Department of Chemistry – Seminar Series
David Liscombe
Vineland Research and Innovation Centre
DATE: Friday, April 20
TIME: noon
LOCATION: H313
Chemistry, Faculty of Mathematics and Science, Seminar Series
Categories: Events
Creating a device to detect prostate cancer. Determining how and why perfectionism impacts adolescent health. Understanding the process that leads to children forgetting to carry out a future intention.
These areas of interest will be pursued by three Brock University researchers thanks to a grant from the Ontario Ministry of Research, Innovation and Science.
Assistant Professor of Chemistry Feng Li is one of the three who received funding this year under the Ministry’s Early Researcher Awards program.
“These rare and prestigious awards are reserved for early-career researchers whose innovative work is recognized as crucial to the social, cultural, economic and intellectual future of Ontario,” says Brock Vice-President, Research Tim Kenyon.
“For a university of Brock’s size to receive three awards in one year is amazing and will definitely turn some heads. But it is not surprising to anyone who knows the incredible research talent that Brock has been recruiting for years.”
Li and his team of four graduate students will develop a single device that will examine blood and urine samples for the presence of certain proteins and nucleic acids that are present in the early stages of prostate cancer.
The device will give results in about an hour. Li previously created a three-dimensional, nano-sized robot that detects disease, which the new device, made out of paper, will read and interpret.
At the moment, testing for these proteins and nucleic acids is done separately and requires highly complicated, time consuming and expensive equipment and processes.
“You would use this device like you would do a pregnancy test,” he says. “You mix your samples with the 3D robot and load it onto the paper device. You would see coloured strips, just like in a pregnancy test,” says Li.
The Early Researcher Awards program enables new researchers working at publicly funded Ontario research institutions to build research teams.
Read about the other researchers’ work here
Chemistry, Faculty of Mathematics and Science
Categories: News
Department of Chemistry – Seminar Series
Arturo Orellana
York University
DATE: Friday, March 23
TIME: noon
LOCATION: H313
Chemistry, Faculty of Mathematics and Science, Seminar Series
Categories: Events
Chemistry instructor Paul Zelisko and CSL Silicones Inc. are working together to improve a chemical method involved in the production of the company’s proprietary silicone polymers used to manufacture products that insulate high-voltage insulators.
Zelisko’s research team at Brock includes a postdoc and four undergraduate and graduate students.
“We are truly pleased and privileged to have two senior PhD level researchers and the laboratory manager from the partnering company who are coaching, mentoring and engaging students in this project,” he says.
The Brock team is using specialized equipment and testing methods found within Brock labs, including matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry, viscometry, a durometer, contact angle micrometer and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy.
Zelisko began working with CSL Silicones nearly four years ago on a project funded by an Engage Grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and VIP I grant from the Ontario Centres of Excellence.
Successes from that first project laid the groundwork for the current research, which began in the fall and was funded in part by Ontario Centres of Excellence, along with CSL as its industry partner.
“It’s an exciting partnership,” says Zelisko. “They’re a wholly-owned Canadian company committed to scientific and applied research, working collaboratively with academia to improve their products, while satisfying their global client’s application needs.”
The partnership is expected to create two Brock University student co-op positions in manufacturing and scientific research.
Read the full story here
Chemistry, Faculty of Mathematics and Science
Categories: News
Department of Chemistry – Seminar Series
Maria Laura Sechi
Supervisor: Dr. Costa Metallinos
Brock University
DATE: Friday, March 16
TIME: noon
LOCATION: H313
Chemistry, Faculty of Mathematics and Science, Seminar Series
Categories: Events
Department of Chemistry – Seminar Series
Hui Peng
Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry and School of the Environment
University of Toronto
DATE: Friday, March 9
TIME: Noon
LOCATION: H313
Chemistry, Faculty of Mathematics and Science, Seminar Series
Categories: Events
Department of Chemistry – Seminar Series
Daniel Leznoff
Department of Chemistry
Simon Fraser University
DATE: Friday, Feb. 16
TIME: Noon
LOCATION: H313
Chemistry, Faculty of Mathematics and Science, Seminar Series
Categories: Events
Department of Chemistry – Seminar Series
Richard Oleschuk
Department of Chemistry
Queen’s University
DATE: Friday, Feb. 9
TIME: 12pm
LOCATION: H313
Chemistry, Faculty of Mathematics and Science, Seminar Series
Categories: Events
Faculty and staff members who have set positive examples for their colleagues were honoured by the Faculty of Mathematics and Science during Wednesday’s Celebration of Excellence. The fourth annual event, held Jan. 24 in Pond Inlet, saw awards of distinction presented for research, teaching, student experience and experiential learning.
“This awards ceremony provides us with an opportunity to gather together and acknowledge the accomplishments of our faculty and staff in front of their Math and Science family, as well as our larger Brock family,” Dean Ejaz Ahmed told the group during his remarks at the Jan. 24 event in Pond Inlet.
“Once again, we have much to celebrate and recognize. From research excellence and distinguished teachers and scholars to those who provide our students with exceptional experiential learning opportunities that further the Faculty’s mission, vision and values. I am proud of your dedication and commitment and I look forward to continuing to celebrate your accomplishments at this great event.”
Following remarks from Gary Comerford, Board of Trustees Chair, and Thomas Dunk, Provost and Vice-President, Academic, the awards portion of the event began with Associate Dean Research and Graduate Studies Cheryl McCormick serving as Master of Ceremonies.
