PAGE 8 - WEYBURN THIS WEEK
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2017
Growing strength seen in Ingredients Tour
Premier Brad Wall recently visited the production facilities at CanMar Grain Products and NutraSun Foods, two Regina companies who add value to Saskatchewan-grown crops and create products sold around the world. The visits were the first stop on Wall’s “Saskatchewan Ingredients Tour”, which will continue during the next few weeks and involve a number of Saskatchewan companies. “Saskatchewan’s growing strength in value-added food processing deserves to be recognized and celebrated,” said Wall. “There are now more than 300 food companies operating in the province that generate more than $4 billion in revenues and employ about 5,000 people. Their tremendous success demonstrates that Saskatchewan’s economy is stronger, more durable and more diversified than ever. “Our province is no longer just a primary producer of grains, oilseeds and other resources. Throughout Saskatchewan, companies are adding value to what we grow, and in the process creating jobs and opportunity.” CanMar Grain Products operates a state-of-the-art facility designed to clean, roast and package flaxseed at one location. Its retail products are sold under the Flax for Nutrition brand. The company ships to customers across
North America and in Asia, Mexico, Europe and the Middle East. CanMar Grain has a workforce of 34 people. NutraSun Foods is owned by Paterson GlobalFoods (PGF), an international company with expertise in agriculture, food production, finance and transportation. NutraSun is one of Canada’s premier flour millers. It supplies flours, bakery mixes, dough conditioners and whole grain products to customers across the globe. NutraSun employs 26 people in Regina. Saskatchewan ingredients are increasingly finding favour with consumers around the world. Saskatchewan flax is used in the cookies sold at Shanghai Disneyland, while oats grown in Saskatchewan are a key ingredient in the Cheerios eaten at breakfast tables throughout North America. Harvest Meats of Yorkton supplies hot dogs to Safeco Field, home of baseball’s Seattle Mariners. It’s likely much of the mustard used on those hot dogs is made with Saskatchewan mustard seed. Meanwhile, Saskatchewan lentils and peas are used in Indian kitchens every day, in dishes like Daal, Matar Paneer and Chana Masala. Ninety per cent of India’s lentil imports, and more than 60 per cent of its pea imports, are grown by Saskatchewan farmers.
Grade 4 choir practising for the Music Festival
Review Photo 9485 — Greg Nikkel
The Grade 4 choir performs the actions as they sing one of the numbers they will be performing at the Weyburn Rotary Music Festival coming up in March, during music class at Assiniboia Park School on February 15. The Music Festival will start with the piano competition on March 6-9, followed by the vocal competition on March 13-15, and the band and instrumental competition on March 16-17, with the Stars of the Festival on Wednesday, March 22. 17024MS1 17024MS2
University researchers create a potent new synthetic antibiotic An interdisciplinary team of researchers from the University of Regina (U of R) and the University of Saskatchewan (U of S) have created a potent new synthetic antibiotic that is effective in lab research against several drug-resistant pathogens such as the bacteria responsible for Staph infection and other difficultto-treat human infections. The discovery is described in a recent joint paper published in Scientific Reports, an online, open access journal from the publishers of Nature. The researchers state that the group of synthetic compounds they are working on could have “enormous capacity to provide new chemical architectures for the development of next-generation antibiotics” and to “regain some ground on the antibiotic resistance problem.” That’s because the new compound, phosphopyricin, is a synthetic antibiotic that is not derived from any natural sources and is therefore evolutionarily foreign to bacteria. “The results of this work have several important implications,” said U of R microbiologist John Stavrinides. “First, because the antibiotic is synthetic, it may be less prone to antibiotic
resistance mechanisms already used by drug-resistant bacteria,” he added. “Second, widespread antibiotic use results in antibiotic residuals accumulating in the general environment, contributing to the evolution of multidrug resistance. But this antibiotic breaks down when exposed to light, so it is less likely to accumulate in the environment compared with other antibiotics. This may also help slow the evolution of resistance to our antibiotic.” Jane Alcorn, U of S professor of pharmacy, said the antibiotic does not appear to be toxic to mice when given orally. “The next step will be to identify the specific mechanism of action, determine how effective this synthetic antibiotic would be in the human body, and assess the impact, if any, on human cells.” The team found the antibiotic compound to be effective against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) which causes infections that can be life-threatening if left untreated, and va n c o m y c i n - r e s i s t a n t Enterococcus (VRE), bacteria which live in the human intestine and urinary tract, are often found in the environment, and are
resistant to the antibiotic vancomycin. These are among bacteria that are acronymously dubbed “ESKAPE” pathogens because they pose a serious threat to human health through repeated emergence, but have the ability to “eskape” antibiotic treatment. The interdisciplinary work was initiated several years ago by Stavrinides and U of R chemist Brian Sterenberg, who then enlisted the help of Alcorn to evaluate the toxicity of the synthetic compounds. Other members of the team included: PhD student Arumugam Jayaraman, graduate student Shelby Reid, and undergraduate students Shelby Hubick and Alexander McKeen. “As far as we know, the types of compounds we synthesized have not been explored as potential antibiotics,” said Sterenberg. “Our future work will be to continue to synthesize new molecules to look for other new antibiotics.” This work was supported by grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the Canada Foundation for Innovation, and the Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation.