ResearchLIFE UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA
SUMMER 2014 | VOLUME 1
INSIDE: Killam Prize Winner Spinal Cord Research L谩szl贸 Moholy-Nagy
SEEING A WAY THROUGH AUTISM
F UNDA M E N TA L
R E S E A R C H
I S S U E
MESSAGE
FROM THE VICE-PRESIDENT (RESEARCH AND INTERNATIONAL) Why? It’s a question repeated over and over by a young child seeking answers to the new things they encounter or to the responses provided by adults around them. The search for answers to questions that we all ask ourselves in the course of a day is what academics refer to as research. Some of you may refer to it as “googling.” But not long ago that word wasn’t in our vocabulary. Thanks to research and innovation and someone seeking answers to questions such as why, what if, what about, where, how, who, when and what then, there is an instantaneous source of answers to questions. When you are searching for those answers, they initially seem quite definitive—upon reading the hundreds of thousands of hits, however, you may notice that it’s not as simple as a quick Google search for some of life’s more puzzling questions. This issue of ResearchLIFE highlights fundamental research underway at our university. Our cover feature speaks to the multi-faceted question of how children affected by autism understand the world around them. Another story explores a visionary artist who died in 1946 but saw a future eerily similar to the way we live today. There’s a feature on how the messages sent by our brains to our spine to allow movement are critical in spinal cord research. Creating glass that can safely hold nuclear waste is another example of research happening here that you’ll find inside this special issue. In the words of Hungarian scientist Albert SzentGyorgyi, “Research is to see what everybody else has seen, and to think what nobody else has thought.” Please turn the pages to see for yourself.
—Digvir S. Jayas, PhD, PEng, PAg, FRSC
SUMMER 2014 | VOLUME 1
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10 A FINE BALANCE
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Kristine Cowley looks into the fundamentals of spinal cord injury. By SEAN MOORE
15 WHY IS FUNDAMENTAL RESEARCH IMPORTANT? Hear the perspectives of Canada’s three granting agencies.
17 SEEING A WAY THROUGH AUTISM Melanie Glenwright examines how eye gaze can give insight into children’s reasoning and ability to make moral judgements. By CHRIS RUTKOWSKI
23 GLASS ACTION Scott Kroeker’s research on the structure of glasses uses huge superconducting magnets to understand these unique materials. By CHRIS RUTKOWSKI
29 RESEARCH FOR THINKING THE FUTURE Oliver Botar traces our relationship to technology through the work of modernist artist, teacher and thinker László Moholy-Nagy. By MARIIANNE MAYS WIEBE Happenings.............................3
Viewpoint.................................9
Kudos......................................7
Spotlight on Students............27
Centres & Institutes.................8
On the Horizon......................33
Books of Note.......................21
Just the Facts........................34
Ideas to Innovation................22
ResearchLIFE RETURN UNDELIVERABLE CANADIAN ADDRESSES TO: UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA Office of the VP (Research and International) 207 Administration Building Winnipeg, MB Canada R3T 2N2 Tel 204-474-7300 ResearchLIFE@umanitoba.ca VICE-PRESIDENT (RESEARCH AND INTERNATIONAL) Digvir S. Jayas EDITOR Janine Harasymchuk DESIGN Relish New Brand Experience Inc.
CONTRIBUTORS Curtis Cherewayko, Janine Harasymchuk, Filiz Koksel, Rhiannon Leier Blacher, Mariianne Mays Wiebe, Sean Moore, Chris Rutkowski, Dean Van De Walle, Natalia Wycislak PHOTOGRAPHY Cover and throughout: Mike Latschislaw; Eduardo Aquino, Oliver Botar, Lancelot Coar, Adam Dolman, William Eakin, Patrick Harrop, Erika Linkoln, Fred Munson, Freya Björg Olafson, Jörg Stetefeld Member of the University Research Magazine Association: www.urma.org umanitoba.ca/research ISSN# 1918-144
HAPPENINGS
INFECTIOUS DISEASE PIONEER WINS
KILLAM PRIZE
Frank Plummer is among the scientists whose discoveries have had a major impact on the well-being of people across the planet. The Distinguished Professor was recently awarded the 2014 Killam Prize in Health Sciences—one of Canada’s most prestigious research awards. The Killam Prizes are administered by the Canada Council for the Arts. Plummer’s findings that HIV was being transmitted from men to women transformed how researchers viewed AIDS in the early 1980s and how they sought ways to prevent the spread of the deadly disease. No longer would it be considered a virus involving only malehomosexuals or blood-borne infections. “Dr. Plummer and his team’s research accomplishments in HIV and sexually transmitted infections have generated much of what we now know about the heterosexual AIDS epidemic, have had enormous impacts on global health policy and are saving many millions of lives,” said long-time colleague and Distinguished Professor Emeritus Allan Ronald. “His work in implementing simple strategies for the control of heterosexual spread of HIV has shown that public health strategies for HIV prevention are highly effective.” Plummer discovered that transmission rates soar when men were not circumcised. As a result, male circumcision is now a key strategy worldwide to prevent new cases of HIV. Yet Plummer’s most widely-recognized scientific contribution is his discovery that a proportion of female sex workers in Nairobi are resistant to infection.
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This finding remains today’s strongest hope for developing a vaccine. Plummer wears many hats: He is a Canada Research Chair in Resistance and Susceptibility to Infections, former scientific director general of the Public Health Agency of Canada’s National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg, as well as their former chief science officer. He co-founded the University of Manitoba-University of Nairobi Collaborative Research Program and brought other academic institutions into the collaboration, including the University of Washington, Oxford University, University of Ghent, the Tropical Diseases Institute of Antwerp, and the University of Toronto. This consortium is the top infectious diseases research initiative in sub-Saharan Africa.
Not only is Plummer a leader, but he helps to create other leaders. “One of his most enduring contributions has been his ability to identify young Kenyans, make them excited about science, offer them additional training and recruit them back to Kenya,” said Ronald. “ To date over 90 individuals have trained at the masters or doctoral level in Seattle, Winnipeg, Antwerp, Ghent, Oxford or Toronto. Many of these individuals are now in leadership positions in Kenya.” Plummer is the fourth Killam Prize recipient from the University of Manitoba. Previous winners include Lotfollah Shafai (2011), Frank Hawthorne (2008) and Ralph G. Stanton (1985). n
BOOST TO AEROSPACE INDUSTRY The Honourable Michelle Rempel, Minister of State for Western Economic Diversification has announced $2.4 million in support to establish a world class satellite integration facility in Western Canada. The Magellan Aerospace/University of Manitoba Advanced Satellite Integration Facility (ASIF) will be used for research, development and the construction and testing of satellite components. David T. Barnard, president and vice chancellor, University of Manitoba, notes: “The University of Manitoba is leading the way in
Manitoba as a centre for education, training and research on space technology in Western Canada. This exciting new Centre for Space Systems partnership is another example of the value we add in this important sector of Manitoba’s economy.” The U of M is set to take flight and strengthen its existing leadership role in the area of space systems engineering and will enable industry partners to access growing market opportunities in the aero-
space industry, estimated at $200 million over the next 10 years. In addition, the ASIF will lead to the creation of a research chair in the area of satellite development. The new facility will be housed at Magellan Aerospace in Winnipeg. It will be compliant with the cleanliness prerequisites of an ISO Class 8 cleanroom facility that will satisfy the requirements of programs such as the RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM) program initiated by the Government of Canada. n
CANADA’S BEST The Women’s Executive Network (WXN) named three professors Canada’s Most Powerful Women Top 100 for 2013: Samia Barakat (medicine), Joan Durrant (family social sciences), Joanne Keselman, vice-president (academic) and provost. These awards celebrate the professional achievements of strong female leaders across the country in the private, public and not-for-profit sectors. Durrant and Barakat won in the Xstrata Nickel trailblazers and trendsetters category. Keselman won in the public sector leaders category. Through research and public education, Durrant is at the forefront of raising international awareness of the negative impact of physical punishment on children. Barakat’s commitment to professionalism fostered a personal interest in professional boundaries. Kesleman, who is the senior academic officer responsible for providing academic vision and leadership in all matters relating to students and academic staff, is also a professor of
psychology, with expertise in applied statistical analysis. She has published extensively on such topics as the analysis of repeated measures designs, multiple comparison procedures, multivariate analysis and meta-analysis. Since its inception in 1997, WXN has created and delivered innovative networking, mentoring and professional and personal development opportunities for women in leadership roles, growing into a sizable community of more than 19,000 members strong across Canada and Ireland. As of today, WXN has honoured 728 of Canada’s most powerful women and inducted 93 of these women into the Top 100 Hall of Fame. n
(l-r): Joan Durrant, Joanne Keselman, Samia Barakat
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HAPPENINGS
CANADA RESEARCH CHAIRS
Research chairs that recognize existing expertise and build upon strength have been awarded to six professors.
Three are new chair holders in the areas of human rights, social justice and food sovereignty; ubiquitous analytics; and language interaction. One chair working with conducting polymers and electronic materials was advanced from a Tier 2 to a Tier 1. Two chairs received renewed funding: one who studies supernova remnant astrophysics and another who is seeking new treatments for Alzheimer’s disease through the use of biomedical engineering. “The new, advanced and renewed CRCs represent a cross-section of exciting research activities that benefit Canadians and society as a whole,” said Dr. Digvir S.
Jayas, vice-president (research and international) and Distinguished Professor. The CRCs are: Annette Desmarais, new CRC in Human Rights, Social Justice and Food Sovereignty; Michael Freund, advanced CRC in Conducting Polymers and Electronic Materials; Pourang Irani, new CRC in Ubiquitous Analytics; Zahra Moussavi, Renewed CRC in Biomedical Engineering; Nicole Rosen, new CRC in Language Interaction; and Samar Safi-Harb Renewed CRC in Supernova Remnants Astrophysics. Currently, the U of M has forty-six CRCs in the labs and offices of our campus. n
Caption: (l-r) At the early 2013 announcement of new and renewed CRCs, Digvir Jayas, Minister Shelly Glover, Michael Freund, Pourang Irani, Annette Desmarais, Samar Safi-Harb and MP Rod Bruinooge.
NATIONAL RESEARCH CENTRE FOR TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION Earlier this year, Mr. Ry Moran was named as the Director of National Research Centre for Truth and Reconciliation. The university is honoured to be chosen by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada to host the National Research Centre for Truth and Reconciliation; it joined hands with communities across Canada when it signed the historic agreement on June 21, 2013—National Aboriginal Day. The university is focused on fostering reconciliation, which is why it was the first university to offer an official apology to Canada’s First Nations, Metis and Inuit peoples, and it is proud to have Mr. Moran further its goal when the Centre formally opens in 2015. The National Research Centre for Truth and Reconciliation will house: thousands of video- and
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audio-recorded statements from residential Survivors and others affected by the schools and their legacy; millions of archival documents and photographs from the Government of Canada and Canadian church entities; works of art, artifacts and other expressions of reconciliation presented at Truth and Reconciliation Commission events; and research collected and prepared by the Commission. Since 2010, Moran has been the Director of Statement Gathering with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Prior to this, he owned YellowTilt Productions, delivering professional services in a variety of areas including Aboriginal language preservation. Moran, a bilingual member of the Metis Nation, is a Masters of Business Administration candidate, and holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Victoria. n
CENTRES & INSTITUTIONS
BY CURT CHEREWAYKO
CALCULATED GROWTH The Winnipeg Institute of Theoretical Physics has developed into a key hub for physicists solving some of the universe’s most baffling mysteries It’s a research field that has left many a brow furrowed. Yet, theoretical physics is enjoying a bit of mainstream stardom these days. There was the discovery in 2012 of the Higgs boson, responsible for the mass of many fundamental particles, which made global headlines. And theoretical physicist Neil Turok is close to being a household name, thanks in part to his constant presence on the lecture circuit. His lecture last May in Winnipeg was a major coup for the Winnipeg Institute for Theoretical Physics (WITP), an event co-sponsor, which has been the torchbearer for the advancement of theoretical physics in Manitoba since its founding in 1990. With increased funding and a growing member base, the WITP aims to maintain the momentum that the multidisciplinary field, which includes string theory, condensed matter physics, gravitational physics, particle physics, mathematical physics, and astrophysics, has experienced in recent years. Jointly funded by the University of Manitoba, University of Winnipeg and Brandon University, the WITP has grown to 23 faculty members and nearly 40 associate and student members. Its executive committee consists of the current director (Andrew Frey, physics, U of W, 2012-2014), the past director (Gabor
Between 2008 and 2012, WITP members, who collectively receive more than $500,000 in NSERC research grants annually, published 300 journal articles and conference proceedings.
Kunstatter, physics, U of W, 1991-1992 and 2009-2012), and the director-elect (Khodr Shamseddine, physics and astronomy, and mathematics, U of M). The role of WITP has been to facilitate collaboration between researchers and students at each of its member universities and to support workshops, visiting speakers, as well as short- and long-term visits by research collaborators. The WITP also promotes physics research in the province by sponsoring regional and national research conferences. Between 2008 and 2012, WITP members, who collectively receive more than $500,000 in NSERC research grants annually, published 300 journal articles and conference proceedings. The joint institute of the Universities of Manitoba and Winnipeg is pursuing the formalization of its relationship with Brandon University, which will lead to an increase in its member base.
“Basically, theoretical physics is about developing mathematical models that either try to explain existing experimental observations or that try to predict results the outcome of experiments yet to be undertaken,” explains Khodr at U of M. He begins his tenure as director of the institute in January 2015. To highlight the importance of theoretical physics, he cites the discovery of the Higgs boson. The mysterious particle was discovered in 2012, yet mathematical models developed decades earlier theorized its existence, thus giving researchers a springboard for identifying the particle in the lab.n For more information visit: physics.umanitoba.ca/~witp
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Mike Latschislaw
KUDOS
RH AWARDS Tremendous progress has been made over the past decades in our understanding and treatment of rare disorders. At the annual RH lecture, clinician scientist Cheryl Rockman-Greenberg shared her journey of discovery and the challenges ahead in translating advances in genetics research to the delivery of patient care. RockmanGreenberg is this year’s recipient of the Dr. John M. Bowman Memorial Winnipeg Rh Institute Foundation Award.
Rockman-Greenberg is an expert in genetic diseases who championed DNA-based diagnostics in Winnipeg. She was influential in establishing the first clinical lab specializing in the use of DNA testing to diagnose genetic disorders. Her approach to research— involving her subjects in the clinical discovery process—is considered transformational. Both a pediatrician and geneticist, Rockman-Greenberg is currently head of the department of pediatrics and child health, a professor within that department, a professor in the department of biochemistry and medical genetics, and the medical director of the child health program within the Winnipeg Health Region.
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She and her colleagues have identified the molecular cause of some of Manitoba’s most devastating inherited diseases, including those most prevalent in the province’s Aboriginal, Mennonite and Hutterite communities. As a clinical geneticist at the Winnipeg Children’s Hospital, she is now the principal investigator of an international, multi-centre industrysponsored clinical trial involving a new treatment for hypophosphatasia, a rare disorder worldwide yet common in Manitoba and select communities in Canada. Most infants born with the most severe form of this disease die shortly after birth. Dedicated to helping children and families in crisis, Rockman-Greenberg
and her team successfully treated the disease in 2008 with a new investigational drug and promising clinical trials are continuing under her leadership. The Winnipeg Rh Institute Foundation was established in 1994. The objective of the Foundation is to support the advancement of know-ledge in all fields, and it derives funds for this purpose from royalties arising from the sale of serums and medicinal formulae. The purpose of the Dr. John M. Bowman Memorial Winnipeg Rh Institute Foundation Award is to recognize outstanding research accomplishments by established U of M faculty members. n
Cheryl RockmanGreenberg, recipient of the 2013 Dr. John M. Bowman Memorial Winnipeg Rh Institute Foundation Award
The Foundation also recognizes outstanding early career researchers in seven categories who display exceptional innovation, leadership and promise in their respective fields. This year’s recipients are:Â
Applied Sciences
Creative Works
Health Sciences
Humanities
Shawn Clark (civil engineering) investigates the design and planning of hydraulic structures. He gains understanding of several processes, including river ice formation and evolution, sediment transport, and the hydrodynamics of lakes.
