as violence and big-otry. He is the first Canadian to receivethe Templeton Prize. ■

Diabetes Genes DiscoveredDr. Robert Sladek recently found a quartet of DNAneedles in a veritable haystack, a discovery that willchange how we think about type 2 diabetes. Sladek,an endocrinologist at the McGill University and GenomeQuebec Innovation Centre, joined Dr. ConstantinPolychronakos from the McGill University HealthCentre—plus researchers from Canada, Britain andFrance—to search the entire human genome for geneslinked to type 2 diabetes. The team compared hundredsof thousands of fragments from diabetic and healthypatients. The gamble paid off. Repeatedly.

“Of the four genes we have identified,” says Sladek,“two are involved in the development or function ofinsulin-secreting cells and one plays a role in the

transport of zinc, an important mineral required for the production of insulin.” Thefunction of the fourth gene is still unknown but, based on the sequencing of thehuman genome, the researchers suspect it’s associated with diabetes.

Nearly two million Canadians live with type 2 diabetes. It’s a complex disease,believed to be the result of a multifaceted interplay between genetic andenvironmental factors. The mere presence of all four of these newly identifiedgenes does not guarantee a person will develop type 2 diabetes; rather, itsignificantly increases the odds that certain lifestyle choices (particularly anunhealthy diet and lack of exercise) will lead to the disease. Prediction maytherefore mean prevention.

“If we examine a newborn’s DNA and discover that he has a 70 per cent chanceof developing diabetes if he lives like the average North American,” saysPolychronakos, “then we can give advance warning for this kid to acquire goodlifestyle habits—and hopefully prevent the disease from ever starting.”■This project is funded by Génome Québec and Genome Canada.

N E W S

Charles Taylor: Winner of the 2007Templeton Prize

The Steacie and a Slew of SloansIt’s already a big awards year for researchers in theFaculty of Science. Victoria Kaspi is this year’swinner of the Steacie Prize in the Natural Sciences,which recognizes a young scientist or engineer fornotable contributions to research in Canada. Kaspi,who is McGill’s Lorne Trottier Chair in Astrophysicsand Cosmology and the Canada Research Chair inObservational Astrophysics, received the $15,000award for her groundbreaking work on neutronstars.

Each year, the New York-based Alfred P. SloanFoundation awards 118 two-year fellowships,each worth $45,000 U.S., to early-career scientists.This year, four McGill researchers received SloanResearch Fellowships: Mathieu Blanchette,professor at the Centre for Bioinformatics of theMcGill School of Computer Science, uses complexalgorithms to decode the function of DNA;Aashish Clerk, professor in the Department ofPhysics, is a theoretical condensed matter physicistwho explores the complex quantum-mechanicalbehaviour of electrons in nanostructures; PatrickHayden, professor in the School of ComputerScience, is a Rhodes Scholar and McGill graduatewhose work focuses on developing new ways tomanipulate quantum information at the very limitsof the laws of physics; and Jacques Verstraete,professor in the Department of Mathematics,works in the relatively new areas of extremal andprobabilistic combinatories. McGill’s Sloan showingoutperformed all other Canadian universities, aswell as Cornell, Johns Hopkins and Yale. ■

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Keep Watching the Chilly SkiesOuter space is not far, some wit once observed. It’s only an hour’s drive away, should yoube so lucky to have a car that goes straight up.

To get his view on outer space, McGill physics professor Matt Dobbs had to goconsiderably further. As a member of the South Pole Telescope (SPT) team, he spent thebeginning of 2007 in Antarctica’s white wastes. The SPT is a partnership betweenMcGill and eight American institutions. With an imposing 10-metre-wide antennae dish,the telescope is designed to scan the wallpaper of the universe: cosmic microwavebackground (CMB) radiation, the afterglow light from the Big Bang released longbefore planets, stars and galaxies formed.

CMB radiation suffuses the entire universe, but the South Pole is a particularly goodplace to see it. On the electromagnetic spectrum, CMB falls between heat radiation andradio waves, making it easily absorbed by water vapour in the atmosphere—andtherefore tough to observe. The South Pole’s high elevation (read: thin atmosphere) anddry climate, however, makes for an ideal CMB-spotting environment.

CMB radiation backlights all the objects in the universe. When these objects areparticularly large, like galaxy clusters, there is measurable distortion in CMB. (In theshadow theatre of the universe, CMB is the light, galaxies are the puppets, anddistortion is the shadow.) The strength of this distortion does not fade over distance,making CMB an indispensable tool for discovering very, very remote galaxy clusters. Bymeasuring small angular scale features in CMB, the telescope may help astronomersdetect previously unknown clusters—invaluable data for demystifying the history of howthe universe has grown.

Dobbs spent a frigid month helping to build the receiver and readout electronics forthis enormous high-tech window to the sky. Working in the South Pole’s extremeweather was not easy; even brief forays outside could lead to frostbite. The localweather crew described conditions one day as “Skies: going to hell. Temperature: Goingto hell in a handbasket. Tomorrow: Even worse.”

Nonetheless, Dobbs left the bottom of the world feeling, well, on top of the world. “Asour plane lifted off and circled back over the station,” he wrote in his polar blog, “thepilot banked quickly to the left and back again so that the wing would dip down and giveus our last view of the South Pole Telescope—commissioned and ready to bring back ayear’s worth of exciting new science.”■ The South Pole Telescope is funded by the National Science Foundation, the Kavli Foundation andthe Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. McGill participants received additional funding from theFonds québécois de la recherche sur la nature et les technologies and the Natural Sciences andEngineering Research Council of Canada.

The South Pole Telescope, with crew

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Steering Clear of DangerWhen the Titanic sank in 1912, dooming1,500 of its passengers, it was far fromthe first vessel to fall prey to the icebergsthat stalk the North Atlantic. And evenwith all the improvements to navigationalsafety that have been made since, ships arestill at risk of unexpected encounters witha silent frozen menace.

Working with scientists from the NationalResearch Council’s Canadian HydraulicsCentre and the Canadian Ice Service branchof Environment Canada, Stuart Savage,emeritus professor of civil engineering,helped develop a computational model tobetter predict an iceberg’s movement afterbeing “calved” from the massive glaciers ofGreenland.

Fed information on ocean currents, windpatterns and characteristics of the icebergitself, the model should help ship captainsavoid unwelcome surprises; the programwill also be used to manage icebergs inthe vicinity of oil-drilling platforms. Testingin the Grand Banks has shown the model tobe at least 30 per cent more accurate thanexisting forecasting techniques.

Advances in ship design and navigationalsystems make another Titanic-sized cat-astrophe highly unlikely. However, notesSavage, icebergs are still a threat to shipsand off-shore drilling projects.“Even a chunkof ice that’s just five or six metres in dia-meter can do a lot of damage,” he says.“What we want to do is to prevent theprobability of a collision or an oil spill beforeit’s even a danger.”■ This research was funded by Natural Resources Canada’s Program of Energy Researchand Development, and the Natural Sciences andEngineering Research Council of Canada.


N E W W A V E

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There is a golden threadrunning through myresearch: a quest to upholdthe fundamental dignity of all in legally workableways, while acknowledgingthat the law itself has oftenbeen a source of oppression.

– PROFESSOR FRÉDÉRIC MÉGRET

Frédéric Mégret’s touras a UN peacekeeper in Sarajevo (aboveright) made him keenly aware of thelimitations ofinternational law.

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By Jacquie Rourke

Is the pen mightier than the sword? McGill law professorFrédéric Mégret, who has wielded both, believes the oldadage. As a UN Protection Force peacekeeper with theFrench army in 1995, Mégret witnessed the misery andsuffering caused by the shells, snipers and starvation ravagingSarajevo—and, when his eyes met those of the Bosnians hewas trying to protect, he felt “the embarrassment of notbeing able to do much.” Mégret didn’t need front-lineexperience to know that something had to be done to stopethnic cleansing (“That wasn’t a revelation”), but his tour ofduty did open his eyes to how the UN works—and how itdoesn’t work. The experience informs his current research onhow the globalization of law can empower individuals andsocial groups to better resist violence.

“This whole idea that the benevolent internationalcommunity is going to come to your rescue if you get intoharm’s way is simply not happening,” says Mégret. “The onlyassistance the Jews got in the Warsaw Ghetto was fromthemselves and the Polish underground; the Allies didn’tparachute in a single weapon. That’s the fundamental dangerin investing too much hope in international intervention: onegives the impression that the international community iscoming to the rescue, and then one abandons people … butonly after having destroyed their local capacity for resistance.”

Mégret is engaged in a long-term, SSHRC-funded researchproject on the tradition of resistance to oppression andtyranny, trying to recast resistance in light of currentinternational legal developments. The goal is to empower

people who are caught in conflicts or situations where thereis no real prospect of a local judicial remedy, wheredemocracy is non-existent and where the internationalcommunity is unlikely to intervene. International law, Mégretargues, could provide a more solid normative base to thosewho seek to resist or even rebel against their state. “The‘Nuremberg precedent’—the idea that soldiers shoulddisobey orders instructing them to commit atrocities—issomething that can and should be extended to the generalpopulation,” he argues. The aim is not to create chaos andto destroy sovereignty; rather, international law shouldembolden individuals, in certain extreme circumstances, totake matters into their own hands by, for example, engagingin broad campaigns of civil disobedience.

Mégret’s interest in how the law helps, or hinders, indivi-dual empowerment isn’t limited to the idea of resistance.Another of his research projects deals with how persons withphysical or mental disabilities have been “massively discri-minated against,” often as a consequence of the law itself.He is currently analyzing the UN Convention on the Rights ofPersons with Disabilities, a landmark 2006 document whichoutlines the first-ever international standard for disabledpeople’s human rights. His thesis is that the way disabilityrights are conceived in the Convention—which is the mostholistic and comprehensive treatment of the subject todate—has a lesson to teach about international humanrights in general. “The Convention on Disabilities,” he says,“can also help us think about the ways in which humanrights are universal—the same for all—yet need to takeinto account the irreducible experience of certain categoriesof human beings.

“In a sense,” he continues, “there is a golden threadrunning through my research: a quest to uphold thefundamental dignity of all in legally workable ways, whileacknowledging that the law itself has often been a source ofoppression. What matters is more than remedying discreteprejudices, however. The project is about changing the waywe think about the law, so that one may truly turn it into aninstrument of emancipation.”■ Frédéric Mégret is the Canada Research Chair in the Law ofHuman Rights and Social Diversity.

From the Warsaw Ghetto to Sarajevo,the international community has toooften failed victims of mass atrocities. Now, Frédéric Mégret is exploring howthe globalization of law can emboldenthe spirit of resistance—and preventgenocides.

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Making Cents of

EmergingMarkets

Vihang Errunza estimatesthat emerging markets—

particularly the “BRIC”countries (Brazil, Russia,

India, China) — will accountfor close to 50 per cent of

the global economy withinthe next 25 years.

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munity with reliable statistics and models for under-standing the potential of emerging market economies.In the early 1980s, for example, he played a lead rolein developing the World Bank’s first EM database. The database has since been sold to Standard andPoor’s, and is an integral tool for fund managers.

By the 1990s, country funds and Americandepository receipts (ADRs) had become popular, asinvestors looked to diversify their portfolios withofferings from abroad. Globalization was kicking intohigh gear, and the dapper management professorfrom Mumbai had played a quiet but important role inopening up the world’s markets. “A lot of people thatnever used to invest in the market have since becomestock market investors,” he says from his corner officein the Bronfman Building.

Of course, overturning investment orthodoxiesdoesn’t happen without a fight, and many haveexpressed fears that the rise of EMs spells doom forNorth American jobs. But Errunza brushes aside suchfears, insisting that the Canadian economy needs thecompetition. “The fact is we have to have innovation,”he stresses. “If we don’t have innovation we’re goingto be relegated to a second-rate power status intomorrow’s world.”

Errunza calls the concern over outsourcing “bogus”because it fails to address the real issues that faceour economy, mainly its ability to adapt to new chal-lenges. Indeed, what Errunza credits for his ownsuccess mirrors in many ways the findings of hisresearch. “You have to challenge, if you don’t chal-lenge you won’t go very far,” he says. “You must learncontinuously, you must innovate continuously andkeep challenging.”■ Vihang Errunza is the Bank of Montreal Chair in Finance and Banking, and Associate Dean for Researchand International Relations in the Desautels Faculty ofManagement.

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Dispelling myths about thedeveloping world’s economies

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The fact is we have to haveinnovation. If we don’t haveinnovation we’re going to berelegated to a second-rate powerstatus in tomorrow’s world.

– PROFESSOR VIHANG ERRUNZA

By Jonathan Monpetit

When The Economist declared last year that no seriousinvestor can afford to ignore emerging markets (EMs),Professor Vihang Errunza bit his tongue.

For more than 30 years, Errunza has been preachingabout the opportunities afforded by developing worldeconomies. In fact, his 1974 doctoral thesis was amongthe first to broach the idea that perhaps investing incountries like China and India wasn’t so crazy after all.

“I came up with the very simple idea that to haveportfolio capital flowing from developed economies toemerging markets would be beneficial to both sides,”says Errunza, a professor in the Desautels Faculty ofManagement. “The developed countries share in thegrowth prospects of these emerging markets. Theemerging markets, in turn, get a much-needed addi-tional source of risk capital, which helps develop localinstitutions, increases their economic growth rate andlowers the cost of capital.”

Errunza isn’t surprised that three decades of thinkingabout EMs has suddenly come to a head. Aging pop-ulations and low growth rates mean the world’sdeveloped markets no longer present the lucrativegrowth opportunities they once did. At the same time,consumers and suppliers in the developing world arechomping at the bit; Errunza estimates that EMs—particularly the “BRIC” countries (Brazil, Russia, India,China)—will account for 50 per cent of the global eco-nomy within the next 25 years. BRIC markets are alsoproving rather responsive to the environmental warn-ing bells, exploring renewable energy sources such aswind (India) and solar (China) power. “In the longrun, it’s in everybody’s best interests to have these eco-nomies grow and become part of mainstream globalcapital markets.”

But while Errunza is credited with helping kick-startthe trend toward EMs, he hasn’t rested on his laurels.He recently completed a major research project thatfurthers his 1985 study on international asset manage-ment, which established a pricing model for emergingmarket securities.

The 1985 study, which has since become requiredreading in many PhD programs, established empiricallywhat has been one of the long-running themes ofErrunza’s research: although EMs can be volatile overthe short term, they offer significant returns to patientinvestors. Errunza’s new project doesn’t only take intoaccount the traditional barriers faced by EM investors,but also seeks to explain the risk posed by fluctuatingexchange rates.

The authority Errunza enjoys on the topic comesfrom having been able to provide the financial com-Ph

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In August 2006, an excavation led by André Costopou-los unearthed a large stone structure near Wemindji, aremote Cree community on the east coast of James Bay. Drawing on his extensive knowledge of northernEuropean archeology, Costopoulos was confidentthey’d found the edge of an ancient dwelling. His col-leagues disagreed.

“I had a rebellion on my hands!” jokes the McGillanthropology professor. What Costopoulos interpretedas the outer wall of a big building, his teammates sawas the ruins of a hearth which once sat at the centre ofan even bigger building. Disagreement is common inhealthy academic discourse, but the dissension on thisdig had a twist: Costopoulos’s fellow researchers wereundergraduate students.

These skeptical young archeologists are part of thenew McGill experience, which encourages undergradsto apply their classroom smarts in labs and clinics,open fields and archives. In 2005, McGill’s Faculty ofScience formalized this commitment by creating theOffice for Undergraduate Research in Science (OURS).The first of its kind in Canada, OURS coordinates vari-ous research opportunities for undergrads, includingelective research courses and an annual student

research conference. Other faculties plan to soonfollow suit and some, such as Dentistry, already makeit a point to contact every eligible undergrad aboutresearch possibilities. Individual professors also recruitstudents through classroom and Web announcements.In the 2006-07 academic year, there were almost 2,000undergraduate researchers at McGill. As students catchon to the benefits of doing research, that number willonly grow.

There’s an undeniable appeal to getting one’s handsdirty, figuratively and literally. “Doing research gives youa perspective that you can’t find in the classroom,where everything seems very theoretical,” says ColinNielsen, 24, an archeology student who participated inthe Wemindji dig. “Pulling ancient stone scrapers outof the ground in James Bay myself is more satisfyingthan reading about someone else doing it.”

But research is more than a break from the classroom.“School isn’t just about learning facts or techniques,”says Jay Nadeau, a professor in the Department ofBiomedical Engineering who began working withundergrad researchers last year. “It’s also about learn-ing how to say, ‘Yes, I can approach any sort of problem,given the right background and the right tools.’ It’s

By James Martin, with f i les from Patrick McDonagh

Anthropology professorAndré Costopoulos (centre) is excited by the fresh perspectives that undergraduatesTheresa Gabos (left) and Colin Nielsen bring to research.

Dentistry student Romina Perri (right) was lead author of a paper analyzing the strategies used to gather partici-pants in professor Jocelyne Feine’s study of dental implants.

From lab work to fieldwork, McGill’sundergraduate studentsare taking learningbeyond the classroom.

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absolutely wonderful to watch these students learninghow to assemble a repertoire—whether it be physicaltools or knowledge—to answer a given question.They’re learning how to approach a problem.”

In 2006, Nadeau recruited 12 students to participatein MIT’s annual International Genetically EngineeredMachines (iGEM) Competition. Each year, teams fromover a dozen countries compete to design and assembleengineered machines using the same set of geneticparts (primarily for expression in bacteria) and theirmolecular cloning skills. “We learned how researchprojects are designed from the start,” says second-yearmicrobiology and immunology student Jamie Schafer,20. Her iGEM team synchronized the oscillation of fluo-rescent protein in a group of cells—basically creating aset of tiny blinking bio-lights. “After seeing the range ofprojects at the iGEM conference, all products of thesame starting material, I fully realized the huge poten-tial there is in being given a clean slate to develop one’sown project.”

For Schafer, undergraduate research only fortifies herexisting interest in pursuing graduate studies. For otherstudents, the research experience illuminates careerpossibilities they hadn’t previously considered. During

her final year of undergraduate psychology studies,Anne Hand, 22, worked with Sonia Lupien, Director ofthe Centre for Studies on Human Stress at the DouglasMental Health University Institute, to investigate howreading self-help books affected the stress levels ofhealthy Montreal anglophones aged 18 to 65. “Doingresearch made me realize that to do international,cross-cultural health work, you absolutely must be atleast bilingual,” says Hand, who plans on polishing herSpanish skills by taking an immersion program nextyear. “I’ve also realized that I would prefer workingwith more clinical populations, or with policy decisionsat a political level—I’ve seen how policy directlyinfluences and frustrates the efforts of scientists atthe ground level.” This summer, she will present a pos-ter about her research at the International Society ofPsychoneuroendocrinology conference in Wisconsinand the Hans Selye Symposium on Stress in Montreal.

Hand’s fellow psychology student Laura Cooper, 22,will also be presenting the fruits of her research laboursat the two conferences. Last fall, Cooper designed “De-Stress for Success,” a program which uses interactiveworkshops to teach new Montreal high school studentshow to cope with stress. Upon submission of her

McGill University 11

Mathematics professorNilima Nigam (right)encouraged math physicsstudent Tayeb Aïssiou(centre) to construct a mathematical model topredict cell populationfluctuation in dentistryprofessor SvetlanaKomarova’s bone growthstudy.

Professor Jay Nadeau(right) recruited under-grads Adam Katolik (left)and Jamie Schafer for MIT’s InternationalGenetically EngineeredMachines Competition,where students test theirmolecular cloning mettle.

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design this summer, Cooper will finish the creditrequirements for her BA, but the program will continuelong after she graduates; a pilot study is scheduled tobegin in Montreal schools in September. Grad school isa possibility, she says, but not for a few years. “I’d liketo find something that allows me to put some of myresearch skills to use,” says Cooper, who’s consideringpursuing a career in coordinating and evaluating NGOsocial programs, “but I think research will be secondaryto whatever line of work or study I find myself in next.”

“Undergraduate research gives students the chanceto experience grad school risk-free,” says Nadeau. “Theworst thing that can happen is for someone to be ingraduate school for five or six years and still not havepublished a paper—but undergrad research is, hope-fully, about having fun. And if they do publish, it’s icingon the cake.”

It would seem McGill undergraduates really liketheir icing: many of these young researchers are gettingan early taste of peer-reviewed publication in journalsboth homegrown (such as the new McGill ScienceUndergraduate Research Journal) and international. In 2004, dentistry student Romina Perri, now 23, wasworking on professor Jocelyne Feine’s clinical study intothe health impact of dental implants—satisfying work,yet she was still itching for a project to call her own.Feine suggested that she analyze the strategies used togather the study’s 250-plus participants. The result:Perri was lead author of “Monitoring Recruitment Success and Cost in a Randomized Clinical Trial,”published in the European Journal of Prosthodonticsand Restorative Dentistry. The paper, which Perri pre-sented at the International Association for DentalResearch conference in Baltimore, promises to be aboon to cash-strapped researchers in search of cost-effective recruitment methods. “The project reallyhelped enlarge my view of dentistry, making me awarethat there is so much in the field,” says Perri, who iscurrently investigating temporomandibular jointdisorders with Dean of Dentistry James Lund. Aftergraduating in 2008, she hopes to pursue a postgrad-uate periodontics program.

Ask professors which qualities make for a goodstudent researcher, and the same adjectives keep crop-ping up: Imaginative. Open-minded. Creative. Flexible.Self-motivated. Bold. Fearless. “They have the courageto try new things without worrying about breaking orwasting something,” says Nadeau. “Research is aboutrealizing that even ‘wrong’ data is useful data.”

Research is also about tenacity. “These studentsdon’t let themselves be limited by knowing thatnobody has made much headway in answering theirquestions,” says Costopoulos. He recalls how one of his undergraduates, Theresa Gabos, hit a snag in herstudy of 18th-century faience. Gabos, 23, uncovered

fragments of the French-made earthenware whileparticipating in the Pointe-à-Callière museum’sArchaeological Field School, located at the site of theoriginal settlement of Montreal. She was interested inwhat the fragments could reveal about early Quebectrade networks, but existing faience typologies, largelybased on decor or design, were of little use in iden-tifying small fragments. Undaunted, Gabos created anew typology based on the porosity and compositionof the faience paste. “I wanted a way to categorize fai-ence that is less subjective than the current methods,”she says. “It was a challenge. I learned that archeologyreally is a big puzzle for which you don’t have all thepieces and you don’t know how many pieces there are.”

“Most of my time with these students is spentreassuring them that their instincts are right,” adds hersupervisor. “And, when they hit a wall, explaining tothem why. The joys of research are easy. The frustra-tions are where I come in.”

Those frustrations can be legion. “It’s important forstudents to develop the willingness to fail,” says NilimaNigam, professor in the Department of Mathematicsand Statistics. “It’s something that one has to get com-fortable with, to not get disheartened when one’sfirst line of attack doesn’t work. That’s where creativityis important: if your first or second strategy doesn’twork, you need to pick up the pieces and try some-thing else.”

Nigam watched Tayeb Aïssiou, a 21-year-old studentin his final year studying math physics, go through thisexact process. In 2005, Aïssiou approached Nigamabout getting involved in research. She invited him tojoin her co-project with Faculty of Dentistry professorSvetlana Komarova: modelling population dynamicsamong the osteoclast cells involved in bone growth.Aïssiou’s task was to construct a mathematical modelto predict fluctuation in the cell population. “I wantedsomething different from what I’d already done,”explains Aïssiou, who had no biology backgroundbeyond his CEGEP studies, “and thought working inbiology could be exciting.” He set about filling the gapsin his knowledge through a regimen of self-study,learning how to design, run and interpret biological labexperiments. “His first few experiments were nothugely successful,” recalls Nigam. “Even once he gothis experiments working, his first mathematical modelsfailed to explain what was going on. Tayeb had to tryagain and again until he was able to successfullypredict something that he later observed in his experi-ments.” The results of Aïssiou’s diligence have openednew directions of inquiry, and he is currently co-author-ing a paper based on his work.

