UNews - Neuroscience

��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge researchers awarded federal research grants worth more than $3 million

caroline.zentner — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 21:50:59 +0000

��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge researchers are among the successful applicants for federal grants announced by The Honourable Mélanie Joly, Minister of Industry and Minister responsible for Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions, and the Honourable Marjorie Michel, Minister of Health.

The more than $1.3 billion in funding supports over 9,700 researchers and research projects in Canada through the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).

“From brain plasticity and the mechanism of low-dose radiation to supporting newcomers through mentoring, these grants illustrate the diversity of research being done at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge,” says Dr. Dena McMartin, vice-president of research. “This funding not only helps established researchers continue their work but also helps our early career researchers build their research programs. Ultimately, our students benefit with increased opportunities to engage in research throughout their post-secondary careers.”

In total, ULethbridge received funding from NSERC for nine Discovery Grants and two Discovery Development Grants. The Discovery Grants will bring in nearly $475,000 a year for the next five years. The research projects include the following:

Dr. Gerlinde Metz (Neuroscience) will receive $96,000 per year for a study looking at the social determinants of experience-dependent brain plasticity.
Dr. Stacey Wetmore (Chemistry & Biochemistry) will receive $89,000 per year for a project involving computer modelling of modified RNA.
Dr. Olga Kovalchuk (Biological Sciences) was awarded $55,000 annually to study the fundamental mechanisms of low-dose radiation.
Dr. Borries Demeler (Chemistry & Biochemistry) is set to receive $47,000 yearly for solution studies of interacting biopolymer systems.
Dr. Hadi Kharaghani (Mathematics & Computer Science) will receive $32,000 a year for his project on special orthogonal matrices.

The remainder of the NSERC recipients are four early career researchers, each of whom received a Discovery Launch Supplement of $12,500 in addition to their Discovery Grant.

Dr. Corina Birghila (Mathematics & Computer Science) was awarded a yearly amount of $31,000 for a project titled Optimal Decision under Uncertainty.
Dr. Jessica Willi (Chemistry & Biochemistry) will receive $44,000 annually for a project on ribosome functions through synthetic biology.
Dr. Vineet Rathod (Chemistry & Biochemistry) will receive $38,000 annually to examine the structure-function relationship of natural and engineered amyloid proteins.
Dr. Dylan Girodat (Chemistry & Biochemistry) will receive $42,000 per year for a project on the structural dynamics of ribosomes during translation.

In addition, Discovery Development Grants, worth $22,000 each, were awarded to Drs. Christopher Hopkinson (Geography & Environment) and Marc Bomhof (Kinesiology and Physical Education).

Hopkinson will use remote sensing to model vegetation and snowpack response to wildland fire in headwater basins.
Bomhof intends to look at the interplay between exercise and dietary factors on appetite regulation.

ULethbridge social science and humanities researchers were awarded $645,000 in SSHRC Insight Grants.

Dr. Daniel O'Donnell (English) will work on a project involving Research Data Management and Research Data Infrastructure by humanities researchers.
Dr. Scott Rathwell (Kinesiology) wants to enhance sport participation, promote physical activity and improve health outcomes for aging adults by establishing a framework for effective sport programming in middle-aged and older adults.

Several ULethbridge researchers are the recipients of Insight Development Grants totalling more than $291,000.

Dr. Toupey Luft (Education) has designed a project to address the gap in understanding how arts-based mentorship may enhance a sense of belonging for newcomer young adults.
Dr. Kenneth Holyoke’s (Geography & Environment) project investigates the nature and scope of climate impacts on the Wolastoqiyik and Wabanaki archaeological record in New Brunswick.
Dr. Justin Raycraft’s (Anthropology) objective in this project is to increase understanding of the social dimensions of human-carnivore coexistence in the Tarangire ecosystem of northern Tanzania.
Dr. Jeffrey MacCormack (Education) will develop a professional development intervention consisting of a community of practice for teachers and principals where they learn evidence-based practices to support students with profound and multiple disabilities.
Dr. Miranda Leibel (Liberal Education) will examine how the creation and maintenance of postal services are an important component of Canadian state- and nation-building.

U of L neuroscientist earns election to the Royal Society of Canada

trevor.kenney — Tue, 07 Sep 2021 16:05:54 +0000

Acknowledging a lifelong career with exceptional contributions to the field of neuroscience, the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge’s Dr. Robert Sutherland, Board of Governors Research Chair, Chair of the Department of Neuroscience and Director of the Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience (CCBN), has been elected to the Royal Society of Canada (RSC).

Dr. Robert Sutherland's work revolutionized the understanding of how the hippocampus is involved in the storage of new memories.

“It’s absolutely thrilling and it’s really gratifying to know there are colleagues who have been working at the highest level in Canada who recognize our contributions and voted to elect me into fellowship,” says Sutherland. “It’s a tremendous honour and I think it’s also an acknowledgement the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge is a mature research-intensive institution that can hold its own in many areas. It’s a great tribute to all the people who put in efforts to create a neuroscience program, and that includes undergraduate students.”

Sutherland began studying neuroscience before it was a recognized field and he has watched it grow over the years. In the 1970s when he was starting his post-secondary studies, neuroscience courses were typically found in psychology departments.

“It’s been very exciting to be with the area of neuroscience from its inception all the way to now,” he says. “It’s been fantastic, a really good ride.”

Following the completion of his PhD at Dalhousie ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ in Halifax, Sutherland joined the U of L as a post-doctoral fellow under Drs. Bryan Kolb and Ian Whishaw. His key focus was on developing better ways to measure memory in non-human animals. He devised methods that are now used by drug companies and laboratories around the world.