Minna Rose Chung (Desautels Faculty of Music) is the founder of Project Rio, an educational initiative that brings the Desautels faculty to the Rio International Cello Encounter. Her creative work is rich with innovative artistic ideas, and international performances.
Kirk McManus (biochemistry and medical genetics, Cancercare Manitoba) studies genome stability and its implications in the molecular origins of colorectal cancer, the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in Canada.
Hee-Jung Serenity Joo (English, film and theatre) studies how literature expresses, materializes, and negotiates the structural contradictions of late capitalism. Creating such a constellation of forms and concepts is highly innovative and her work has become influential in numerous fields.
Interdisciplinary
Natural Sciences
Social Sciences
Emmanuel Ho (pharmacy) develops and describes novel drug delivery strategies and medical devices to treat and prevent HIV/AIDS. He is exploring innovative delivery methods that may be more effective and inexpensive, which should increase use.
Belay Ayele (plant science) discovers novel genes in cereal crops that are important to Manitoba and Canada. He uncovers their functions, enabling breeders to manipulate them to achieve better yields and have crops that can better tolerate stress.Â
Hari Bapuji (business administration) focuses his studies on the junction of business and society, specifically product safety and recalls, off-shoring, the financial crisis, and economic inequality. He examines these problems through the paradigm of organizational learning. n
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VIEWPOINT Mike Latschislaw
THE PERFECT LOAF OF BREAD INSIGHTS FROM X-RAYS, ULTRASOUND WAVES AND BUBBLE DYNAMICS BY FILIZ KOKSEL
I study the mechanical and structural properties of biological materials that make up the foods by using ultrasound waves and X-rays. With the use of novel ultrasonic and X-ray microtomography techniques, I am aiming for a better understanding of foods to assess food quality, and in particular, the influence of bubbles on bread quality. My research is an interdisciplinary project being carried out in collaboration with Professors Martin Scanlon in the department of food science and John Page in the department of physics and astronomy at the U of M. Most people would appreciate that bubbles are an integral part of many foods, certainly when we think about carbonated beverages or dairy desserts. I am interested more in the aerated baked goods, to be more specific, bread. Bread owes its appeal largely to the quality of its aerated structure, which contributes to its appearance, texture and perceived freshness. The quality of the aerated structure of bread depends on the bubbles within the dough at the end of mixing. This means that a change in the bubbles in the dough directly affects the quality of the baked loaf. This makes the determination of bubble changes in dough very important since it forms the basis for predicting the final product quality before bread is manufactured. However, predicting the bubble changes in dough is extremely challenging since dough is optically opaque.
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Determination of the microstructure of bread dough has remained blurry so far, mainly because of the inadequacy of current imaging techniques. Our research group has been exploiting ultrasound technology and has developed an ultrasonic model to investigate bubbles within soft opaque materials, taking advantage of bubbles dramatically altering ultrasound propagation. Another technique to nondestructively investigate bubbles in bread dough is using powerful high intensity synchrotron X-ray sources, the ones available on the Biomedical Imaging and Therapy Beamline of the Canadian Light Source, the only synchrotron in Canada. The amount and the size of the bubbles in the dough changes based on the ingredients and the amount of mixing that takes place. Changes to either the mixing process or the ingredients can have drastic effects on the outcome of the dough. From scientific point of view, being able to follow rapid changes in dough properties with time is highly innovative, and will advance knowledge of bubble structure and growth mechanisms, thereby improving methods currently used to investigate the structure and dynamics of opaque aerated materials. There are health benefits to the research as well. A very good example is the use of salt. We would like to decrease the intake of sodium in our diets, but using less salt in bread formulations often results in more air that can ruin your dough, giving you bread with big keyholes. If we understand and control the mechanisms responsible from incorporation and evolution of bubbles during the bread making process, then we will be able to answer some of the fundamental questions related to gas holding properties of wheat flour doughs. We could allow bakers to cut back on the amount of salt in the dough and still allow for a good crumb structure. We are also hoping to answer how dough properties are affected by healthful ingredients such as fiber. n
Filiz is a graduate student in the Faculty of Graduate Studies, completing her PhD studies under the supervision of Martin Scanlon. She was the U of M People’s Choice Winner at the 2014 3MT™ Competition. To learn more about this competition visit umanitoba.ca/3mt
FEATURE
A FINE BALANCE
Researching the fundamentals of spinal cord injuries
Mike Latschislaw
BY SEAN MOORE
ResearchLIFE 10
Mike Latschislaw
FEATURE
You may be giving the brain more credit than it deserves, at least where walking and running are concerned. When it comes to locomotion, the spinal cord processes information without the brain micromanaging it. Sometime tomorrow, say when you get up from a chair and walk to get a drink, your brain will send a signal to the spinal cord that says, I’d like to get up and walk over there. Your inner ear—the vestibular system— tells the brain where in three-dimensional space the head is, and the eyes also gather and report data. All of this information descends from the brain and is integrated within the brainstem and ultimately the spinal cord. Simultaneously, muscles are telling cells within the spinal cord how quickly they are expanding and contracting,
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and the feet and leg joints are reporting on the ground’s slope. All this information arrives within the spinal cord, and is integrated within groups of cells called locomotor pattern generators. These cells communicate with each other and then send the appropriate information to motoneurons, to produce the rhythmic motor output we call walking. Whether you are jogging to the bus, prancing through a cocktail lounge, or strolling through a garden, cells within the spinal cord act as a metronome for your steps, telling your muscles the
appropriate pattern of activity needed to do the cha-cha or dash to the bus. Researchers are only beginning to understand how the spinal cord does this. Even less is known about how cells within the spinal cord function to allow us to balance and remain upright. How does the spinal cord do all this? That is what researchers at the Spinal Cord Research Centre investigate from many angles. Indeed, this research is something Winnipeg is famous for, but for now only in spinal cord research circles. The centre is in the department of physiology and pathophysiology at the U of M and one of the newest department members is Kristine Cowley, who joined the faculty in 2012 thanks to a Will to Win Classic Professorship. The Will to Win Classic has been supporting spinal cord research for over 30 years and was integral to establishing the Spinal Cord Research Centre where Cowley received her graduate training in neurophysiology. Much of her previous research focus has been on understanding the fundamental workings of the spinal cord on a cellular and systems level, something she says is crucial if we ever want to help people living with spinal cord injury to walk again, or regain their ability to balance and stand. “We tend to give the brain too much credit in terms of locomotion and balance,” Cowley says. “The spinal cord is a centre of integration. And if you want to understand how a rhythmic behavior is produced, you need to start with its simplest modular components and then work outward and upward from there.” To gain insight, we need the approach Cowley is taking —using electrophysiological tools and an in vitro spinal cord (a spinal cord removed from its body) to systematically map the pathways involved, and the chemical messengers used, to produce coordinated, balanced stepping. From an organizational perspective, the spinal cord consists of both ascending and descending pathways, nerves bringing information from the brain to the spinal cord, and from the body and spinal cord to the brain. There are also cells within the spinal cord that integrate information coming in from either the body or the brain; they can influence the activity of motoneurons, which are the neurons that drive muscle activity. Much of Cowley’s previous research has been to identify regions of the spinal cord important for generating and coordinating locomotor activity. For example, although the cells that generate and coordinate locomotor-like activity are distributed throughout the entire extent of the spinal cord, including regions related to your legs, trunk and arms, some regions have greater capacity than others. “Knowing this type of information will be essential if we are to target regeneration or regrowth strategies in the future to recover function after injury,” she says.
