By Heidi Loney Established in June 1951, the Canadian Institute of Food Science & Technology (CIFST) arose from the recommendations of the National Research Council Committee on Food Preservation, which was formed during the Second World War. The committee recognized food technology as an identifiable science and saw a need for trained people in the secondary handling and processing of …
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An inventory of multicellular species helping preserve and protect life on Earth
Photos courtesy of the University of Guelph Can we establish a global bio-surveillance system? Can we avert a planetary mass extinction? Helping to answer these and other large-scale questions about life on Earth is the goal of Bioscan, a project awarded $24 million in federal funding this past January according to a University of Guelph news article.Led by Paul Hebert, …
Read More »Ag-West Bio: A catalyst and connector for Saskatchewan’s bioscience industry
Sponsored Content Are you building an agri-food business in Saskatchewan,looking for connections, training or support? We can help! Are you an investor looking for opportunities in the agri-food sector?Learn what Saskatchewan has to offer by contacting Ag-West Bio. We grow biobusiness in Saskatchewan What’s special about Saskatchewan?Saskatchewan is home to one of the most vibrant bioscience innovation clusters in Canada, …
Read More »The National Microbiology Laboratory: Tracking and researching the world’s deadliest pathogens
By Sean Tarry The past couple of years have been disruptive and chaotic, to say the least. Communities all over the world have been impacted by the COVID-19 global pandemic, changing the way we do things, share information, and communicate with one another.For scientists working in laboratories that specialize in researching and tracking infectious diseases, it’s been a time that …
Read More »Saskatchewan scientist becomes first Canadian to win fellowship in UK’s Royal Astronomical Society
Last fall, the sun spewed a violent mass of fast-moving plasma into space that came crashing into the planet’s magnetosphere, igniting the sky with shimmering coils of dramatic colour – a light show we know as the Aurora Borealis. And as lovely as the sight was, the event could have been far worse. In 1989, a similar geomagnetic storm caused …
Read More »The Trackers: Keeping tabs on Canada’s wildlife
At the University of British Columbia, there’s a study that offers new evidence that protected natural areas promote mammal diversity. Researchers at UBC’s Faculty of Forestry analyzed data from a global data set drawing from 8,671 camera trap stations spanning four continents, the largest number of wildlife cameras ever analyzed in a single study.They found more mammal diversity in survey …
Read More »From the willow: A medicine that transcends time
It goes as far back as the Assyrians who documented the use of willow leaves for rheumatic inflammation on stone tablets during the Sumerian period, around 2000 BCE. They found that willow leaves and bark reduced fevers and inflammation. Willows naturally produce salicylic acid in response to stress and to help fight against bacterial infection. It’s an anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial …
Read More »Searching for the needle in a haystack: Exploring chemical structures in natural products
By Jana Manolakos Joy Cummings Photo UNB Resolute is one way to describe Christopher Gray. A member of the Natural Products Research Group and Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of New Brunswick (UNB), Gray is on a relentless, lifelong search for new molecules, that in the distant future, might hold the key to new therapeutic drugs. He’s searching …
Read More »Prairies to Pharmacy
By TREVOR KENNEY Southern Alberta’s vast prairies can often harsh be and unforgiving. Windswept and prone to temperature extremes of 35 C during baked dry summer months and -35 C in the bone-chilling winter, its landscape is still surprisingly rich in flora, producing an array of hearty plants that are just now being recognized for their unique properties of medical …
Read More »When one becomes four: A lifesaving, simple solution to the ventilator shortage
By JANA MANOLAKOS In the face of a critical shortage of ventilators during the COVID-19 pandemic, a team of physicians and engineers from the University of Calgary have developed an award-winning device that safely increases available machines at a low cost.The Valence InVent Xtend allows a single ventilator to provide air for up to four patients, with the capability of …
Read More »With diabetes on the rise, meet two Canadian research teams looking for answers in nature
By Jana Manolakos There’s no sugarcoating it. Diabetes is growing at an alarming rate in Canada, afflicting one in three Canadians. It’s particularly worrisome for Canada’s First Nations and Inuit populations, where rates of diabetes on some reserves are three to five times higher than the general population.In the face of this threat, two leading Canadian scientists and their teams …
Read More »The power of plants to ‘grow’ low-cost, high value drugs
By Jana Manolakos While medicines have been extracted from plants for centuries, plants and plant cell systems today can be genetically engineered to serve as drug-producing factories for a range of antibodies and other protein-based therapeutics and vaccines.At the forefront stands Canadian biopharmaceutical company PlantForm, which is harnessing plants for cost-effective therapeutic drugs for cancer and other life-threatening conditions — …
Read More »The Booming Business of Pot Research
Ongoing research into cannabis in the public sector, coupled with both the emergence of large cannabis corporations and a newfound interest in the power of cannabinoids within the pharmaceuticals sector, is increasingly translating into exciting research that aims to close the gap between the many anecdotal uses for medical cannabis and what the science shows. And plenty are interested in …
Read More »Nature’s Pharmacy: Ongoing research unlocking and changing the secrets of cannabis
By Kieran Delamont The cannabis plant, even today, offers us a pathway into a world of mysteries and questions. Thousands of years of both formal and informal human use, much of it set against a backdrop of prohibition, has caused the plant to evolve from a naturally occurring landrace shrub in central Asia to what it has become today: an …
Read More »A trailblazing marine biologist
Emily Choy is the first female Explorer-in-Residence for the Royal Canadian Geographical Society.
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An inventory of multicellular species helping preserve and protect life on Earth
Photos courtesy of the University of Guelph Can we establish a global bio-surveillance system? Can …
Read More » -
Searching for the needle in a haystack: Exploring chemical structures in natural products
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DNA barcoding critical in tracking and understanding new fungal skin infections
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Farming smarter
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The burning question: How to build better batteries
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The National Microbiology Laboratory: Tracking and researching the world’s deadliest pathogens
By Sean Tarry The past couple of years have been disruptive and chaotic, to say …
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Prairies to Pharmacy
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The power of plants to ‘grow’ low-cost, high value drugs
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University of Toronto startup Winterlight Labs detects early signs of brain disorders in the way we speak
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Sanofi leads in Canada’s vaccine race