Wanting to expand his skill set and work with students at all levels, Sutherland then took a position at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of New Mexico. There, he was able to work with students from undergraduate to PhD levels and post-doctoral fellows. During that time, he developed a theory of long-term memory that impacted the field and began focusing on understanding the role of the hippocampus in long-term memory. While scientists generally thought the hippocampus was only briefly involved in the storage of new memories, Sutherland’s work has shown the hippocampus continues to be engaged during memory recall.

He returned to the U of L as a senior Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research scientist when the CCBN building opened in 2001 and the U of L became home to the first Department of Neuroscience in Canada to offer degrees at the bachelor’s, master’s and PhD levels.

“I also morphed my research from purely normal aging to pathological aging and then to Alzheimer’s disease, bringing along the methods and theoretical perspectives I’d acquired over the years,” he says. “Now, in my lab, I’d say half of the work we’re doing is directly related to understanding Alzheimer’s type dementia.”

Sutherland’s election will be formally recognized at the Royal Society’s meeting at McGill ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ in November. Notably, he’ll become the fourth member of the Department of Neuroscience to receive the honour, along with Drs. Bruce McNaughton, Ian Whishaw and Bryan Kolb.

For more, see this profile.

Healthy futures

trevor.kenney — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 21:29:19 +0000

Why do some women go into premature labour?

��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge neuroscientist Dr. Gerlinde Metz has been searching for the answer for nearly a decade. Today, she is deepening her exploration with help from a new research grant, an international team of investigators and numerous student researchers at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge.

Originally from Germany, Metz came to Canada purposely to conduct her research at the U of L's acclaimed Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience (CCBN). An expert on the physiology of stress, Metz is now a principal researcher at the CCBN, a professor in the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ's Department of Neuroscience and a Senior Scholar of Alberta Innovates - Health Solutions (AIHS).

Metz is also a co-investigator on a new project that will examine various aspects of preterm birth. Led by ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Alberta researcher Dr. David Olson, the international group received more than $1 million in funding this fall from the Global Alliance to Prevent Prematurity and Stillbirth (GAPPS). An initiative of Seattle Children's, GAPPS supports innovative research and interventions to improve maternal, newborn and child health around the world.

Dr. Gerlinde Metz and her student research team are helping to solve the issues of tomorrow.

Characterized by a gestational period lasting less than 37 completed weeks, a preterm birth is the most frequent cause of infant death and is a global health problem, according to a study released earlier this year by the United Nations, the World Health Organization, March of Dimes and Save the Children. In 2010, for example, approximately 15 million babies were born prematurely worldwide – and more than a million of those infants died. Survivors, meanwhile, can face a range of health issues, including cerebral palsy, developmental delay, and vision and hearing impairment.

While most premature babies are born in south Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, preterm births also occur in developed regions. In fact, Alberta has Canada's highest provincial rate for premature births, accounting for about nine per cent of babies.

That being the case, says Metz, it's fitting that her latest project involves two researchers from the province. Both Metz and Olson are members of the Preterm Birth and Healthy Outcomes Team, an interdisciplinary group of AIHS-funded researchers, who are advancing our understanding of premature labour.

"There are several steps that collectively cause labour to take place, but in a preterm birth situation, they start much earlier, and with significantly more risk to the mother and baby," Metz explains. "It's a complex problem that is surrounded by mystery. In half of all cases of preterm birth, there is no known cause, and in all cases, it is difficult to prevent preterm birth."

Metz has been studying the causes of preterm birth for nearly a decade.

Working with her CCBN colleagues and a team of determined student researchers, Metz used laboratory rats to develop an animal model of spontaneous preterm birth. The goal: to learn more about the physiological factors behind the event, especially hormones.

"What we have learned so far is that there's a cascading effect which starts with an inflammation – or what the body thinks is an inflammation. This triggers white blood cells to go into defensive mode," she explains. "Members of our team have discovered that where there is a risk of preterm birth, the white blood cells respond differently to some type of change in the body. We will be looking at how to identify and reduce this inflammatory trigger."

To that end, she found that maternal stress experienced by one generation can affect the risk of preterm birth among offspring well into the future.

"This means that our focus isn't just on prenatal stress anymore," Metz says. "We're now looking at health and disease across generations."

Student researchers have played a key role in driving Metz's research forward. In addition to postdoctoral fellows, undergraduate and graduate students – as well as a particularly ambitious high school student – work with Metz in the lab. There, the students are learning the intricacies of academic research by handling a variety of responsibilities, such as developing ways to measure maternal health among rats.

"The students are putting together a puzzle," says Metz. "They are helping to solve the issues of tomorrow."

And their work is paying off. "The support we have received will advance our ability to hopefully change a large-scale health problem," she says. "It's really exciting for me, my colleagues at the CCBN and our students to be able to play a part. This is foundational research that could change how people generations from now live."

With the GAPPS funding through the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Alberta, Metz will work with Canadian, Australian and Chinese researchers to explore four areas of study. First, the team aims to identify factors that lead to preterm birth. This information, in turn, will be used to help predict who is at greatest risk of the phenomenon. Next, the researchers intend to create new therapies to prolong pregnancy and prevent preterm birth. Specifically, Metz will test the effectiveness of peptides or molecules made up of amino acids.

Finally, the researchers hope to secure additional funding down the road in order to improve newborn health. The objective is to develop inexpensive and easily accessible tools for the early detection of preterm birth and treatments to delay it from happening. Both innovations are especially needed in low- and middle-income countries.

"Ultimately," Metz says, "we want to support healthy mothers and babies."

This story first appeared in the Fall 2012 issue of SAM. For a look at the full issue in a flipbook format, follow this link.

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��Ѹ�����Դ���߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge researchers awarded federal research grants worth more than $3 million

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