“We tend to give the brain too much credit in terms of locomotion and balance,” Cowley says. “The spinal cord is a centre of integration. And if you want to understand how a rhythmic behavior is produced, you need to start with its simplest modular components and then work outward and upward from there.” In previous research, while working as a research associate in Brian Schmidt’s lab at the Spinal Cord Research Centre, Cowley investigated the role of neurons that exist only in the spinal cord, called propriospinal cells. They wanted to know if these cells could relay a locomotor command message from the brain to the neurons activating the legs during stepping. Specifically, if the long descending neural pathways in the spinal cord were severed so there was no continuous neural connection from the brain to the legs, could these propriospinal cells pick up the message at one end, and relay it on to locomotor neurons below the damaged area? Using an in vitro spinal cord in which they could make precise lesions, they cut all direct descending paths on one side of the spinal cord. A bit further down the spinal cord, they cut all the descending paths on the other side of the spinal cord. The only way a message could get from the brain to the leg region would be if the message was relayed through these propriospinal cells. It turned out that after getting rid of all direct descending connections between the brain and spinal cord, and electrically stimulating the brain, locomotor activity could still be produced. So they probed further. Since calcium is needed for synaptic transmission, Cowley removed calcium from the preparation, applied electrical stimulation in the brain stem, and nothing happened. A telling non-event: the propriospinal cells were indeed acting as messengers. “I’m not someone who says ‘wow’ in the lab, but this was an interesting finding. We were the first to show this.” Part of her more recent work is seeing what kind of neurotransmitters can be used to activate these cells to increase our ability to get locomotion in both the in vitro and the adult in vivo research models. Cowley has learned a lot about these cells and how they produce basic rhythm in stepping, but much work remains. Visit Cowley’s office and she can show you a variety of videos showing paralyzed animals and people in harnesses
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Mike Latschislaw
FEATURE
or exoskeletons trotting or walking or jerking their legs. News sites report on these findings frequently with headlines like, “Paralyzed rats walk again”. Great. But. “None of them can balance,” Cowley says. “It’s a testament to the inherent capacity of the spinal cord to be able to generate steps—but it’s a bit of a parlour trick when headlines indicate that voluntary locomotion has been restored in these experimental animals. Even a completely spinalized”—scientifically paralyzed—“animal can produce stepping if you give them training or drugs or electrical stimulation. But none of them will be able to balance and remain upright.” You may come across Internet videos showing people or animals with spinal cord injuries standing upright. But the tools enabling this—epidural stimulators—are crude. It can take up to a year to try to find the correct stimulation to get any response. They can simultaneously activate flexor and extensor muscles, giving the subjects a rigid posture. The researchers don’t know what they are activating or where to stimulate to get desired, useful results. When your brain sends a command for you to stand up, we don’t know what pathways it takes—for example, dorsal or ventral. And once you’re standing, scientists don’t know which areas remain activated in the spinal cord. “Is there a spinal stance generator? We don’t know. There is evidence from animal literature from 40 or 50 years ago suggesting it may exist. But we can use these in vitro preparations to understand the neural circuitry that
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is involved in maintaining an upright posture and responding to balance perturbations.” Understanding this will take some time. And when we do understand it, will it be enough to help someone like Cowley walk again? Maybe not. But once we know the fundamentals, once we understand balance, we can use this knowledge to design therapeutically useful interventions. These interventions may not completely restore function, but they could be used to slow the musculoskeletal decline that is currently inevitable after spinal cord injury. Every wheelchair-bound person will develop osteoporosis in their legs at some point, and within five to eight years after injury the inevitable fractures begin; reports suggest 50 per cent or more will suffer at least one low-impact or spontaneous fracture in the decades after injury. “This has huge social and medical costs,” Cowley says. What is more, if people with spinal cord injuries are to ever walk again, their bones must be up to the task. If you can get people to stand with appropriate stimulation of the spinal cord, maybe you can turn the stimulator on, stand up, reach a few things, and sit down. Or maybe you can turn it on and stand up long enough to put stress on the bones and delay or prevent the bone density loss that leads to osteoporosis. After Cowley earned her PhD, she began collaborating with others at the U of M like Brian MacNeil in the School of Rehabilitation Medicine. They worked to develop an adult rat model of spinal cord injury to test whether their findings in vitro regarding the neural basis of stepping and stance and balance could be translated to the adult. This also enabled Cowley to begin investigating ways to reduce secondary complications related to spinal cord injury. Cowley developed an adult rat model with which to test activity-based therapies: for their potential to reduce osteoporosis and musculoskeletal decline after spinal cord injury. Cowley will soon begin investigating how spinalized rats respond to standing on their hind legs, while supported, on a vibrating plate. Will this preserve bone density? She will be the first to investigate this— other researchers have examined sheep and the results were remarkably positive, but the animals were not spinalized. By combining the resources within the Spinal Cord Research Centre and the small animal imaging facility at the U of M, teams like Cowley’s can investigate these
potential treatments in a controlled, systematic research model that will take mere weeks in an animal model rather than the years needed to determine if the therapies work in humans with spinal cord injury. She also collaborates with Dr. Karen Ethans, the medical director of the spinal cord injury programs at the Health Sciences Centre, and Dr. Barbara Shay, head of physical therapy at the U of M. Together they are trying to find exercises that people with spinal cord injuries can do that will effectively lower rates of diabetes, cardiovascular disease and obesity in this population. This type of research has an almost immediate potential for clinical applications for the roughly 80,000 Canadians living with a spinal cord injury. “In many ways,” Cowley says, “Winnipeg is the ideal place for both studying how the spinal cord functions, within the Spinal Cord Research Centre, and for more clinical research, working with people living with spinal cord injury. We have a centralized spinal cord injury rehabilitation facility with long-term follow up for the province, as well as connections to community based organizations like the provincial Canadian Paraplegic Association.” Cowley herself is the former executive director of the Canadian Paraplegic Association, a role that has influenced her research career. Why this research? The motivations are multiple. Cowley’s motivation in researching the role of the nervous system in stepping and balance comes from her general interest in figuring out how things work. After sustaining a spinal cord injury at C8, just after finishing second year university, she realized there were many physical barriers to completing a medical degree, so she decided to focus on research instead. Since she has always been interested in how things work, physiology made sense. As executive director of the Canadian Paraplegic Association, she observed the many hundreds of people living out the decades after injury dealing with these multiple and currently untreatable secondary consequences of spinal cord injury. That experience motivated her in her work to reduce muscle deterioration. Her interest in the effect of exercise on spinal cord injury comes from years competing as a Paralympic wheelchair track athlete, and seeing the benefit of training on those living with spinal cord injury.
After sustaining a spinal cord injury at C8, just after finishing second year university, she realized there were many physical barriers to completing a medical degree, so she decided to focus on research instead. Since she has always been interested in how things work, physiology made sense. “What’s interesting is if you survey people with spinal cord injuries, they don’t rank walking as their number one thing. Balance ranks higher than stepping in terms of ‘what are the things each person would like to recover.’ And if you think about it, it makes sense because balance affects everything we do.” Would she prefer balance to stepping? “Yes, I’d like to stand up. But that’s not motivating this. This is motivated from a number of years of looking at locomotor research and saying, ‘Well, what’s missing? What do we need to do?’” She looks at her computer screen again, saying, almost to herself, “We can generate stepping, but how are we going to remain upright?” n
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INSIGHTS
We asked the leaders of Canada’s three main granting agencies:
Why is fundamental research so important? This is what they had to say. 15 Summer 2014
Alain Beaudet, President, Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR) “Investments in fundamental research remain key to the success of the health research enterprise. Some of the most groundbreaking advances in health research have stemmed from basic research, sometimes in the most serendipitous way. Who could have predicted that research on the colour intensity of purple petunias would lead to the discovery of RNA interference, a mechanism that holds tremendous potential for clinical applications? Or that the observation of secretory granules in heart muscle cells would result in the discovery of the Atrial Natriuretic Factor (ANF) and thereby to new treatment options for hypertension and heart failure? On the contrary, clinical research in the absence of a good understanding of underlying pathophysiological mechanisms can yield disappointing results, as has been the case so far in trials for Alzheimer’s disease. So options are clear. Without basic research, the possibilities for future innovations wither and die.”