Department of Chemistry Professor Jeffrey Atkinson received this year’s Distinguished Teaching Award – Faculty for his long and successful record of supervising students, mentoring high school seniors through Brock’s Science Mentorship Program, his involvement in the design and implementation of Brock’s first PhD program in Biotechnology as well as his outreach teaching activities through BioTalent Canada.
“During his career at Brock, Dr. Atkinson has earned a reputation for being one of our most gifted teachers,” said McCormick. “His teaching evaluations are outstanding and he routinely receives comments from students calling him an excellent professor, the best professor they’ve ever had and more equally enthusiastic and complimentary praise.”
Atkinson’s dedication to his students and their education has helped create an environment of teaching excellence within the Faculty, she said.
The Distinguished Teaching Award for Staff was captured by full-time instructor Paul Zelisko, also from the Department of Chemistry. Zelisko was recognized for his untiring dedication to education and graduate student recruitment.
McCormick noted that Zelisko has been a consistent representative of the Faculty, organizing Brock representation every year for a number of events including the McMaster University Graduate Fair, undergraduate trips to the east coast and, most notably, last year’s Graduate Studies Open House. This event, created for undergraduate students at Brock thinking of transitioning to graduate research, helped increase student engagement and was well received.
This year’s Lifetime Achievement Award – Faculty was awarded to professor Jon Radue from the Department of Computer Science, who has earned a reputation for caring deeply about many aspects of teaching and education.
A true innovator, he incorporated technology such as clickers into the classroom to further student engagement long before it was commonplace. He has been actively involved with the Centre for Pedagogical Innovation as a faculty associate and member of the Teaching Council and his work on academic integrity extends beyond the department and throughout the University.
“In the Department of Computer Science, Radue spearheaded the development of the Applied Computing minor along with many of its courses. His knowledge and dedication made him an easy choice for teaching large first-year context courses taken by a wide variety of students from all disciplines,” said McCormick.
“His passion for education, combined with his knowledge and dedication have become part of his legacy at Brock.”
The Distinguished Research Award for Faculty was presented to Henryk Fuks from the Department of Mathematics and Statistics for his excellent record of accomplishment in research, focused in the areas of mathematical modelling, complex networks as well as the history of mathematics and numismatics, the study of currency.
Along with serving on editorial boards for several prestigious journals and on scientific program committees for international conferences, Fuks also regularly receives international recognition for his research. Last August, the Royal Canadian Numismatic Society honoured him with the Guy Potter Literary Award, recognizing two of his articles which popularized the history of mathematics in the area of numismatics.
Gaynor Spencer from the Department of Biological Sciences also received the Distinguished Research Award for Faculty. Promoted to Full Professor in July, she is currently supervising three graduate students and two undergraduate thesis students in her lab.
“Gaynor has maintained high quality research productivity while providing great service to the University and research community,” said McCormick. Her longstanding history of research excellence is evidenced in part by her strong record of NSERC Discovery Grant funding, an Ontario Premier’s Research Excellence Award as well as quality, peer-reviewed publications; 38 papers, five invited reviews and four book chapters.
Additional awards distributed at the Jan. 24 celebration included:
A chemist and a parasite expert at Brock University have teamed up to produce and test out a simple device that can detect diseases from DNA samples. It’s a scaled-down version of what is normally an expensive and complicated DNA laboratory technique, yet it’s fast, inexpensive and accurate, making it ideal for use in developing countries.
Brock University Assistant Professor of Chemistry Feng Li’s device consists of a strip of paper attached onto a glass slide. The paper contains several rows of what look like thermometers, lines with markings projecting out of bulb-like circles. DNA samples are loaded onto the circles and move up the lines, much like mercury rises in a thermometer.
“Different concentrations of the genetic disease biomarkers in the samples would migrate different distances,” says Li. “So, all you need to do is read the distance they penetrate, just like you’d read a ruler.”
Known as the quantitative paper-based DNA reader, each device costs only about 10 cents. They work with a scaled-down version of a traditionally expensive and complex DNA laboratory technique.
While testing for the presence of disease markers, health-care workers use a technique called polymerase chain reaction (PCR), which makes millions of copies of a particular section of DNA. The PCR technique normally requires highly specialized equipment and expensive molecular probes. But Li’s device is able to read DNA samples through a PCR technique using simple technology and low-cost chemicals.
“This is going to be extremely useful in resource-limited settings where you don’t have a lot of facilities to interpret the results,” says Li.
One such setting is the National Autonomous University of Honduras, where Brock University Professor of Health Sciences Ana Sanchez runs an internationally-renowned research program focusing on parasites. She and her research team collected worms that had been expelled by children suspected of having soil-transmitted helminth infection, a disease affecting about 1.5 billion people worldwide and a major cause of childhood malnutrition and physical impairment.
The researchers used the quantitative paper-based DNA reader to test the worms for helminth infection. She applauds the speed and sensitivity of the device, saying that diagnostic techniques in developing countries are traditional, basic and rely on the expertise of the person observing the sample.
Sanchez says the device goes beyond just a yes or no result by measuring the amount of genetic disease biomarkers in the DNA sample.
Both Sanchez and Li say they are happy with their research partnership, which evolved from casual conversations as they worked next to one another in their labs in Brock’s Cairns Family Health and Bioscience Research Complex.
The research team’s results are in their study “Paper-Based DNA Reader for Visualized Quantification of Soil-Transmitted Helminth Infections,” published Tuesday, Jan. 16 in the journal ACS Sensors. PhD student Alex Guan Wang and master’s student Tianyu Dong are the study’s first authors.
Read the full story here
Chemistry, Faculty of Mathematics and Science, Feng Li
Categories: News
