This article is part of a monthly series celebrating research breakthroughs and successes at Brock University over the past 60 years. To read other stories in the series, visit The Brock News.

Peter Ramm brought two things with him when he joined Brock University in 1985.

One was a long-standing drive to investigate why we need sleep. The other was a rudimentary piece of equipment he started developing in his previous position at Trent University.

Once at Brock, the Professor of Psychology developed his micro computer imaging device (MCID), which enabled him to track the rate at which proteins called amino acids are synthesized in the brain.

Using the MCID, Ramm was able to see a higher rate of protein synthesis during “slow wave sleep,” the part of the sleep cycle when a person experiences their deepest sleep, expanding his research to explore the question of whether sleep’s purpose is to restore brain proteins.

While Ramm’s initial goal with the technology was to aid his own research, his high-tech imaging hardware and software package went on to achieve commercial success in the international research community. His work is one of many examples throughout the decades of Brock scholars creating innovations that advance research in their disciplines and beyond.

Predicting lung cancer

Early detection and analysis of nodules — done through computed tomography (CT) screening — has been shown to reduce lung cancer mortality in high-risk individuals by 20 per cent or more.

Throughout the early 2010s, health-care professionals in Canada and abroad used the American National Lung Screening Trial to identify people eligible for CT screening.

But many people who needed screening fell through the cracks because the criteria were so limited, as research by then-Professor of Health Sciences Martin Tammemägi revealed.

In 2011, Tammemägi created a lung cancer prediction model that included a variety of variables — including smoking history, cancer history, age, race or ethnicity, socio-economic status and body mass index — significantly expanding who would benefit from lung cancer screening.

Two years later, he and his team created software to help doctors determine if nodules they saw on screens were cancerous. Tammemägi also developed and published a lung cancer risk calculator housed on the Brock University’s Lung Cancer Risk Calculator site.

“In combination, the prediction models have improved the efficiency of lung cancer screening and have led to many deaths being averted,” he says.

Tammemägi has refined and expanded his model over the past decade and it is now being used in the Ontario Lung Screening Program and in more than 100 clinical trials around the world along  with implementation studies and regional or national programs in 39 countries.

The Professor Emeritus of Epidemiology is extending his lung cancer risk prediction models for use by Indigenous peoples in Canada, the U.S., New Zealand and Australia as well as HIV/AIDS patients and individuals exposed to chemicals such as asbestos, silica and diesel.

“These models for special high-risk populations should make lung cancer screening more efficient and the distribution of screening fairer,” he says.

Children’s future thinking

Understanding how children remember to perform an upcoming task, called “prospective memory,” and how they think of themselves in the future are significant areas of focus for Caitlin Mahy’s research.

Shortly after joining Brock in 2014, Mahy hit an obstacle as she sought to identify why young children find it difficult to project themselves into future scenarios.

“It was obvious to me that there was a gap in how we measure children’s future thinking,” says the Professor of Psychology. “At the time, there were dozens of behavioural measures but very few comprehensive parent-reports.”

Mahy recalled a questionnaire on children’s social understanding she helped develop during her graduate school days. Inspired by that project, Mahy and her then-PhD student Tessa Mazachowsky devised a questionnaire for parents about their children’s future-thinking behaviours in 2020.

The Children’s Future-Thinking Questionnaire (CFTQ) gathers information on how children make plans, save, delay gratification, remember to do something in the future and project themselves into future scenarios.

Use of the questionnaire, which has been translated into German, Persian and Mandarin, has gained momentum in the field.

“I have heard from researchers all over the world about the CFTQ,” says Mahy. “Seven studies so far have used the CFTQ; I expect this number to increase with time given that many of my colleagues are using the questionnaire in their current work.”