Janet Walden, Chief Operating Officer, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) “People, discovery (or fundamental research) and innovation—the major thrusts of NSERC—are intimately linked and are integral to Canada’s future prosperity. Top researchers are drawn to environments where they can thrive; a strong discovery research environment attracts this creative talent and stimulates the new ideas that become our future innovations and enhance our quality of life. In short, discovery research opens new opportunities to pursue ideas that provide the foundation for our success. For over 35 years, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) has been a leading provider of federal funding for discovery research. We are proud to provide more than $350 million in funding to 10,000 discovery researchers across Canada every year through our flagship Discovery Grants program.”
Chad Gaffield, President, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) “At the heart of what it means to be human is a desire to understand who we are, where we have been, and where we might go. While 20th century leaders often imagined a straightforward process involving the transfer of knowledge from universities to the rest of society, we are now recognizing the interconnectedness of research and past and present innovation. The new approach reflects a deepened appreciation of today’s complex and intertwined social, economic, cultural and technological challenges that characteristically transcend figurative and literal boundaries. Moreover, the topics and the questions in the headlines of the future remain uncertain and rarely predictable. For these reasons, one of the most effective ways to realize our potential as individuals and as societies is to support our top scholars in their diverse research efforts on campus and beyond.” n
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FEATURE
SEEING A WAY THROUGH AUTISM BY CHRIS RUTKOWSKI
Mike Latschislaw
There’s an old joke about a psychologist who is walking down the street and meets another psychologist coming from the other direction. As they both walk past one another, the first psychologist says, “Hello,” and the second psychologist says, “Hello.” After walking a few steps, the first psychologist thinks, “Hmmm. I wonder what he meant by that.”
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FEATURE
their eye gaze. Since they can’t express themselves verbally, The ability to think about the intentions and beliefs of observing their eye movement can tell researchers if the other people is a fundamental part of our thinking processes. children are responding to stimuli. This ability is important in both social interaction and In her study of children with ASD, Glenwright shows interpersonal communication. Our understanding of the children a pictorial story book with two possible endings mental states of others is called “theory of mind” (ToM), and to the story. In one example, Sally and Ann are together in develops during our childhood, usually by about age five. a room. Sally has an apple, and places it for safekeeping in a “But in children with autism, development of this basket in plain view of Ann. She then leaves the room for a ability seems to be delayed,” says Melanie Glenwright in nap, and while she is away, Ann moves the department of psychology at the the apple out of the basket and into a U of M. “Examining ToM in individuals box. When Sally wakes up and returns to with autism can advance our understandthe room, does she look for the apple in ing of typical development “Parents can often the basket or the box? in children.” express a sense “Babies as young as fifteen months old She notes that traditional methods of pride and get will know Sally will look in the original of assessing ToM in children usually hiding place in the basket,” explains involve complex verbal problems and great satisfaction Glenwright. “But children with autism often a series of questions asked by an from seeing their spectrum disorder will think she will experimenter. But children with autism children participate look where Ann put the apple, even spectrum disorders (ASD) may not have though Sally had no way of knowing the the ability to respond easily or effectively in these studies.” apple was moved.” in such testing situations. Glenwright uses video cameras to Glenwright has developed a novel track the movement of children’s eyes to solution to this problem: she has received determine if they are looking at the appropriate picture, thus a two-year SSHRC grant for almost $75,000 to study how eye showing understanding of the complex thought process. gaze can give insight into children’s ToM reasoning and their Glenwright notes that psychologists do not know why this ability to make moral judgements. cognitive error occurs in people with ASD. Her experimental Studies with very young children and babies have shown work will hopefully help her gain insight into this puzzling that the most effective way to test understanding and mechanism. At the same time, she says parents of child comprehension in this young cohort is to record and analyze (l-r) Melanie Glenwright with research assistant and student Elena Bilevicius.
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research participants get to watch their kids do vocabulary tests and the kids get to see “where grownups go to school.” “Parents can often express a sense of pride and get great satisfaction from seeing their children participate in these studies,” Glenwright says. “Once they experience this kind of testing in a laboratory, they often become ‘regulars,’ because it’s such a positive thing to do and they can see their kids ‘in action.’ ” The mother of a young child herself, Glenwright has been conducting research on children’s social cognition for more than ten years. She also studies how children gain understanding of verbal concepts like humour, sarcasm, teasing and gossip, and how they learn to differentiate these concepts that some people have trouble recognizing, even as adults. A second experiment she is working on has Glenwright showing children a different picture book in which two boys, Tom and Josh, are playing. Tom has brought a cupcake from home and is keeping it in a bag. He puts the bag on a table and then goes out to play. Josh is cleaning the room and puts the bag in the garbage can. But did he throw out Tom’s cupcake on purpose, or was it an accident? In one case, it was a moral transgression, but in the other, it is an accidental transgression. “Morality is the intuitive sense of right and wrong that guides our behaviour and leads us to judge others,” Glenwright explains. “Understanding the intentions of another person reflects our ability to make moral judgements.” Between ages three and four, children usually can evaluate moral transgressions, but children with autism are less likely to recognize a person’s mistaken actions as unintended.
Glenwright explains: “The aim of these experiments is to understand conditions that optimize ToM reasoning in participants with ASD in order to advance our knowledge of typical cognitive development.” As important as this basic research may be, it’s not without its challenges to researchers. “It’s been difficult to conduct some of these experiments on children’s comprehension,” she says. “Recruiting parents whose children have been recently diagnosed with ASD is quite challenging, and I have a smaller sample size than I would like to see.” She explains that parents of recently-diagnosed children with ASD tend to desire immediate intervention or assistance rather than simple participation in a study. “It’s asking a lot of parents to participate in a study when they are dealing with a lot of things
and are experiencing new stresses,” she adds. Glenwright says that the goal of her studies is to learn about social cognition in typical development as well as in autism. “But it is only through working with ASD children that we can understand how cognition usually develops in children,” she points out. “This is fundamental social sciences research that may not have immediate benefit to parents and their children, but may in the long term help us understand how best to teach young people and work with them to better communicate in our complex world.” She adds: “This research will [help us to] gain useful information that will be of interest to parents, educators and policymakers working to improve the lives of Canadian children.” n
Glenwright’s research assistant demonstrates how the ToM research is conducted.