Nigam delights in the changes she’s seen in her starstudent. “Tayeb has become gutsier,” she says. “He’smore open to new ideas, in the sense that not every-


Psychology studentsLaura Cooper (left)and Anne Hand(right) helped SoniaLupien, Director ofthe Centre for Studieson Human Stress,conduct research into stress levels ofvarious Montrealpopulations.

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thing in the life sciences has a beautiful, elegantmathematical solution. He’s learning the art of openinquiry, and developing the research temperament.”

The research may change the students, but thestudents are also changing the research. When JayNadeau’s lab was having difficulty screening bacterialcolonies for expression of yellow fluorescent protein,biochemistry student and iGEM participant AdamKatolik, 22, plunged into an exhaustive literaturesearch. He uncovered a polymerase chain reactionmethod so obscure that not even Nadeau had everheard of it—and it worked like a charm.“I’ve never seensomeone so dedicated as Adam,” says Nadeau. “He’svery good at looking things up, which is an importantskill that a lot of graduate students don’t have.”

André Costopoulos recalls the time he and ColinNielsen were using three different software packagesto help another student reconstruct viewsheds (areasvisible from a fixed vantage point) of Iron Age hillforts in southern Spain. Nielsen noticed that eachprogram produced slightly different results. He ranthe packages through a battery of tests of his owndesign, and found a systematic relationship betweenthe variable of the terrain and the software.

“I was concerned with the big picture,” admitsCostopoulos. “The different viewsheds were somethingI was willing to accept as a result of experimentalerror—then it’s basically a problem of quantifying the

error. But Colin grew up with computers, so for him itwas a problem of finding out why different softwareproduced different results. His inquisitiveness not onlyled to a correction of previous results, but it meansmuch more accurate results for all our future work.

“Undergrads throw out questions and ideas thatyou’ve never thought of before, which then suggestnew hypotheses,” he adds. “When I see somethingcoming out of the ground, I have set ideas of what Ithink it is. The students bring fresh perspectives to oldproblems, which can result in very surprising andenlightening perspectives.”

Case in point: Wemindji. In August, Costopoulos andhis undergrads will return to their James Bay dig.Hearth or building? There’s a debate to settle.

“If the students weren’t there last year,” says theprofessor, “there wouldn’t be a debate—it was prettyobvious to me what we were looking at, so I would’vefocused on answering other questions. But thestudents keep me in line by examining my claims. Sofor this year’s trip, we’re redirecting our efforts becauseof their input.”

The team is excited about solving the mystery, aboutapplying academic theory in the field, about making ameaningful contribution to understanding life innorthern Quebec 4,000 years ago.

“Plus,” says Costopoulos, “there’s bragging rights upfor grabs.” ■

Philip Oxhorn and the McGill Centre for Developing-AreaStudies are helping strengthenemerging democracies


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By Jeff Roberts

For Philip Oxhorn, the recent death of Chile’s formerdictator Augusto Pinochet was more than just anotherheadline. Oxhorn did graduate work in Chile duringthe 1980s, when Pinochet’s reign of terror grippedthe nation. He saw troops tear-gas, club and shootpeople in the streets. He saw families nurse theirwounded, worry about their missing, mourn theirdead. But Oxhorn also saw something else: a blos-soming of activity among church and human rightsgroups that would ultimately drive out the dictatorand restore democracy. He was particularly struckby how many people voiced their dissent using non-traditional activities, such as clandestinely paintingvibrant anti-Pinochet murals. The lesson: “You don’thave to go to an organized protest to protest.”

“I was able to witness people’s growing awarenessof the importance of democratic rule,” Oxhorn recalls,“of the importance of some kind of accountabilityand the necessity of a regime change. I was able tosee how people became politically conscious for thefirst time. I realized how important it was for peopleto take control of their lives and to make a publicstatement about what was right and what was wrongat a time when it was very dangerous to do so.”

Today, as Director of the McGill Centre forDeveloping-Area Studies (CDAS), Oxhorn is providingnew insights into such grassroots transformations.CDAS is a nexus of scholars dedicated to under-standing the foundations of democratic developmentand the current challenges to democracy. By drawingon a broad intersection of disciplines, Oxhorn says,“the centre is bringing research and real politicalexperience together to share ideas with the widestpossible community. We’re making a bridge betweenacademics, civil society, policy-makers, the privatesector and NGOs.”

Among other projects, CDAS works at examininghow local groups respond to issues related to gender,health policy and the rights of indigenous people. Aparticular challenge is helping these oftenmarginalized groups join the formal political processand contribute to the long-term stability of youngdemocracies. “You’re not going to get effective,

sustainable development unless real people whostand to benefit from it also have a say in designingand implementing it,” says Oxhorn, “and in ensuringthat there is accountability so the money doesn’t gooff into someone’s pocket.”

The centre’s research not only serves to helpempower local groups, but also proposes new meansfor foreign governments and aid agencies to betternurture effective democracies. At the same time,however, Oxhorn advocates a realistic perspectiveon what outsiders can accomplish. “We can’t do thework of civil society,” says Oxhorn. “All we can do is fac-ilitate and find ways to help them flourish.”

Presently, CDAS comprises 35 professors and 17grad students. Since receiving an infusion of fundingfrom the Canadian International DevelopmentAgency (CIDA) in 2006, the centre has undertaken anumber of new initiatives to share its research withthose working in or with emerging democracies. Anelectronic journal, Foresight: Thinking About Tomor-row’s Development Problems Today, takes a long-term approach to questions about creating andstrengthening democracies. This past March, CDAShosted a conference about the challenges facingdevelopment in sub-Saharan Africa; in June, it also organized a discussion session at the International

While doinggraduate work inPinochet-era Chile,Philip Oxhorn(below) realized thecrucial role of publicstatements, such as murals (oppositepage), in theblossoming ofpoliticalconsciousness.

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You’re not going to geteffective, sustainabledevelopment unless realpeople who stand to benefit from it also have a say in designing andimplementing it.

– PROFESSOR PHILIP OXHORN

Economic Forum of the Americas/Conference of Montreal. Participants at other recent CDAS eventshave included the director of the World Bank’sEconomics of Education program, Somalia’s Ministerof State for Defence, and the president of theNepalese Institute for Conflict Management Peaceand Development. Last fall, a prominent Canadianbecame part of CDAS when former prime minister JoeClark was appointed as a Professor of Practice forPublic-Private Sector Partnerships.

“A lot of lip service has been paid in the past 10years to participatory development,” says Oxhorn,“but is that really participatory? Are people reallyseeing their interests served? What kinds of housingpolicies really reach the poor? What are truly effectiveways to deliver HIV/AIDS medicine?

“We’ve got expertise that agencies like CIDA canuse,” he adds. “The centre’s approach to research isto collect and analyze data so we’ve got the evidencethat says which best practices are really the best—andthen share our research with policy-makers so they candesign better policies that are more likely to succeed.” ■The McGill Centre for Developing-Area Studies receivesfunding from McGill University and the CanadianInternational Development Agency.

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Former PM joins CDASAt the 2006 International Economic Forum of theAmericas/ Conference of Montréal, Joe Clark participatedin a panel about governance and institutional reform.Centre for Developing-Area Studies director Philip Oxhornmoderated the panel, impressing Clark with his discussionof the centre’s mission. In fact, the former prime ministerof Canada and secretary of state for external affairs was soimpressed that, six months later, he joined CDAS as aProfessor of Practice for Public-Private Sector Partnerships.

“Canada’s active leadership on international developmenthas been a distinguishing characteristic of both our foreignpolicy and our national identity,” says Clark, who recentlytraveled to Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of theCongo to observe those countries’ historic yet troubledpresidential elections. “McGill has a strong reputation anda deep interest in those issues, and I look forward toworking with students and faculty in examining ways tostrengthen that essential Canadian role in the world.”

Oxhorn praises Clark as one of Canada’s most effectiveforeign ministers, and is thrilled to have him on board.“Over the course of the past year,” Oxhorn says, “theCDAS has undergone a major renewal with the goal to putMcGill at the forefront of development studies andresearch, and further link our academic activities to real-world problems and problem solving. Mr. Clark’s appoint-ment reflects that process and brings it to a new level.”

Clark is not teaching during the first year of hisprofessorship, but has been a regular guest lecturer in under-graduate and graduate courses. In January, he gave a majorpublic lecture, addressing what he sees as recent “troublingdepartures” from traditional Canadian foreign policy. Hehas also spearheaded several CDAS initiatives, includingconferences on Africa’s development challenges andCanada’s relations with the English-speaking Caribbean. ■


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Distributed Digital Music Archives and Libraries researchers are liberating music from the vinyl vaults—using a high-powered microscope

By James Martin

In the era of the digital download, whenghostly MP3s float freely from computer tocellphone, and the collected works of ABBAand Zappa can slip comfortably into a shirtpocket, it’s easy to forget that music recordingswere once inextricably tied to physical objects.From 78 RPM shellac discs to long-playingvinyl albums (LPs), the 20th century producedat least a million discrete analog phono-graph records. The Schulich School of Music’s

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Distributed Digital Music Archives and Libraries(DDMAL) research program is developing the tech-nology to digitally preserve the sounds found in thosedusty grooves.

The basics of phonograph technology changed littlefrom 1878, when Thomas Edison built his first recordplayer, to the rise of the compact disc in the early 1990s:a needle, or stylus, moves through a circular groovecarved into the surface of a spinning plastic disc, givingoff vibrations that are converted into an audible electricsignal. The traditional method for digitizing analogrecordings involves a standard turntable, an analog-to-digital converter, and a CD burner. Results vary accord-ing to the equipment: armchair audiophiles can get inon the action for a few hundred dollars, but projectsrequiring archival-quality recordings—such as theSchulich School of Music’s ongoing quest to digitize itsvast collection of Handel recordings (originally amassedby the late McGill alumnus David Edelberg, it’s theworld’s most extensive Handel LP collection)—neces-sitate a decidedly larger investment. And that’s not theonly catch.

“Every time you place a phonograph needle on arecord,” explains Ichiro Fujinaga, a DDMAL researcherand professsor in the Schulich School of Music, “the

record gets damaged.” Damage from a single playmay be negligible for pristine vinyl, but potentiallycatastrophic for a fragile disc that’s the only knowncopy of a specific recording.

That’s why Fujinaga and his DDMAL co-researchersare exploring a radical alternative to the stylus: opticallyscanning an LP to create a precisely detailed 2D or 3Dimage of its surface. Using a white-light interferometryprofiler—a $300,000 microscope usually reserved forindustrial applications like quality control inspection ofcomputer hard drives—they scan the unique widthsand depths of an LP’s grooves. Fujinaga then usessoftware that simulates how a needle would traversethese virtual grooves, converting that movement intoa digital waveform—which is transformed into audiblesound, essentially “playing” the image. In addition toeliminating surface noise due to dirt or scratches, thisnon-invasive digitization method can be used to safelyrecover sound from worn, or even broken, recordsthat would otherwise be unplayable.

In November 2006, Fujinaga and his researchersbecame the first people in the world to hear a 3Dimage converted into stereo sound. (Other researchershave done this with mono records, a far less com-plicated undertaking than two-channel stereo.) “It was

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People spend hundreds of thousands of dollarson their stereo systems thinking that they’re better—butwhat does it mean to be better? We need to find thepeople who have golden ears, and determine what they canactually hear, and what they’re only pretending to hear.

– PROFESSOR ICHIRO FUJINAGA

Researchers use a$300,000 microscope to

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just a sine tone,” says Fujinaga. “The recording itselfwasn’t exciting, but the achievement certainly was.”

The challenge now lies in improving the scanningtime required per album. At the lowest resolution, itcurrently takes 10 days to scan one side of an LP(some 20 minutes of music); to scan the same side atthe highest resolution would require five years.

“It makes me appreciate the power of analog,”says Fujinaga, who moonlights as a musician in ArashiDaiko, a Montreal ensemble which performs the ancientJapanese drumming known as taiko. “That simpleneedle gets so much information—and it’s so muchwork to do the same thing digitally.

“I like to joke that our microscope is the mostexpensive turntable in the world—and the slowest.”

Working with a network of sound recording engi-neers, pattern recognition experts and psychologists,Fujinaga and his co-researchers are trying to determinethe minimal scanning resolution to achieve optimalaudio quality. It all depends on how much we canreally hear.

“If humans can’t tell the difference between scan-ning at 50 times magnification and 10 times magnifi-cation, then why spend the extra time?” he asks. “We

know nothing about what makes a good sound.People spend hundreds of thousands of dollars ontheir stereo systems thinking that they’re better—butwhat does it mean to be better? We need to find thepeople who have golden ears, and determine whatthey can actually hear, and what they’re only pre-tending to hear.”

The project isn’t just about the music, either. TheDDMAL is also working on the problem of digitizing,and creating meaningful metadata for, album coversand the labels affixed to the centre of the records. It’sa daunting undertaking that will eventually offer musi-cologists the incredible boon of being able to rapidlysearch librettos, photos, publishing information andliner notes.

“If we have over a million records to do, we’ll haveto start soon,” Fujinaga says. “So now is the time to dothe research on how we should do this properly.

“We want to do it right the first time, so 50 yearsfrom now people won’t have to do it all again.”■ The Distributed Digital Music Archives and Librariesprogram receives funding from the Social Sciences andHumanities Research Council, the Canada Foundation forInnovation and the Daniel Langlois Foundation.

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Professor Ichiro Fujinaga andPhD student Catherine Laiexplore ways to digitize andretrieve analog recordings.

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CellHow gene-enhancedstem cell therapy ischanging medicine

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By Andrew Fazekas

Self-repairing livers. A simple injectionthat regenerates osteoporosis-riddledbone. An end to diabetes, Parkinson’sand heart disease. Such notions smackof futuristic flights of fancy, but science

fiction may soon become science fact,as a diverse group of McGill researchers

discover how to use stem cells to restore,and even rebuild, the human body.

Leading the charge is Dr. JacquesGalipeau, a hematologist working at the

Jewish General Hospital. He’s bringing togetherspecialists from an eclectic group of disciplines,

ranging from medicine to materials science, to lay thegroundwork for the McGill Consortium for Stem Celland Regenerative Medicine Research. “I am hoping tocapture the unique talents and skills set found acrossMcGill,” says Galipeau, “and be able to work as amultidisciplinary team developing cellular therapeutics.”

“GUARDIAN ANGELS”

Stem cells are the blank slate of the human body, atabula rasa waiting to be transformed into any spe-cialized cell: bone, nerves, blood, organs. Scribble onthe slate in just the right way and voila! you can (theo-retically) direct the cells to become a new pancreas, orlung tissue, or nerves.

The controversy over the use of embryonic stemcells (ESC), derived from fetal tissue, has hit headlinesacross the world, especially in the United States, wherefederally funded ESC research is prohibited. There is,however, another type of stem cell that holds the poten-tial for tissue regeneration: Adult stem cells are gettinga lot of attention and support from the global scientificcommunity, Galipeau says, because they are derivedfrom the patient’s own body, thereby avoiding theethical issues plaguing ESC research. Adult stem cellsare not as flexible as ESCs; unlike their embryoniccounterparts, they can only transform into a cell withintheir family. A marrow stromal cell, for example, canbecome bone or cartilage, but not blood. But choose theright family of cell and you’re set to unlock a chest ofseemingly miraculous cures.

In early 2007, after nearly a decade of investigatingcell therapy, Galipeau and his team at the Lady DavisInstitute for Medical Research finally began their firstclinical trial, only the nation’s second. The researchersused gene-enhanced adult stem cells to treat a patientsuffering from pulmonary hypertension—a rare, oftenfatal disease affecting the lungs, for which a riskylung or combined heart and lung transplant is the onlycurrent cure.

Though adult stem cell therapies, like bone marrowtransplants, have achieved only varying degrees ofsuccess in the past 40 years, these new clinical trials are

opening new frontiers. This novel treatment involvesgrowing stem cells, harvested from a patient’s blood, ina state-of-the-art, sterile laboratory (one of only twocell handling facilities in Canada). Researchers theninfuse the stem cells with synthetic DNA (designed toreprogram the cells to produce nitric oxide, whichhelps repair damaged lung blood vessels), and theninject them intravenously back into the patient.Galipeau and his industrial partner, NorthernTherapeutics Inc., hope that these enhanced cells will“act locally as guardian angels to protect the damagedlung tissue from death.”

“We are pushing the boundaries in regenerativemedicine with these innovative technologies,” saysGalipeau. “Using stem cells is probably the mostexciting technology to come along that is offering us anovel way of treating catastrophic illnesses.”

BUILDING A COMMUNITY

This unusual gene and stem cell therapeutic combi-nation was developed in partnership with Dr. DuncanStewart, Director of Cardiology at the University ofToronto—where, in November 2006, the world’s firsthuman patient received treatment with this technology.Galipeau believes that advances in regenerative

medicine depend on setting up both outside and in-house collaborations. Because stem cell research is“the new kid on the block” and involves expertiseand technologies scattered across the country, findingpotential partners can be tricky.

Galipeau credits Canada’s nationwide Stem CellNetwork (SCN), one of 21 federal-government-funded

Marrow stromal cells(opposite page) can be harvested from a patient’s blood, then used to grow new bones.

In the fight against bone and joint disease,researchers use a microtome (opposite, inset) to prepare bonespecimens for lightmicroscopy analysis.

Dr. Jacques Galipeau(below) is creating a multidisciplinary research team to push the envelope of cellulartherapeutics.

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Networks of Centres of Excellence, with building thepartnerships that led to the current trials. Established in2001, the SCN draws on the expertise of more than 70leading scientists, physicians and engineers fromuniversities and hospitals across the country. As leaderof the SCN therapeutics group, Galipeau shepherds theteams trying to create treatments that target severalnow-incurable diseases (including stroke, Parkinson’sdisease and blindness). “The strength behind the net-work lies in the fact that it is trying to move away fromthe paradigm of the solitary monk toiling away in hiscell, towards a more multidisciplinary team approach tosolving problems,” he says.

Now Galipeau hopes to create a local counterpart inthe McGill Consortium. The MCSCR will not onlyperform basic investigative work, but will strive tobring the latest discoveries to patients as soon aspossible. “We want to be forward thinking in putting inplace a key enabling infrastructure to move as fast as wecan to the clinic,” he adds.

WIPING THE SLATE CLEAN

After a quarter century of diabetes research, Dr.Lawrence Rosenberg, a professor in McGill’s Depart-ment of Surgery and Medicine and a collaborator in thenascent consortium, is finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. “Ultimately, I see a new treatmentfor diabetes emerging, and I think we’re close,” saysRosenberg. “There is momentum building and we’regetting some fascinating results.”

Rosenberg and his team at the McGill UniversityHealth Centre are developing a protein that can stim-ulate the body to rejuvenate its own pancreatic cellsand produce insulin again. What makes this projectunique is that, instead of actively seeking to identifyand isolate the primitive undifferentiated stem cells, theapproach assumes the pancreas retains the capacity togenerate cells that make insulin—so the focus is onreviving that ability. The key, Rosenberg says, has been

McGill researchersare interested in how

nanoengineeringcan promote cellularhealing. Jorge Viñals

(left) models themicrostructure of

materials, while JanetHenderson (right)

explores how speciallydesigned bone

surfaces can promotefaster recovery from

fractures.

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to set back the mature cells’ programming to theirprimitive progenitor state—to the blank slate, as itwere. “It’s like taking you back to when you were onlysix months old.”

The drug has already successfully completed humansafety trials, but the therapy won’t be ready for late-stage clinical trials for another couple of years. If thistreatment does get off the ground within the nextdecade, it will have significant health and economicimpacts. According to Rosenberg, 8 per cent of theCanadian population currently suffers from diabetes,with associated health care costs of $15 billion eachyear. “That’s for a disease that was supposed to havebeen cured by insulin,” he notes.

MAPPING OSTEOPOROSIS

Janet Henderson, Associate Dean of Research in theFaculty of Medicine, is trying to unlock the mysterysurrounding how stem cells can help fight age-relateddiseases in bones and joints. According to OsteoporosisCanada, treating the 1.4 million Canadians sufferingfrom the disease costs the country nearly $2 billion indirect costs. Henderson warns of a looming healthcare crisis that could cost billions more as babyboomers reach the age of highest risk for osteoporosis.“The demographics show that we’re on a trajectorywhere we’re simply not going to be able to managethis disease in 10 to 20 years time,” she says.

With age, the spontaneous repair mechanisms beginto slow down, particularly in bones. “As you age, thecapacity to renew declines and the population of theregenerative cells also declines,” Henderson explains.“The research that we’re doing, if we’re successful, isto get the stem cells that are already there in the bonemarrow to be more active and help rebuild bone.”

Traditionally, doctors administer chemical growthfactors (such as bone morphogenetic proteins) to helpbone fractures heal faster in the elderly. Henderson’sgroup, however, noticed that the actual surface textureof the broken bone had more of an effect on attractingstem cells and stimulating growth—but nobody hadpreviously looked at why these cells seek out andrepair the rough surfaces of broken bone. To under-stand what type of bone surface attracts these stemcells, Henderson’s team is defining the topography byexamining how high and far apart the peaks or bumpsare—in essence mapping out the landscape of thebroken bone—then creating detailed replicas.

BIOCONSTRUCTION ZONE

To manufacture these fake bones, Henderson’s team isdrawing on the expertise of researchers at McGill’sInstitute for Advanced Materials (MIAM). Usingnanotechnology equipment built for manufacturing

semiconductors, MIAM’s materials scientists createdime-sized templates with different textured surfaces.They place stem cells on the fake bones, then deter-mine which surfaces better promote the formation oftissue and bone. “Breaking down the barriers betweendisciplines and being able to work with different peoplemakes this science so exciting,” says Henderson. “It’samazing to think that we will be able very soon to fab-ricate bone-like surfaces using the same technology thatmakes computer chips.”

The microenvironment scale in which MIAM works is turning out to be the perfect match for stem cellresearch. Jorge Viñals, Professor of Physics and Directorof MIAM, says that the scientists and engineers at theinstitute are keen on developing partnerships withother McGill departments. Projects on the MIAM draw-ing board range from building micro-sized cellularscaffolding on which stem cells can attach and multiplyin order to help seal bone fractures, to engineeringstem-cell-infused synthetic materials which can be sur-gically stitched into (or even entirely replace) damagedorgans. “There is a growing awareness in both thescientific and medical communities that there is a clearoverlap in what we do,” says Viñals, who notes that bio-logists are now focusing on the molecular scales thatare the traditional playground of nanotechnologists.

Galipeau is keenly aware that time is of the essencein fulfilling the promise of stem cells. “There is adefinite excitement in developing technology that’snever been done before. But this same passion iswhat drives me as a doctor—to try and helppeople with ailments for which there is cur-rently no hope.”

For Linda Beliaut, who has sufferedfrom the debilitating effects of pul-monary hypertension for 15 years,news of this clinical trial does giveher hope. The once active elemen-tary school teacher, who used toregularly bike and walk for miles, isnow severely limited by her con-stant battle with fatigue and edema.She anxiously awaits the outcome ofthe McGill trials, excited about theprospects of having an alternativetreatment.“I can’t imagine what it wouldbe like to be healthy again,” she says.“Knowing that the only current way to erad-icate my illness is through a transplant, thisreally would be a breakthrough.” ■This research is funded by the Canadian Institutes of HealthResearch, the Canadian Diabetes Association, the JuvenileDiabetes Research Foundation, the Stem Cell Network and theCanadian Arthritis Network.

Dr. Lawrence Rosenberghopes that a newtechnique for revivingfading pancreatic cellsmay lead to a diabetesbreakthrough.

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Grace Egeland, researcherwith McGill’s Centre

for Indigenous Peoples’Nutrition and Environment,

is part of the Qanuipitaliteam, about to embark

on an unprecedentedsurvey of health in remote

Inuit villages.

By Chris Atack

In the general consciousness, there’s an inextricable, yetrather hazy, link between health and food. Starve afever. Feed a cold. And lest we forget, the mythi-cal apple and its physician-repelling properties. But is there scientific truth underpinning these folksymaxims? Researchers from McGill’s School of Dieteticsand Human Nutrition, founded in 1908, are taking aserious look at the relationship between our health andwhat we eat.

“Disease prevention requires good nutrition,” saysKristine Koski, Director of the SDHN. “Some foods mayactually protect us from illness, while deficiencies orexcesses of other nutrients underlie disease processes.”SDHN researchers are studying the effects of nutritionon a variety of populations in order to learn more aboutthe complex relationship between diet, disease andgood health—and they’re taking that knowledge backinto the community to help people across Quebec andNunavut understand and achieve the nutritional bal-ance needed to maintain good health.

Obesity, lack of exercise and a high-fat diet arethought to be the major causes of type 2 diabetes, adisease reaching epidemic levels in the Cree communi-ties of northern Quebec; in 2002, 15 per cent of theCree population of James Bay had diabetes—three

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Headway Summer 200724

times higher than the incidence of occurrence insouthern Quebec. Diabetes isn’t as prevalent in Nunavut,but Inuit communities want to engage in preventionefforts before it is too late.

These northern communities are isolated and small;the largest has about 4,000 residents and is linked toits nearest neighbour by 100 kilometres of partiallypaved road. High transportation costs and the shortshelf life of fresh produce therefore make refined carbo-hydrates cheaper than vegetables and fruits. Inflatedfood costs are most pronounced in Nunavut, where ittypically costs $300 to feed a family of four for a week—that’s double the cost of the same market food itemsin Montreal. Factor in a high rate of unemploymentand poverty in the north, says Grace Egeland, CanadaResearch Chair in Environment, Nutrition and Healthand researcher with the Centre for Indigenous Peoples’Nutrition and Environment (CINE), “and it’s clear thatyou can afford the pasta but not the meatballs or thefresh salad greens.”

Since 2005, Egeland has been working with Inuitcommunities and the Cree Board of Health and SocialServices of James Bay. “We’re looking at the extent oftraditional and market food consumptions, and the percent of energy people are deriving from nutrient-poor,energy-dense food,” says Egeland. “Earlier surveysshowed traditional foods—moose, fish, fowl—are con-sumed more by individuals over 40. People under 40,especially children, eat far less traditional food andmore junk food. Younger people are more likely toadopt a modern lifestyle and diet, and less apt to takepart in activities such as hunting and fishing.”

To measure junk food intake, researchers measuredblood levels of trans fats, usually associated with chips,fries and baked goods containing hydrogenated oils.“People consuming more junk food had more transfats in their blood,” explains Egeland. “This is worrying,because trans fats are a risk factor for cardiovasculardisease, and possibly for type 2 diabetes.”

We’ve all heard the aphorisms, but what role does nutrition reallyplay in keeping the doctor away? Researchers in the

School of Dietetics and Human Nutrition are delving into communitiesacross Quebec, from First Nations towns on the shore of

James Bay to cancer patients in Montreal hospitals, to better understand how our eating choices can prevent disease.


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“The KSDPP is a community-research partnershipaimed at finding ways of improving diet and physicalactivity amongst youngsters,” says Gray-Donald. “Thesechildren are getting heavier and this has serious poten-tial health consequences, because obesity is stronglylinked to type 2 diabetes. Some years ago, the com-munity realized the threat and said, in essence, tohealth care professionals, ‘Help us protect our children.’Our research is aimed at doing just that.” The KSDPPhas implemented several interventions, such as a daily20-minute walk, that have greatly increased physicalactivity in the schools, and has initiated a ban on serv-ing unhealthy foods in cafeterias.

Gray-Donald’s other major research project looks at the other end of the age spectrum. The five-yearNuAge study is Canada’s first longitudinal, in-depthinvestigation into how eating habits impact aging.The research team hopes to learn how improved nutri-tion supports “successful” aging. Three years ago, theresearch team enrolled nearly 1,800 independent-living Quebecers (ages 68 to 82) from Montreal andSherbrooke. At the outset, the participants underwentextensive nutritional evaluations, including dietaryintake, body fat measurements and blood samples.Over the course of five years, they’ll participate in anannual, extensive half-day battery of tests, plus regularphone surveys, designed to measure changes instrength, weight loss, cognitive abilities and autonomy.

For the elderly, losing weight tends to equate to los-ing muscle—making them weaker, more liable to fall,and less able to participate in physical activities (whichcontributes to further decline)—which is why Gray-Donald is particularly interested in causes of unexplainedweight loss. “In the first year, 9 per cent of our grouplost more than 5 per cent of their body weight,” shesays. “Some were sick, but others weren’t. We’relooking at what changed in their diets, what happenedin their lives during the period of weight loss, and try-ing to understand why weight loss occurred.”

Hope Weiler, Canada Research Chair in Nutrition,Development and Aging, is working with NuAge toestablish the role of vitamin D in healthy aging. Theproject is just one part of Weiler’s series of pan-genera-tional vitamin D studies, and indicative of a larger trendtoward studying this long-ignored vitamin. (Vitamin Dis traditionally associated with childhood rickets, andlittle else, but recent research suggests that deficienciesmay significantly contribute to cancer, multiple sclerosis,juvenile diabetes, influenza and osteoporosis.) InAugust 2007, Weiler will join Grace Egeland for a CINEstudy called Qanuipitali (“How about us, how arewe?”). Travelling on the Canadian Coast Guard shipAmundsen, researchers will conduct an unprecedentedsurvey of health in remote Inuit villages; Weiler’sresearch will focus on the vitamin D status of childrenand women. Working with Dr. Celia Rodd, Director of

Egeland’s research has led to interventions—actionsto modify unhealthy habits—designed in consultationwith local communities. One such intervention buildson native people’s strong oral tradition by using localradio to engage in health-promoting storytelling.“Community leaders see radio as a key medium for dis-seminating culturally appropriate messages aboutnutrition,” says Egeland. “So, for example, elders talkon radio about seaweed and plants and berries. Laterin the broadcast, these traditional food items are dis-cussed from a modern nutritional perspective that canguide healthy market food choices.”

Type 2 diabetes is also a worry closer to home. AsScientific Director of the Kahnawake Schools DiabetesPrevention Project, Katherine Gray-Donald is focusing onpreventing the disease in children living in the Mohawkcommunity, located 15 kilometres southwest of down-town Montreal. Adult residents of Kahnawake alreadyhave more than twice the incidence of type 2 diabetesfound in the general population—and there’s a risk ofeven higher numbers for the next generation of adults.

The NuAge study, led by Katherine Gray-Donald,

is Canada’s first in-depthinvestigation into how

eating habits impact aging.

“

”

These children are getting heavier and this hasserious potential health consequences, because

obesity is strongly linked to type 2 diabetes.Some years ago, the community realized the

threat and said, in essence, to health careprofessionals, ‘Help us protect our children.’

Our research is aimed at doing just that.

– PROFESSOR KATHERINE GRAY-DONALD

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A C T L O C A L L Y

Pediatric Endocrinology at the Montreal Children’sHospital, Weiler is also conducting a pivotal study ininfants to see how much vitamin D is needed for opti-mal health outcomes (such as bone mineralization).Over a period of 11 months, growth measurements, X-rays and blood samples are used to measure how theinfants’ bones are progressing. The researchers hope thestudy, which began in March 2007, will offer the firstclear definition of vitamin D requirements; the resultsmay be used to revise Health Canada’s policy for vitaminsupplementation in healthy infants.

In October, Weiler will begin a six-month pilot studywith Ste. Anne’s Hospital for Veterans (in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, in Montreal’s West Island) to determinethe correlation between patients’ levels of vitamin D

and the risk of mortality and functionality. During thesummer months, vitamin D is predominantly derivedfrom sun exposure but, she explains, “as people age,they may not be outside as much. And anybody whomust stay inside—such as people who are hospital-ized—rely heavily on diet to get vitamin D.” During the Ste. Anne’s study, researchers will monitor levels of25-hydroxy vitamin D in the blood of patients (most ofwhom are in their 80s) hospitalized for various chronichealth conditions. “We’ll be studying the relationshipbetween nutrition, seasonal factors and vitamin D,”Weiler explains. “We hope to correlate vitamin D levelswith functioning and strength. Some research suggeststhere is a relationship between vitamin D levels andpatients’ ability to carry out daily activities, and alsotheir muscle strength—but we’re not sure why, orhow strong the link is. Based on what we learn, we’lldesign an intervention to improve vitamin D statusand health.”

Another SDHN researcher, Linda Wykes, is con-ducting her own hospital study, with an eye towardusing nutrition to help speed recovery from surgery.The William Dawson Scholar is exploring innovativeinterventions which incorporate both anesthesia andintravenous feeding. “We call ourselves the NASTYteam, which is short for nutrition, anesthesia andsurgery,” says Wykes. “Our team has done multiplestudies in cancer patients at McGill University HealthCentre hospitals, and our results have helped us designa two-pronged intervention for this group.”

The body responds to the stress of surgery by secret-ing stress hormones and breaking down proteins,which can lead to muscle loss and impaired functionsof the immune system—which, in turn, delays recovery.To prevent this response, Wykes and her colleaguesgive patients a little something extra. Two things, actu-ally: epidural anesthetic (during and after surgery),and an intravenous meal of glucose and amino acids. Thedrugs ensure pain signals never reach the brain, stem-ming the flow of stress hormones and allowing thebody to make better use of the nutrients. Patients receiv-ing this intensive approach actually have a net gain ofbody protein after surgery, and meet discharge criteriasooner than those treated using standard protocols.

“Nutrition is a key concern, at any age and in everypopulation, as more and more research shows,” Koskisays. “It’s a topic the medical community is now takingvery seriously indeed. As our school approaches itscentenary in 2008, you might say nutrition is a sciencewhose time has come.”■ Funding for these research projects includes the CanadianInstitutes for Health Research, the Cree Board of Health andSocial Services of James Bay, the Niskamoon Corporation, theSocial Sciences and Humanities Research Council, theGovernment of Canada’s International Polar Year Programand Dairy Farmers of Canada.

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McGill researchers are studying how nutritioninterventions may create healthier hospital patients. Hope Weiler (top) is studying the vitamin Drequirements of patients at the Ste. Anne’s Hospital for Veterans.

Linda Wykes (bottom) is using a combination of anesthetic, glucose and amino acids to speed recovery from surgery.

GreenThe

Ageof

McGill researchers are at the forefront of a whole new kind of environmentally friendlychemistry. Replacing toxic solvents with water, turning CO2 into biodegradable plastic—you might say they’re saving the world onemolecule at a time.


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The word organic has become shorthand for Earth-friendly, health-conscious awareness of everythingfrom cotton to coffee. Organic chemistry, however, isan entirely different beast. It focuses on reactionsusing what scientists call organic compounds, com-posed primarily of carbon and hydrogen. A far cryfrom the popular consumer denotation, the namestems from the erroneous 19th-century belief thatorganic compounds could only be synthesized in livingorganisms through the vis vitalis. Although it hasnothing to do with this life force, organic chemistrymost certainly now informs almost every aspect ofour lives. Pharmaceuticals, food flavouring, microchips:there’s nary an industrial process or product that isn’tthe end result of an organic chemical reaction.Unfortunately, the same processes that engender ourcomputer-loving, fuel-guzzling, antibiotics-poppinglifestyles are also poisoning the planet with persistentorganic pollutants like polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).But all that is about to change.

“Chemistry is the only field whose primary mandateis to make new forms of matter,” says Bruce Lennox,Chair of McGill’s Department of Chemistry. “In order toinvent new molecules, you need to have a chemicalreaction that you can implement.” In organic chemistry,

this means dissolving the solid, liquid or gaseousstarting materials in a solvent. These solvents, however,are often highly toxic. That’s why McGill researchers areheading a revolution that hopes to change how we dochemistry. In the research lab and on the shop floor,these pioneers of zero-emission green chemistry aim toreplace traditional chemistry processes with cleanermeans to the same ends—thus reducing, and evenpreventing, pollution at the source.

Tak-Hang “Bill” Chan, now Emeritus Professor ofChemistry, is widely credited as the father of greenchemistry research in Canada. Chan saw the writing onthe wall for organic solvent-based chemistry in 1989,when almost 200 nations ratified the UN-sponsoredMontreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete theOzone Layer. “It was actually the first internationalagreement which controlled the release of any kind ofchemical into the environment,” he says. “This madeit clear to me that volatile organic chemicals would notbe feasible in the long run.”

Chan hit upon the idea of replacing toxic solventswith a widely available, non-toxic substance: water. Theubiquitous wet stuff was one of chemistry’s firstsolvents, but it fell out of favour with the introductionof organic molecule upstarts (such as acetone), which

By Mark Shainblum

I N D E P T H

Professor MarcusLindström is part of a new generation that is thinking outside the traditional chemistry tool box.


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I N D E P T H

Professor Chao-Jun Li,(above) is the Canada

Research Chair in GreenChemistry and one of the

field’s leading researchers.

were believed to be non-water-soluble. In fact, just 15years ago water was an unthinkable solvent alter-native—but that didn’t stop Chan from giving to histhen-new doctoral student, Chao-Jun (C.J.) Li, an out-rageous research project: to carry out organic reactionsin water.

“People have rarely looked at using water in organicchemistry at all,” says C.J. Li, now Canada ResearchChair in Green Chemistry and one of the pre-eminentresearchers in the field. “Some industries are still usingchemical reactions that were discovered over a centuryago.” Li broke with this tradition when he developedways to use metal catalysts, submerged in water, to getmany of the same chemical results that normallyrequire organic solvents; these reactions have numer-ous industrial applications. Li’s processes “maximizeatom economy” (read: they create little waste) and aremore energy efficient—making them not only envi-ronmentally friendly, but more cost-effective.

Professor Marcus Lindström, recently arrived fromSweden’s University of Lund, is also working toward thelong-term goal of replacing organic solvents withwater. Lindström and his team have discovered whatthey believe to be one of the most stable and efficientcatalysts for use in aqueous biphasic catalysis, whichcompletely eliminates the use of organic solvents. Theresults of recent experiments, performed in collabo-ration with DuPont Chemoswed in Sweden, couldvery well revolutionize industrial chemical production.

“What’s so exciting about this research area,”Lindström says, “is that we’re creating new strategiesand concepts that will have a lasting impact on howefficient we will be at making chemicals, and notwaste, in the future.”

Such improved efficiency is a tenet of the greenchemistry philosophy. Using current chemistry tech-niques, the production of fine chemicals (such as thoseused to make fragrances) and pharmaceuticals entailsnumerous steps; because organic solvents will notdissolve organic molecules like amino acids or glucose,other substances must be added to the mix, and laterseparated from the final product. The process istremendously complicated. “I use the analogy of tryingto build a modern city using the techniques of theancient Egyptians,” explains Chan. “When they built thepyramids, they built a ramp first and then removed itwhen they were done. You cannot build a modern citythat way, it’s impossible. However, when you’recurrently making fine chemicals or pharmaceuticals,that’s exactly what you’re doing.”

“Green chemistry is really about innovation,”suggests Lindström. “It’s not just about replacing onesolvent with a less hazardous alternative, or onecatalyst with a similar, less toxic one—although thattype of activity has its place, of course. Our generation

Professor Emeritus Tak-Hang Chanis considered the father

of green chemistry in Canada.


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needs to rediscover chemistry by thinking outside thetool box handed to us by chemists from the last cen-tury, when being green was not always a priority.”

Audrey Moores is part of that generation. The mostrecent member of McGill’s green team, the professor ison a quest to find new, more efficient catalysts for usein chemical reactions. “We’re working to find newreactions that make the same thing in a shorter time,”she says, “or with less heating, or less waste, or lesstoxic reagents.” Moores is particularly interested inthe green potential of heterogeneous catalysis. Inheterogeneous catalysis, the reactant (starting sub-stance) and catalyst are in a different form; one may bea solid, for example, the other a gas. This means that,unlike homogeneous catalysis, it doesn’t requireseparating the catalyst from the finished product.Saving that extra step, such as evaporation or distil-lation, saves money.

“That’s green in itself,” says Moores, who came toMcGill in January 2007 after completing postdoctoralstudies at Yale,“because you’re reducing the energy costof the process. You don’t have to do the reaction in abatch, stop the batch, then take it elsewhere to do thedistillation. All those steps are really energy demanding.With heterogeneous catalysis, you can even do severalsteps at the same time, which is a great way to reducecosts and waste. And you don’t risk damaging thecatalyst, which means you can reuse it, which youoften can’t do with homogeneous catalysis.”

Green chemistry isn’t just concerned with stream-lining a product’s chemical birth—it’s also striving for acleaner burial by creating products that will innocuouslybreak down after they’ve been discarded. Li is currentlyworking on a process that would make it possible torecycle existing CO2 into polymer plastics. “This newplastic has extremely good properties, like durabilityand strength,” he explains, “and it’s biodegradable. Of course, it’s better to recycle it, but if it does getthrown out, it decomposes and becomes CO2 again. It’sCO2 neutral, meaning it doesn’t add any new CO2 tothe environment.”

Li’s work doesn’t just improve on the final act of aproduct’s life: His innovation would also eliminatepetrochemicals and toxic solvents from the plastic-making process itself. Producing less harmful wastefrom the get-go is a huge step toward reducing futuretoxic clean-up problems—and that’s green chemistry’sultimate goal.

“Preventing a problem,” notes Lennox, “is far moresatisfactory than trying to fix one.”

■This research is funded in part by the Natural Sciences andEngineering Research Council of Canada, the CanadaFoundation for Innovation and the Fonds québécois de larecherche sur la nature et les technologies.

Audrey Moores is the most recent member of McGill’s green team. The chemistry professor is studying more energy efficient—and less toxic—ways to create chemical reactions.


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Musculoskeletal conditions,such as arthritis andosteoporosis, are the mostcommon causes of severelong-term pain and physicaldisability. Marc McKee (left),a professor in Dentistry andthe Department of Anatomyand Cell Biology, and Dr. David Goltzman, Directorof the Centre for Bone andPeriodontal Research, areinvestigating the mechanismsof these diseases.

Investigators at the

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I N D E P T H



You have rocks in your head. And your arms. And your legs.Good thing, too.

These rocks—more specifically, calcium-phosphatenanocrystals—collect in the protein scaffolding of selecttissues. “There are billions of these nano-rocks inside yourbody, binding and hardening like a cement,” says Marc McKee,a researcher at McGill’s Centre for Bone and PeriodontalResearch (CBPR) and professor in Dentistry and the Departmentof Anatomy and Cell Biology. It’s these rocks that distinguishmineralized tissues—bones, cartilage, teeth and otoconia(minute particles in the inner ear, crucial to maintainingbalance)—from other, softer tissues, like skin or tendons.“Most people don’t stop to think that the same rock theymight pick up on the ground is what makes them standupright,” adds McKee.

When all goes well, our bodies’ “rocks” are tough stuff. Butthings don’t always go well. In fact, musculoskeletal conditionsare the most common causes of severe long-term pain andphysical disability, spurring the World Health Organization todeclare the 2000s the “Bone and Joint Decade.” Backproblems and joint diseases, such as arthritis, afflict hundredsof millions of people. Advanced cancers frequently spread tobones, thinning them and causing pain and fractures. Between30 and 40 per cent of women over the age of 60, andapproximately 15 per cent of men, will develop fractures relatedto osteoporosis (brittle bones caused by decreased amounts ofmineralized bone), a problem that is increasing as throngs ofbaby boomers enter their golden years. Teeth are a problem,too, as this aging population becomes a prime target forbone and tooth loss associated with periodontal disease.Some rare diseases even result in too much bone: osteopetrosis(overly dense bones) can lead to blindness, deafness or strokes;fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva can actually cause musclesto mineralize, effectively turning people into human statues.

McGill researchers have long been concerned with whatcauses good bones to go bad. From Charles Leblond andLéonard Bélanger’s invention of radioautography (whichemployed newly discovered radioactive isotopes to investigatethe workings of cellular renewal) to Charles Scriver’s descriptionof the molecular genetics of bone diseases, the Universityhas earned its place at the vanguard of mineralized tissueresearch. The CBPR continues this long tradition of working toimprove the quality of life for people living with musculo-skeletal disorders.

A co-initiative of the Faculties of Medicine and Dentistry, thecentre unites several sites (including various labs in Dentistry,Medicine, the McGill Institute for Advanced Materials andthe Jewish General Hospital, as well as the Jamson T.N. WongLaboratories for Bone and Periodontal Research), creatingone of the world’s highest critical masses of bone andperiodontal researchers. In addition to skeletal, dental andmolecular cell biologists, the CBPR encompasses clinicalinvestigators exploring new therapies for bone diseases suchas osteoporosis and osteogenesis imperfecta—and worksclosely with the Canadian Multicentre Osteoporosis Study(CaMos), a major pan-Canadian epidemiologic study head-

By James Martin

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quartered at McGill. “The diseases weexplore at the centre cripple people and

cost a tremendous sum of money tothe health care system,” says CBPR

director Dr. David Goltzman,who worked with McKee andJanet Henderson, the Faculty

of Medicine’s Associate Dean ofResearch, to establish the centre in

2000. “As the population is aging, it’sbecoming a huge problem across the

world, for just about every ethnic group inevery nation.”

A run-of-the-mill X-ray machine only detectscalcium phosphate crystals en masse (e.g., as a bone

or tooth), so it takes specialized equipment to decipherthe nano-sized mechanisms that can cause mineralizedtissues to misbehave. This machinery isn’t cheap,though. “The centre doesn’t only afford investigatorsthe opportunity to meet and collaborate,” explainsGoltzman, who himself has partnered with Dr. FrancisGlorieux on seminal research into how vitamin D andbisphosphonate drugs can maintain healthy skeletons.“It also gives them access to state-of-the-art equipmentthat no one researcher would be able to afford.” Thecentre’s most prized possession is its $350,000 micro-computed tomography scanner, which allowsresearchers to non-invasively, non-destructively sectiona sample. Unlike an instantaneous X-ray snapshot,a micro-CT scan is really a series of scans, eachone no more than a 10-micrometre slice.These slices are then amalgamated into a 3D image, a virtual bone or tooththat can be rotated, spun and evenstripped of its many layers. Amicro-CT scan isn’t just apretty picture: It also quan-tifies the amount ofcalcified material ina tissue sample;the technology hasbeen essential to study-ing mechanisms—and po-tential treatments—in modelsof osteoporosis, genetic bonedisease and bone cancer.

Micro-CT scanning, along with electron microscopy(used to view individual nano-crystals), proved crucialfor a recent CBPR breakthrough, led by McKee, into thecalcification process. It’s no secret that a small moleculecalled pyrophosphate (PPi) blocks calcification by direct-ly binding to mineral crystals—but CBPR researchersnow know that PPi also induces the body’s naturaldefence mechanism, increasing calcification-inhibitingproteins and decreasing calcification-friendly enzymes.“What this tells us is that PPi and other moleculeswork together to control mineralization,” says McKee.“So, in the right balance, they could be used thera-peutically to block unwanted calcification in arteries,joints and other soft tissues.

“Understanding the mechanisms that controlhow calcium and phosphate combine to harden

body tissues,” he adds, “opens the door tothe development of new drug therapies to

treat skeletal and dental diseases,kidney stones, coronary arteries,

atherosclerosis and cardiovasculardisease.”

■The Centre for Bone andPeriodontal Research is

funded by the CanadianInstitutes of Health

Research, the CanadaFoundation for Inno-

vation and Valorisation-Recherche Québec, with addi-

tional research support from Mrs.Pierrette Wong.

34

A micro-CT surface view of molar teeth and bone in a segmentof rat mandible.

A micro-computed tomography scanner, or micro-CT, non-invasively and non-destructively scans a bonesample in incredibly thin sections (left).These slices can be then amalgamatedinto a 3D virtual bone (right).

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I N D E P T H

It’s 20 millimetres long. It weighs less than 50 milligrams. It was inspired by snakes.

How a new stent is going to radically improve the lives of children suffering

from pulmonary artery stenosis.

Supply and demand—it’s a simple rule ofeconomics. But try telling that to the parentsof children born with congenital heart defects.While millions of dollars can be made treatingadult coronary artery disease with stents—small metal tubes inserted into arteries toimprove blood flow—kids with cardiovascularabnormalities just don’t deliver enough marketshare to financially justify developing pediatric-specific technology.

By Andrew Mull ins

Small Wonder

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I N D E P T H

Exasperated by the lack of a properly designed stent,

cardiologists posed a simple question: “Would you put it in your kid?”

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It’s a far from ideal situation. A regular adult stent isa rigid scaffold, designed to be expanded in an adultartery that has narrowed and stiffened with plaque.Insert it into a child, and complications can set in as thechild grows. According to Richard Leask, a WilliamDawson Scholar and professor in the Department ofChemical Engineering, that’s not the only problem,either. “Because the blood vessel is so elastic in a child,”says Leask, “it can cause the artery to repeatedly rub atthe ends of the stent. You can actually injure the vesseland even rupture it. And the child can die from that.”

Leask and Mongrain are poised to remedy this prob-lem. In collaboration with a Montreal company, BaylisMedical Inc., the team is developing a revolutionaryprototype pediatric stent.

In order to best understand cardiologists’ needs,the team worked closely with two doctors at HôpitalLaval in Quebec City. Exasperated by the lack of aproperly designed stent, Dr. Olivier Bertrand and Dr.Josep Rodés posed a simple question: “Would youput it in your kid?” These words became the team’sguiding principle.

The design process began by cutting an adult stentlengthwise on one side, creating a scaffold that couldopen gradually as the vessel grew. The team thengave their creation a twist—literally.

Sitting in Leask’s office, Mongrain holds up a smallplastic cylinder that contains “generation three” oftheir carefully planned prototype. To the non-professional, it looks like a tiny spring that’s popped outof a toy. In reality, it’s a laser-cut piece of medical-gradestainless steel, its design sparked by an unusual muse.

“The inspiration came from a snake skeleton,”explains Mongrain. A snake skeleton features a ribcage to protect internal organs, “but it is also flexibleand it has no sternum. It’s open on the other face. Soit’s kind of a cut stent from the start.”

Their prototype, however, has a spiral “backbone.”“It’s what we call bio-inspired, not bio-mimicked,”Mongrain continues. “You take the snake and youtwist it, so that now the backbone forms a helix.”

The prototype pediatric stent, shown here actual size, is designed to grow with the child.

Rosaire Mongrain, a professor in the Department ofMechanical Engineering and Co-director of theCardiovascular Engineering Lab at the Montreal HeartInstitute, reports that four out of a thousand childrenare born with a condition called pulmonary arterystenosis, a narrowing of the large artery that sendsblood to the lungs to be oxygenated. Stenosis restrictsblood flow, causing poor oxygenation, labouredbreathing and low energy. In extreme cases, poorlyoxygenated blood will turn patients blue. As the childages, the condition worsens. Treatments vary andrange from angioplasty to heart surgery; more andmore, doctors are employing a stent to prop open theartery, a minimally invasive procedure.

So far, pediatric surgeons have been forced to usethe equivalent of Oldsmobile parts to repair a SmartCar, making do with stents designed for adults. With54 per cent of all adult cardiovascular deaths in Canadacaused by coronary artery disease, medical technologymultinationals aren’t terribly interested in developing adevice needed by only 0.4 per cent of newborns.

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To help bring their design to fruition, the twoprofessors turned to a Montreal business that knowsfirsthand how necessity can inspire innovation. In1986, an enterprising nurse named Gloria Baylis,frustrated with her hospital’s inability to procure properneurology equipment, founded her own distributioncompany. Baylis Medical Inc. soon grew to includedesigning and manufacturing high-tech medical equip-ment. Now run by engineer Frank Baylis, Gloria’s son,the company’s products include a line of pediatriccardiology equipment. When Leask and Mongrainapproached Baylis about collaborating on their stent,they learned the company was working on a similarproject. And so a partnership was born.

Baylis Medical provides financial investment—matched by a cash grant from NSERC’s CollaborativeResearch and Development initiative—as well as someequipment, facilities and engineering time. “It’s a rela-tively modest budget of around $225,000 over threeyears,” says Mongrain, “which is pretty cheap for anymedical device.”

The company also provides connections to industryfor laser-cutting their stent prototypes, says Leask, “andthey’ve been involved in all the brainstorming, all thedesign discussions. They’ve been fantastic to work with.”

Working with university researchers provides anadvantage for Baylis Medical, too. “They have goodexpertise and they have equipment as well,” saysFrank Baylis. “If they have unique knowledge in acertain area, then we can tap into that.”

The stent project is now moving into the animaltrials phase; if those succeed, the playing field suddenlybecomes much bigger. While the team’s initial budgetis small, bringing a medical device to market throughclinical human trials and lengthy certification processesmeans costs can soar into the millions. Still, FrankBaylis is ready: “If the design, prototypes and animaltesting are promising, then we foresee that we wouldhave the financial resources to do it ourselves.”

Mongrain and Leask are grateful that this researchcollaboration puts them on the front lines, helpingpatients and the doctors who care for them. “There area lot of people who do biomedical engineering butnever actually get close to a doctor or the clinicalside,” says Leask.

“This is where Rosaire and I think our strength is: we have very good connections and collaborations. We don’t work for industry, we work together. That’sreally what’s been the success and drive behind thisproject.” ■

Engineering professors Richard Leask (centre) and Rosaire Mongrain (right)are collaborating with Baylis Medical Inc., led bypresident Frank Baylis (left), to radically improve treatment of pediatric heart defects.


NeighbourhoodtoNeuron

How neuroscientist Rémi Quirion is expandingthe scope of mental illness research

Rémi Quirion’s business card introduces him as theScientific Director of the Institute of Neurosciences,Mental Health and Addiction. There’s French on oneside, English on the other. There’s the requisite soup ofphone numbers, URLs and e-mail addresses. Nosurprises here, except for something you can’t see: theinfo is repeated in Braille.

“The name of the institute may be Neurosciences,Mental Health and Addiction,” Quirion explains, “butwe take care of all the senses.” He draws a thumbacross the card’s raised surface. “It’s a little detail,but it’s an important one.”

Quirion wears many hats—Scientific Director of theDouglas Mental Health University Institute ResearchCentre, professor in McGill’s Department of Psychiatry,Officer of the Order of Canada—and he applies thatsame inclusive philosophy to all his work. “Instead ofbench to bedside,” he explains, “we call it neighbour-hood to neuron. Treatment is by team. At the Douglas,

we’re recruiting the best people in their fields, and not duplicating expertise too much, so we can go from A to Z in relation to any given mental illness. We havethe full spectrum of researchers, from people focusedon health services research to people doing genomicresearch. We have people who are experts on genesrelated to circadian rhythm—that’s the basic science—then we have clinicians doing sleep research, and healthservices researchers looking at the quality of servicesthat we give patients with sleep problems related totheir depression or schizophrenia. That’s unique.”

The Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health andAddiction shares this wide scope. The INMHA is thelargest of the 13 “virtual institutes” in the CanadianInstitutes of Health Research (CIHR), the major federalagency responsible for funding, and shaping the

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direction of, health research in Canada. “Everythingabout brain research is under the one INMHAumbrella,” Quirion says. “That gives us an edgeglobally. Other funding agencies worldwide are focusedon biology without health services, or health serviceswithout biology, and there’s very little crosstalkbetween disciplines. In the American system, theyhave six or seven institutes that cover the samemandate.

“A researcher might be interested in one braintransmitter, like dopamine, for example. Now, reducedlevels of dopamine play a role in Parkinson’s disease, toomuch dopamine plays a role in schizophrenia, and whendopamine is not properly activated it leads to addic-tion. So we’re trying to get all the people working ondopamine to collaborate instead of working in silos.”

Quirion practises what he preaches, embracing inter-disciplinary collaboration in his own research. For thepast 20 years, Quirion has explored how brain neuro-chemistry relates to cognitive deficits (such as dementiarelated to Alzheimer’s disease), investigating how theclassical transmitters (e.g., acetylcholine, neural pep-tides) facilitate learning and memory in animal models.But these transmitters account for less than one percent of all the proteins in the brain, so Quirion recentlyexpanded his inquiry using genomics and proteomicstechnology at the McGill University and GénomeQuébec Innovation Centre. His team is now using DNAmicroarray technology to compare the 28,000 genes ofa rat with learning and memory deficits with those ofa non-impaired rat. “We decided to take a moreshotgun approach,” he explains. “That way, you canfind families of genes that seem to be altered. Ofcourse, we’ve found genes that are already known, butwhat’s exciting is that we’ve also found new genes thatwere not expected to be associated with learning andmemory.”

Quirion’s lab is now testing how the absence oroverexpression of two of these genes, transthyretin andHomer 1a, alter learning and memory deficit in rats—and they’ve already discovered how to fully reversethese deficits. “Of course, this is the animal model,” heclarifies, “so it’s easier than the human condition. Theacid test will be to see if, as human beings age, we seea similar deficit in these proteins—and is it even worsewith Alzheimer’s than normal aging? Then can wedevise new treatments for it?

“The shotgun approach changed our strategy,” headds, “and will lead us to explore new avenues thatcould lead to a breakthrough.”

Quirion is also using proteomic technology todevelop novel animal models of schizophrenia andother mental illnesses. It’s not an easy task. “These dis-eases are related to language and cognition,” he says,“but it’s impossible to ask a mouse, ‘Do you suffer from

psychosis?’ So basically, we look for animal behaviourthat relates to the behaviour of a schizophrenic ordepressive person.” It’s fairly easy to induce cognitivedeficits in mice, but the challenge is to determine theneuropathological mechanisms at work. To this end,Quirion is exploring a new hypothesis about how neu-rons develop. The theory supposes that schizophreniamight be triggered if certain genes are exposed tostress while the brain is developing in the first 12 to 15years of life—a most complicated balancing act offactors. Deciphering this mysterious interplay maypoint the way to revolutionary drug therapies.

“There’s a great deal of interest in this worldwide,”says Quirion, who received the Schizophrenia Society ofCanada’s 2007 Pacesetter Award. “You invest time inexploring a drug that has some effect in the animalmodel, but then you move to human trial and the wholething crashes. We’re treating depression, anxiety andschizophrenia with more or less the same drugs as wedid in the early sixties, we’ve just improved on the side-effect profile.”

He’s also hoping to make similar headway in theareas of chronic pain management. Acute pain canusually be quelled by over-the-counter medication(“You get a headache, you take an Aspirin”), butchronic pain is tougher to treat. Opiates are effective,but often lead to dependence and tolerance—not to

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“These diseases are related tolanguage and cognition, but it’simpossible to ask a mouse, ‘Doyou suffer from psychosis?’ Sobasically, we look for animalbehaviour that relates to the

behaviour of a schizophrenic ordepressive person.”

– PROFESSOR RÉMI QUIRION

mention the risk of side effects like respiratory failure—making them a less than ideal solution to the arthritisand back pain plaguing an aging population.

Quirion is studying proteins and substances expressedin the spinal cord. He’s particularly interested in acalcitonin-gene related peptide (CGRP) receptor calledadrenomedullin. Most CGRPs stop transmitting painvery quickly, but adrenomedullin is “100 times morepotent,” with pain lasting up to 24 hours—raisingsuspicions that adrenomedullin may play a key role inchronic pain such as migraine headaches. There is cur-rently no effective adrenomedullin blocker, but Quirionand his researchers are getting closer to understandinghow it works—and how it can be dampened. “We’reexcited by that,” he says, “and are working with indus-try to develop an adrenomedullin blocker, a much morepowerful painkiller that can be used instead of opiates.”

Quirion wants to change the future of medicine, andnot just by finding better drug therapies. He recentlypublished an article titled “Psychiatry as a ClinicalNeuroscience Discipline,” written with Dr. Thomas R.Insel (Director of the U.S. National Institute of MentalHealth), in JAMA, the Journal of the American MedicalAssociation. “The separation of psychiatry from othermedical specialties has contributed to the stigma ofthose who treat mental disorders as well as those whohave them,” they wrote. “Even beyond stigma, this

separation has led to inadequate care…. If mentaldisorders are brain disorders, then the basic sciences ofpsychiatry must include neuroscience and genomicsand the training of psychiatrists in the future needs tobe profoundly different from what it has been in thepast.” For Quirion, education—like the INMHA, like the Braille on his business card—is about integratingthe whole.

Since joining the Douglas in 1983, Quirion has trainedover 70 students and fellows, and he wants the nextgeneration of Canadian brain experts to be even moreinterdisciplinary. “We want to expose our studentsnot just to the basic research questions, but also clinicalresearch questions and applied research questions,” heexplains. “If we want to be truly effective, psychiatristsof the future should be able to understand microarraydata just as well as they understand community care.At the same time, students doing their PhDs also needto be exposed to the global picture. So if they workwith me on a gene related to learning and memory,they don’t only think about a mouse: At the end of theday, they think of an Alzheimer’s patient.

“Neuroscience is not just about a gene with a funnyname any more—it’s about the human being.”■ Rémi Quirion’s research is funded by the CanadianInstitutes of Health Research and the Fonds de la recherche ensanté du Québec.

Rémi Quirion is theScientific Director of boththe Douglas Mental HealthUniversity InstituteResearch Centre and theInstitute of Neurosciences,Mental Health andAddiction. He believes thateffective treatment ofmental illness requires ateam of researchersspanning the spectrumfrom health services togenomics.

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We can put a man on themoon—we just can’t rememberhow. Kimiz Dalkir is usingknowledge management to stem the tide of corporateamnesia.

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We are helping to create memorystewards or custodians.

– PROFESSOR KIMIZ DALKIR


“I like to use NASA examples,” says Kimiz Dalkir,professor in McGill’s School of Information Studies, aswe sit in her office in the basement of the McLennanLibrary Building. She has good reason: recently, theAmerican space agency admitted that the gaps in itsorganizational memory are so large, it no longer knowshow to send a manned mission to the moon—or evenwhere to find the original recordings of the 1969lunar landing. NASA’s trouble is just one example of thecorporate amnesia that threatens to overtake theworld’s leading corporations and institutions as down-sizing, outsourcing and mass baby boomer retirementmake them, so to speak, more forgetful than ever.

Dalkir, an expert on knowledge management (KM),is on the front lines of the fight to save that collectiveknowledge. She started her academic career at McGill,earning a BSc in genetics and an MBA in managementinformation systems and management science. Shethen worked for several years as a research scientiststudying population modelling, artificial intelligenceand cognitive science—a seemingly diverse range ofinterests that she unites under the rubric “knowledgemodelling.” Five years ago, she joined the School ofInformation Studies. “McGill was a pioneer in theteaching of knowledge management at the graduatelevel,” she says. “The school, in fact the whole field, istotally morphing. It’s changing so much.”

That change has been prompted in large part by anexplosive growth of information and knowledge, bothdocumented (e.g., content encapsulated in the form ofbooks) and intangible (e.g., know-how stored inpeople’s heads). In the past, Dalkir explains, the focuswas on containers of knowledge, which were neatlyorganized and easy to access: records management,document management, file management. “The goodold days really were the good old days,” she quips.

Now, with billions of e-mails sent each day, a decline inface-to-face communication and—thanks to earlyretirement and outsourcing—an increasingly shallowpool of experience, knowledge has become scatteredand elusive. Without an effective way to manage it,organizations risk repeating mistakes and forgettinghow to do things. The resulting losses cost large corpo-rations billions of dollars.

To demonstrate an effective form of KM, Dalkirpulls out a worn volume of Aesop’s fables and opens itto a story about a donkey who teams up with a lion tocapture prey, only to have the lion take all of it in theend. The lesson: might makes right. “Fables were createdto teach,” says Dalkir. “It’s a paragraph long, and at theend of it is the moral, which is the lesson learned.These were ancient oral traditions of transmittingknowledge.” Knowledge management encouragesthe creation of organizational fables that explain whatworked, what didn’t and why—and building aninternal infrastructure to make this valuable knowledgeaccessible to all the organization’s members.

Since coming to McGill, Dalkir has worked with anumber of prominent organizations. After 9/11, shehelped implement KM principles at the CRTI-IRTC,Canada’s equivalent to the United States’ Departmentof Homeland Security. “Before September 11, all of thepieces of intelligence were there, but nobody couldconnect the dots,” says Dalkir. In response, Canadadecided to “connect the nodes together” by improvingcommunication between different anti-terrorism andintelligence groups. Now, instead of working within avertical “silo structure,” in which information and know-ledge is trapped within the hierarchy of a singleorganization, knowledge is better shared; increasedcollaboration between members of the CRTI commu-nity prevents previous mishaps, such as different groupsobliviously duplicating each other’s work, from recur-ring. “We’re doing action research, which is essentiallyon-site but not removed,” says Dalkir. “We changethings as we’re doing our research, improve things aswe go along.”

For her current project, Dalkir is analyzing organi-zational memory systems in Canadian organizations, inboth the private and public sectors, to better under-stand how knowledge is being shared among currentstaff—and how it is being preserved for futuregenerations of knowledge workers. “We are helpingto create memory stewards or custodians,” she says,“enabling organizations to learn, remember andcontinuously improve the way they do things.” ■ This research is funded by the Social Sciences andHumanities Research Council, the Department of NationalDefence, the Centre francophone d’informatisation desorganisations, Industry Canada, Heritage Canada and aRoyal Bank Teaching Innovation Award.

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Drawing on thetradition of Aesop,Kimiz Dalkir teachespeople how to use organizationalfables as a means or transmittingknowledge.

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The rise of “reasonable accommodation” asa political hot button in Canada—particularlyin Quebec—underscores the great need forMcGill’s proposed Institute for InterfaithStudies, which will offer graduate courses,house think-tanks and host conferences.Barry Levy, former dean of the Faculty ofReligious Studies, discusses the ideas behindthe Institute.

What kind of work at McGill laid the groundwork for proposing the Institute?For 10 years, we’ve taught a summer coursewhich brings together a half dozen professorsof different religions and about 25 undergrad-uate and graduate students. They’re given atopic; one year was “Dying, Death and Beyond,” anotheryear was “Sexuality, Textuality and Spirituality.” Theymeet from six to 12 hours a day for dialogue, debate andvisiting various Montreal religious communities. It’s atransforming experience, and one little piece of whatwe’d like to do with the Institute.

Is that success indicative of widespread increased interest in interfaith studies?There’s been a huge increase. On the organizationallevel, there’s been remarkable growth. For example: Fouryears ago, in Seville, Spain, an Israeli think-tank called theElijah Interfaith Institute brought together over 40 high-level leaders of world religions to discuss the topic of“Hostility, Hospitality and the Hope of Human Flourish-ing.” Scholars produced papers that demonstrated, fromwithin the classical literatures, how their religions couldsustain the notion that each was hospitable to all otherreligions. The gathering worked so well that a secondone, about the crisis of the holy in world religions, washeld in Taiwan a year ago, and there will be a third one inIndia in November 2007.

At McGill, a lot of the work in the Faculty of ReligiousStudies has this same interdenominational thrust to it. LastSeptember, we hosted more than 1,800 people, from 85countries, for a conference dealing with religion after9/11. Right after that, we co-sponsored a conferenceabout Syria as a crossroads of the world in late antiquity;it brought together Christians, Jews and Muslims.

Is all the interest in interfaith studies at the organizational level?Not at all. On the grassroots level, we’re really seeingpeople who want to learn about interfaith, who want toshare, to be respectful of each other. Here’s an example:About three years ago, a woman came to me with aproject about making art and sharing it with people ofdifferent religions around the world. My wife is the

principal of a Jewish elementary school in Westmount,and I have colleagues here who are connected with theMuslim school system, so I told her,“We’ll work out an inter-faith school project.” A few months later, three schools—one Jewish, one Muslim, one Christian— held a two-dayprogram, with parents, teachers and students making arttogether and building relationships. But here’s thetragedy: They invited the media, and no one showed up.This was a very successful project, but it wasn’t reportedon at all because nobody was burning down a church.

Is too much attention paid to acts of aggression? Yes, it’s very badly overreported in order to stir up yellingand animosity. And when people do positive things, likethe art-making project, they don’t get any coveragewhatsoever. So it gives the impression that religions arealways attacking each other, but that’s not the truth.Xenophobia exists, but it’s more important that we dealwith how to defuse it, rather than to give certain peoplea forum for continuing their outrageous attitudes.

The Institute would produce research and providetraining so people would learn how to conduct conflict-resolution meetings and to work for greater harmony insociety. But we’re not interested in people patting eachother on the head and saying, “You’re wonderful, nowtell me how wonderful I am, then we’ll all go home andbe happy.” This is about very serious educational activitythat gets to the core issues in each religion, that hasexperts teaching, that has people trying to get inside thedynamics of cultural and religious decision-making.

The whole idea is to create leaders who are actuallyable to handle these kinds of issues intelligently, and toserve as the facilitators for better understanding andbreaking down these barriers. Having closer associationsamong representatives of these groups will go a long waytoward eliminating some of these tensions. ■

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Making MCGILL RESEARCH FACTSHeadway


McGill’s research funding sources 2005-06: $397.15 million*

*McGill and affiliated hospitals

Turning Point 11995566Like many driven young men, Thomas Chang wouldbring his work home with him. The difference withChang was his “work” was the near-impossible task ofcreating the world’s first artificial blood cell. And as a23-year-old undergraduate student in 1956, his “home”was his residence room in McGill’s Douglas Hall.

Remarkably, Chang was successful. Working withimprovised materials like perfume atomizers, Chang man-aged to create a permeable plastic sack, approximatelyone millimetre in diameter, that could carry hemoglobinalmost as effectively as a natural blood cell. In 1989, theNew Scientist called Chang’s student research projectan “elegantly simple and intellectually ambitious” ideathat “has grown into a dynamic field of biomedicalresearch and development.”

Chang’s remarkable career continued as Director of the Artificial Cells andOrgans Research Centre at McGill. In the late sixties he discovered enzymes car-ried by artificial cells could correct some metabolic disorders; he also developedcharcoal-filled cells to treat drug poisoning, a now widely used technique. His workon finding a safe blood substitute brought him to prominence in the wake of theCanadian tainted blood scandals of the 1980s and 1990s. In 1991, he was namedto the Order of Canada.

At one point considered for a Nobel Prize, Chang has not lost focus on hisprimary motivation: “To me as a scientist, what is most important is what is mostuseful to the patient, not what is good for your reputation or what pays the mostmoney. The sick patient should be the most important stimulus for our work.”

➦

As an undergrad, Thomas Chang (seen above in his Old McGill yearbookphoto) enjoyed many extracurricularpursuits, including: the Pre-MedSociety, Psychology Club, Music Club,Chinese Students Society, MusicalYouth of Canada Club, SeniorIntercollegiate Wrestling Team—andinventing the world’s first artificialblood cell.

➦

Global Conferenceon the Prevention of Genocide

October 11-13, 2007

Montreal, Quebec

SPEAKERS:Hédi Fried Holocaust survivor

Marika NeniRoma genocide survivor

Youk Chhang Cambodian genocide survivor

Esther Mujawayo Rwandan genocide survivor

Roméo Dallaire

Michael Ignatieff

Wole Soyinka

Luis Moreno-Ocampo

Irwin Cotler

Jan Pronk

Mark Doyle

Brian Stewart

Juan Méndez

Francis Deng

Gareth Evans

Salih Mahmoud Osman

Richard Goldstone

Sir Shridath Ramphal

Ben Kiernan

Martha L. Minow

Alison Des Forges

William A. Schabas

Audrey Macklin

Rebecca Hamilton

Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al-Hussein

Peter Leuprecht

Jean-Louis Roy

The McGill University Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism is privileged to host the first major international conference of its kind on the prevention of genocide. Bringing together genocide survivors and front-line activists with prominent intellectual, political and civil society leaders from around the world, this groundbreaking event is intended as a platform to stimulate public debate and policy on humanity's most horrific invention.

To register, view the complete program, and obtain further information please visit:

www.efchr.mcgill.ca

FACULTY OF LAW

RESEARCH,

young mcgill researchers at ease with making cutting edge discoveries · 2019-10-03 · education...

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