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BOOKS OF NOTE The Manitoba Book Awards for 2014 awarded the Alexander Kennedy Isbister Award for Non-Fiction to Indians Wear Red: Colonialism, Resistance, and Aboriginal Street Gangs (Fernwood, 2013). The book is authored by Elizabeth Comack (U of M, sociology), Lawrence Deane (U of M, social work), Larry Morrissette (Ogijiita Pimatiswin Kinamatwin) and Jim Silver (University of Winnipeg, urban and inner-city studies). Their book comes out of the research undertaken as part of the Manitoba Research Alliance (MRA), a group of academic researchers and community and government partners. The Canadian Centre for Policy AlternativesManitoba (CCPA-Mb) is the lead organization on the MRA’s three successful projects funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). It has a solid reputation for working collaboratively and producing quality, policy-relevant research. Notably all royalties from sales of the this book are donated back to CCPA-Mb for future research. From the publisher: Drawing on extensive interviews with Aboriginal street gang members, as well as with Aboriginal women and elders, Indians Wear Red locates Aboriginal Street gangs as a form of resistance to colonialism… Solutions lie not in the search for “quick fixes” but in decolonization: re-connecting Aboriginal people with their culture and building communities in which they can thrive, aware of and proud of their identity. For other books published by U of M faculty members visit researchlife.ca n “With the advent of Aboriginal street gangs such as Indian Posse, Manitoba Warriors, and Native Syndicate, Winnipeg garnered a reputation as the “gang capital of Canada.” Yet beyond the stereotypes of outsiders, little is known about these street gangs and the factors and conditions that have produced them. Indians Wear Red locates Aboriginal street gangs in the context of the racialized poverty that has become entrenched in the colonized space of Winnipeg’s North End. Drawing upon extensive interviews
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with Aboriginal street gang members as well as with Aboriginal women and elders, the authors develop an understanding from “inside” the inner city and through the voices of Aboriginal people—especially street gang members themselves. While economic restructuring and neo-liberal state responses can account for the global proliferation of street gangs, the authors argue that colonialism is a crucial factor in the Canadian context, particularly in western Canadian urban centres.
Young Aboriginal people have resisted their social and economic exclusion by acting collectively as “Indians.” But just as colonialism is destructive, so too are street gang activities, including the illegal trade in drugs. Solutions lie not in “quick fixes” or “getting tough on crime” but in decolonization: re-connecting Aboriginal people with their cultures and building communities in which they can safely live and work.” (Fernwood Publishing 2013)
Jörg Stetefeld
IDEAS TO INNOVATION
CURT CHEREWAYKO
Crystallizing a clearer understanding of the protein Jörg Stetefeld’s discoveries on the structure and function of proteins are a starting point for developing new drugs and other biotechnologies They’ve been described as the workhorses of life at the cellular level. Given the array of intelligent functions that proteins conduct in organisms, however, that moniker may not do them justice. Numbering in the millions, proteins—which are chains of amino acids—grow and repair cells, trigger chemical processes or transport molecules; they can be structural material, antibodies or receptors, among other things. Jörg Stetefeld, professor of biochemistry at the University of Manitoba and Canada Research Chair in Structural Biology, uses advanced techniques like X-ray crystallography and nuclear magnetic resonancy to study the atomic structure of proteins. It’s complex stuff, yet Stetefeld’s research can be distilled down to an orderly three-step Jörg Stetefeld process: First, discover the structure of a protein. That will lead you to its function, which will then guide the development of potential applications. Stetefeld’s discoveries could have implications in a variety of fields, from combating disease to producing antidotes for snake venom to oil and gas remediation. “If you understand what something looks like at the atomic level, then you have a fairly good shot of developing a drug or application,” says Stetefeld. He studies proteins that live outside of cells, in an area responsible for the structural support of cells and for communicating informa-
tion between them. Among the proteins in this matrix is netrin, which guides the growth and repair of axons, or nerve fibres. Damaged or dysfunctional axons can’t properly communicate information throughout the brain and body, resulting in neurological disorders like multiple sclerosis (MS). Stetefeld, who is an expert in crystallography, has given researchers an unprecedented glimpse of netrin by first crystallizing it to obtain high concentrations, then exposing it to high intensity X-rays in order to build a 3D model. His lab has filed patents—an important early milestone in the arduous journey from basic research to application —related to the way that netrin helps to rebuild a protective sheath surrounding axons. In MS patients, this sheath is thought to be damaged by the body’s own immune system. In another project, Stetefeld has isolated a tiny tubeshaped protein—a nanotube—found in microorganisms that thrives near the mouth of deep-sea volcanoes. The nanotube is thought to help the microorganisms process sulfur that spews from the volcanoes. Stetefeld’s team is studying the possibility of using the nanotube to filter out sulfur in oil and gas refinement—a prospect that has cultivated early interest from an oil producer. Says Stetefeld: “We can keep filing [intellectual property] … but we would like to establish a strong collaboration with industry.” n
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FEATURE
BY CHRIS RUTKOWSKI
GLASS ACTION:
Understanding the properties of glasses Most people associate magnets and their properties with physics, but on the fourth floor of the Parker Building in the Faculty of Science, it’s all about how magnets can be used in chemical research. Chemistry professor Scott Kroeker’s research on the structure of glasses uses huge superconducting magnets to understand these unique materials. “Nuclear magnetic resonance is at the heart of all my research,” he says. Kroeker explains that most solids are conceptualized as crystalline. A simple example is sodium chloride— ordinary table salt—where it’s easy to see that it’s made of tiny crystals. Glass is formed when certain materials are melted at a high temperature then rapidly cooled, preventing crystallization. Instead, the material “freezes” into a disordered solid state with very different properties.
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The most common glass in use today is soda-lime glass, made of mostly silicon dioxide (SiO2), sodium oxide (Na2O) and lime (CaO). When cooled from the melt phase, it produces the window glass that we have in all our offices and homes. Materials considered glasses do not have crystalline order and are difficult to study on a molecular scale because their local structure varies subtly in different parts of the glass. In fact, X-ray diffraction can’t resolve the structure of glasses, but a completely different process known as nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) can be
ResearchLIFE 24 Mike Latschislaw
FEATURE
used to probe their molecular structure by looking at the various frequencies within the material. Kroeker’s lab contains three NMR spectrometers. Unlike the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) systems found in many hospitals, the magnets in Kroeker’s lab stand vertically. In MRI systems, the magnets are oriented on their sides with a large hole into which patients pass for internal analysis. MRI uses radio frequency fields to map the local environments of the hydrogen nuclei of water in
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different parts of a body, providing images representing the internal structure of the tissue. The NMR instruments used to study the structure of glasses don’t use magnetic field gradients to produce an image, but instead use homogeneous fields to measure absorbed electromagnetic radiation at frequencies that depend on the isotopes under observation. The structural information comes from the chemical shift of a nucleus, the characteristic frequency with which the atom resonates and which can be mea-
sured with great accuracy. The NMR spectrometer detects such frequencies and can determine the local molecular structure of materials by comparing frequencies of known elements. Although much of his research involves glassy materials, Kroeker considers himself principally an NMR spectroscopist. “What I do is very specialized. Without an effective and efficient NMR spectrometer, much of this research would be impossible, and I’d have nothing to do!” he laughs.
Facing page: Light through an optical fibre.
Part of Kroeker’s research on glasses is concentrated on fibre optics, the thin transparent wiry material that is widely used in information technology. Optical fibres are much more efficient than copper wire for transmitting information, but even they have their limits. Whereas copper wire needs periodic repeaters to boost electrical signals in order to transmit long distances, light travelling through optical fibres doesn’t need as many repeaters, but it does need some for long-distance transmission. The distance the light can travel before regeneration depends on the purity of the glass fibres. Fibre optic repeaters are usually inline lasers in which photons are reflected back and forth until they burst out of the cavity as a new laser pulse. These lasers are typically spaced about 100 kilometres apart, so that very long distances can be covered at the speed of light. Kroeker uses NMR spectroscopy to study how the optical properties of new laser glasses are influenced by the composition and structure of the glass. More effective laser materials will improve long-distance data transmission. A second aspect of Kroeker’s research looks at exactly the reverse: studying how to add impurities into melted materials as they cool so that they don’t crystallize but instead form glass. This is important in a number of processes, but none so critical as in the long-term storage of nuclear waste. Kroeker explains that most countries reprocess radioactive waste from the spent-fuel rods used in nuclear power. Canada stores its
nuclear waste underground rather than reprocessing. In countries where nuclear waste is reprocessed, such as France, the procedure generates waste products in liquid form. “It’s necessary to deal with this nuclear waste properly,” says Kroeker, “because it can remain dangerous to humans for up to a million years.” The best way to contain such liquid nuclear waste is to immobilize it in glass. Typically, the waste is mixed in with liquid borosilicate glass at a temperature of about 1100°C. This temperature is hot enough that the nuclear waste products dissolve within the liquid glass and then harden into a more compact and durable material. However, there are some radioactive elements that don’t dissolve well in the liquid glass. Instead, they create crystalline regions within the glass that can, unfortunately, dissolve in water. Obviously, this would be a problem if the hardened glass came in contact with water while in storage. Kroeker’s research involving nuclear waste is determining the nature of the crystalline regions within glass. “X-ray diffraction can’t do it,” he says. “The only way to probe the resulting complex glass-crystalline composites is NMR spectroscopy.” To study how the crystalline deposits form inside the glass, Kroeker uses the cesium-133 isotope, which is not radioactive but reacts chemically exactly like its radioactive cousins, cesium-137 and cesium-135, found in nuclear waste. He does NMR of the solid glasses at room temperature and of the melted glass using laserheated equipment, so he can mimic
“We are trying to understand the chemistry of partly crystallized glass to improve its durability. My research focus is to determine the chemical composition of the crystalline phases and ultimately, to eliminate crystallization so that all the dangerous constituents are securely locked up in the glass.” the industrial formation of these materials. Kroeker notes: “We are trying to understand the chemistry of partly crystallized glass to improve its durability. My research focus is to determine the chemical composition of the crystalline phases and ultimately, to eliminate crystallization so that all the dangerous constituents are securely locked up in the glass.” He adds: “While it seems complicated, our hope is that the work we are doing here in Manitoba will create a safer world for generations to come.” The main funding for Kroeker’s work is through grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and Canada Foundation of Innovation (CFI). Additional funding has facilitated his travel and research visits to the UK and France to work with their nuclear waste organizations. n
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SPOTLIGHT ON STUDENTS
SET DAY 2014 BY NATALIA WYCISLAK If I could sum up SET Day 2014 in just two words, they would be: innovative and inspiring. I had the opportunity to participate in SET Day this year for the first time, and I was not disappointed. As a teenager excited by the challenge of finding a career, SET Day provided me with a plethora of resources. SET Day allows youth from all over Manitoba to find a topic that interests them, and to be able to mold and form that topic into a career. I was particularly excited for the SET Talks because I wanted to know what research was going on right in my hometown of Winnipeg. First, Dr. Peter Cattini talked to us about the only engine that will last a lifetime: the heart. I learned that about 90 per cent of cancer patients die because Natalia Wycislak of heart damage from chemotherapy and not the cancer itself. Researchers are developing new ways to protect the heart from this fate using substances that will be to the heart like engine oil is to the engine of a car. Second, during Leah Wong’s SET Talk on joint replacements, I learned startling information on how common these replacements are, and what faults they have. A single joint replacement only lasts about 15 years due to the plastic causing bone deterioration. Researchers are creating enhanced materials to make joint replacements that agree with the body. Last, Dr. Steve Whyard talked about the research he is doing on eliminating the bugs we love to hate using various safe, healthy methods. For example, using genetics,
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mosquitoes can be eliminated in an area by releasing sterile males into the environment. I learned that fruit flies are also being used as a model for Alzheimer’s disease research. All of the work by these incredible researchers has one thing in common: it all invests in helping society and people who are affected by physical and mental ailments. I have never been much of a technology person, but when Dr. Jacky Baltes and Dr. John Anderson started to explain artificial intelligence, my mind was quickly changed. I was especially interested by the “Paradox of A.I.” which states that cognitively challenging activities such as playing chess can be expertly performed by a computer, but basic activities such as recognizing an object in a picture or picking up a cup, are very difficult. I had the opportunity to program my own robot to find “treasure” on the ground using a light sensor. I also met a robot athlete that can lift weights, run races, and climb ladders in a type of robot-Olympics. This clinic inspired me to get out of my comfort zone and learn about something out of the ordinary for me, like intelligent robotics. SET Day has convinced me to look for a career in the world of science, where the seemingly impossible becomes possible. During this knowledge-packed day, I learned that the field of science offers endless opportunities. Besides, if you love your career, you’ll never work a day in your life.
Deanna G “Sheep heart dissection! Learning the path of blood flow through the heart!”
Jacqueline Manuel @umanitoba #SETDay2014 #EngineeringSwag
Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) Day brings high school students to the U of M to get a glimpse of the research that happens every day at the U of M—and a chance to interact with researchers and graduate students one-on-one. SET Day is sponsored by the Vice-President (Research and International) Office. Faculties participate by providing hands-on opportunities for students, like Arctic Science Day, hosted by the Centre for Earth Observation Science in the Clayton H. Riddell Faculty of Environment, Earth, and Resources. Forty students and teachers from SET Day trek in snow shoes and learn first-hand from graduate students about how to do research outside in an Arctic environment. What follows are excerpts from SET Day participants who took our social media challenge to share their experiences throughout #SETDay2014. n
Ciara Stanowski #SETday2014
Payton Gomes Farm time #SETday2014 ResearchLIFE 28
FEATURE
29 Summer 2014
BY MARIIANNE MAYS WIEBE
Research for thinking the future
Oliver Botar’s long-going project traces our relationship to technology through the work of modernist artist, teacher and thinker László Moholy-Nagy Oliver Botar has been teaching a course on the history of art and new media at the School of Art for the past 13 years or so. As the first person to develop a course such as this one at the University of Manitoba, he says that it, as well as a number of fourth-year seminar courses, are “partly derived from my research interest in Moholy-Nagy and my knowledge of new media.” Discovering the “utopian and dreamer” László MoholyNagy (1895-1946) sparked for Botar what has become a decades-long research project on the work of this early 20th century Hungarian modernist artist. The art history professor caught the cultural history bug back in grad school, auditing and then enrolling in art history courses while completing his master’s of urban and regional planning. He switched to art history for a master’s and then his PhD and became interested in Middle European modernism. Though the project has continued through a protracted period, Botar’s research themes have shifted over time. “I began working with [Moholy-Nagy] fairly early in my career and one of the wonderful things about working on him is that the deeper I’ve delved, the more I’ve found; the more I’ve come to understand,” he says. “The questions I’ve asked have changed over time.” His early research on the artist, teacher and thinker’s biocentrism—an ideology that according to Botar comprises a “set of tenets that included a belief in the primacy of life
and life processes, of biology as the paradigmatic science, as well as an anti-anthropocentric worldview, and an implied or expressed environmentalism”—eventually led to a focus on Moholy-Nagy’s wide-ranging engagement with technology. Pairing nature and technology may seem like a paradox. But as Botar points out, it comes from the early 20th century biocentrism and its popular bio-philosopher Raoul Heinrich Francé, who held that “humans are a part of nature and all of our technology is natural or naturally derived. He invented the term biotechnik, or biotechnology—that is, adapting technology from nature.” The long and short of it, Botar says, “is that Francé allowed Moholy[-Nagy] to think about technology as a natural type of phenomenon, which legitimized his fascination with technology—typical of the 1920s—from a biocentric viewpoint.” Moholy-Nagy started theorizing about new media and wrote a lot about technology, including the pace of technological change.
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William Eakin
FEATURE
(l-r) Floe, 2014 (Erika Linkoln - Plexiglass, aluminum angle, motors, electronics, metal); Polycinema, 2014 (Lancelot Coar and Patrick Harrop - after ideas of László Moholy-Nagy); Threshold, 2014 (Freya Björg Olafson - Video)
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Botar’s research on these aspects of Moholy-Nagy’s work recently resulted in his curation of an art exhibition that addresses our relationship to technology, funded by an Insight Grant in 2013 from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SHRCC). Sensing the Future: Moholy-Nagy, Media and the Arts, which opened at Winnipeg’s Plug In ICA on March 8 and ran until June 1, brought together rare and artworks artworks and documents by Moholy-Nagy and juxtaposed those of contemporary artists whose own work has been influenced by—or responds to—the rich imaginative fields generated by this inventive polymath. Many of the contemporary works were commissioned for the show. The funding awarded to him and his three co-applicants in the Faculty of Architecture, Eduardo Aquino, Lancelot Coar and Patrick Harrop, will be disbursed over a four-year period, and is intended to support the research, writing and publication of a monograph on Moholy-Nagy, technology and the senses. The exhibition and collaboration with his architecture colleagues are the first stage of the project. In fact, Botar considers the highly successful exhibition itself “a form of research.” Harrop and Coar, for example, are working on the realization of Moholy-Nagy’s idea for a “Polycinema,” a predecessor to “expanded cinema”—both are radical alternatives to traditional ways of presenting moving images.
Botar explains, “The research creation of my colleagues in the Faculty of Architecture and artists [with whom] I’ve been working—also including School of Art alumna Erika Lincoln and U of M adjunct professor in film studies Guy Maddin—is the realization of ideas; a kind of research-knowledge that would be impossible to gain by [only] going to archives, [doing] research and thinking.”
“Fundamental research, along with teaching, is the university’s very lifeblood” Much of that “research-creation” is based on Moholy-Nagy’s most original contributions, which, according to the exhibition notes, are the speculations and experiments in new media such as light art, kinetic art, sound art, multimedia, expanded cinema, television, and immersive-participatory installations. Underlines Botar, “Moholy-Nagy was one of the first to theorize an end to the hierarchy of media—and also an end to the hierarchy of the senses. People have always put the visual first. And visuality was very important for him—and for visual art—but it’s not the only sense. There are also acoustic elements; and he proposed the making of art
for olfactory, tactile and kinaesthetic senses as well.” The contemporary pieces in the show, by both local and internationally-renowned artists, are equally as unusual as those by Moholy-Nagy. They include a volume of olfactory poems by the Brazilian-American artist and professor Eduardo Kac, a glass globe with a partially silvered exterior by Berlin-based Danish art star Olafur Eliasson, an immersive “Text Space” featuring the visual and aural presentation of excerpts from Moholy-Nagy’s writings by co-applicant Eduardo Aquino (who also designed the exhibition at Plug In ICA) and Winnipeg artist and U of M sessional instructor Ken Gregory’s interactive work that employs light-and-sound sensors and displays. That artwork helps Botar understand further what Moholy-Nagy was trying to get at and its relevance to artistic production today, he says. “I’m looking at the early history of an approach to art-making, with links to early environmentalism, which has become current.” Botar points to changes in SSHRC funding that now allow for collaborations with artists and institutions other than academic ones, such as museums and art galleries, a development he calls “amazing.” He says, “Those changes are relatively recent and they are controversial, but I’m finding that in my work engaging with architects and artists and with contemporary media theory really helps me understand Moholy-Nagy better—
William Eakin
in addition to archival research. I do a lot of archival research.” The funding is also important because it allows him to travel to see original works of art and archives, accessing material that’s not otherwise available. Botar contends that the present era has much in common with that in which Moholy-Nagy lived. “Here we are in 2014, and we are overwhelmed by the constant barrage of technology; things haven’t really changed that much,” he says. “This process of change has been going on since the industrial revolution, in the late 18th century. Our time—with its proliferation of technologies—is similar to that of the 1920s,” he explains. Moholy-Nagy, who lived in Berlin during that time, was thinking and writing about these issues, and the exhibition addresses this question of adjustment to technological change, in part because people’s difficulty with it was a concern of MoholyNagy. Not only was the artist
fascinated by the effects of and possibilities for technology, he was committed to—even beyond artmaking itself—“the Utopian reform of society through the transformation of individuals,” as the exhibition notes read. It’s why one of the keys to Moholy-Nagy is his pedagogical instinct. “He realized that artists are very well positioned to help educate people to be able to use their senses—all their senses—more fully,” says Botar. “And they are also able to borrow, as artists, that is, aesthetically from this environment, the fast-paced, multi-sensory environment of the city.” To this end, Moholy-Nagy introduced concepts like “sensory training,” the idea that one could become accustomed to—and even educated by—sensory exposure through artwork. Botar summarizes the progress on his research findings through the project: “The research interests come from a place of curiosity and archival
research and theoretical underpinnings [that’s] become much more complex through my engagement with architects and artists.” Fundamental research is very important, he adds. He calls it the university’s “very lifeblood,” along with teaching. “It is the raison d’être of the university and is what distinguishes the University of Manitoba as a research university with a full slate of graduate programs and research programs in many different fields. “It is what moves knowledge forward.” Botar’s exhibition will also travel to the Bauhaus-Archiv in Berlin, a major institution with a stellar collection of 20th century modernism, where its installation will be designed by U of M landscape architecture alumnus Rodney LaTourelle. n
Installation view
A version of this article previously appeared on UM Today, the University of Manitoba’s news site, at news.umanitoba.ca
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ON THE HORIZON
Fred Munson
The University of Manitoba hosts speaker series both on and off campus, engaging and informing the general public about ongoing research and issues of interest. CAFÉ SCIENTIFIQUE Interested in talking and learning more about different health topics and related research? Café Scientifique brings together experts with non-researchers (you, me, neighbours, friends) in a relaxed atmosphere to talk about their research and the questions it raises. Come and join the discussion! Our first Café Scientifique takes place from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. at McNally Robinson Booksellers. For further details visit: umanitoba.ca/cafescientifique n
VISIONARY CONVERSATIONS
CRITICAL CONVERSATIONS on Truth and Reconciliation
Following our third successful season, Visionary Conversations is back for another round of thoughtprovoking discussions. Join President and Vice-Chancellor David T. Barnard along with trailblazing researchers in lively question and answer sessions that lead us to unexpected and exciting places. Our first Visionary Conversation is Wednesday, September 17, 2014 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. in the Robert B. Schultz Lecture Theatre on the Fort Garry campus.
This seminar series organized by the Centre for Human Rights Research features researchers and others from a range of disciplines who work on human rights issues. Seminars are usually on Mondays from 2:30 to 4:00 p.m. in Room 206, Robson Hall (Faculty of Law) on the Fort Garry campus. All are open to the public.
For further details visit: umanitoba.ca/visionaryconversations n
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For further details visit: chrr.info n
JUST THE FACTS
Our Royal Society of Canada Fellows Election to the Royal Society of Canada (RSC) is considered the highest honour an academic can achieve in the arts, humanities and sciences. Founded in 1882, the RSC’s mission is to recognize scholarly, research and artistic excellence, to advise governments and organizations, and to promote a culture of knowledge and innovation in Canada and with other national academies around the world.
The RSC consists of three bilingual Academies embracing a broad range of scholarly disciplines and artistic fields. The following are a few of our Fellows in each of the Academies. There are a total of 42 RSC Fellows at the U of M (eight in the Academy of the Arts and Humanities; nine in the Academy of Social Sciences; twenty-four in the Academy of Science; and one Specially Elected Fellow)
ACADEMY I: Arts and Humanities
ACADEMY II: Social Sciences
ACADEMY III: Science
Diana Brydon (English, film and theatre), Canada Research Chair in Globalization and Cultural Studies, is a literary critic known internationally for her multifaceted and groundbreaking contributions to postcolonial literary and cultural studies, and Australian and Canadian literary studies.
Ellen R. Judd (anthropology) is a sociocultural anthropologist whose work on women in modern rural China has made path-breaking contributions to the anthropology of societies in post-socialist transition and on gender and kinship.
Distinguished Professor Charles Bernstein (internal medicine) is an internationally recognized leader in the study of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), having developed the largest population-based database of the disorder in North America. n
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William Eakin
Sensing the Future Installation detail, Eduardo Aquino, Text Space, 2014. See page 29 inside.