UNews - Hannah Scott

U of L research propelled by Mitacs Accelerate grant

caroline.zentner — Thu, 27 Jan 2022 22:32:07 +0000

Increased leveraging opportunity now available for small to medium enterprises

��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge researchers will help quantify the fuel load in Alberta forests affected by the mountain pine beetle, thanks to a Mitacs Accelerate grant in partnership with fRI Research worth $180,000.

Pine beetle study will help guide forest management

Drs. Laura Chasmer and Chris Hopkinson, professors in the Department of Geography and Environment, have partnered with fRI Research, an Alberta-based, not-for-profit organization that that conducts research to improve land and resource management, to collaborate on the creation of a 3-D map to illustrate the distribution of fire fuels in Jasper National Park. Using data from terrestrial and airborne LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) scans, two interns, Dr. Zhouxin Xi, a post-doctoral fellow, and Saeid Parsian, a graduate student, will work on the project for two years, with half of their stipend being paid by Mitacs.

“We’re looking at the impact of mountain pine beetle on the vertical and horizontal distribution of fuels for wildfire,” says Chasmer. “This is, of course, of significant interest to Jasper National Park and Parks Canada and especially to the town of Jasper. It allows us to figure out where the fuels are in the landscape and which areas they need to manage or remove those fuels so they can reduce the impact of wildfire.”

Western Canadians don’t have to look very far to be reminded of what wildfire can do. The Kenow Wildfire swept through Waterton Lakes National Park in 2017 and the Lytton Creek Wildfire, which destroyed the Town of Lytton, illustrates how destructive fires can be to communities within the wildland-urban interface.

“In the last 20 to 30 years, wildfires have basically doubled in area,” says Chasmer. “And in the next 20 years, they’re expected to double again. So the combination of things like mountain pine beetle, which is expanding in range because of warming winters and longer, warmer and drier summers, and droughts is making the landscape extremely susceptible to fire. Combine that with 100 years of a colonial type of fire suppression within these national parks and along the eastern slopes and it is a concern that needs to be addressed by fire managers.”

Chasmer says the study will also help demonstrate that prescribed fires and thinning of trees to burn off detritus in a highly managed way is a very important way to reduce the fuels.

“The public, in the past and until now, have not been highly supportive of prescribed burns, because people are worried the fire may become too difficult to manage,” says Chasmer. “Prescribed burns are applied under very controlled conditions to reduce the potential for spread to unintended areas. This is the best way to manage fuels for wildfire and the potential for fires in the future.”

“The work that Laura is leading in Jasper National Park is an evolution of our gradual expansion of our research activity in the eastern slopes,” says Hopkinson. “There are multiple research initiatives and partners and the projects are all intertwined.”

Their research has included surveys all along the eastern slopes, including Waterton Lakes, the Castle Mountain area and Banff. Partners include Alberta Environment and Parks, NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council), Canada Wildfire, Western Economic Diversification Canada, Aries Aviation International and Teledyne Optech.

Mitacs Accelerate grants

Mitacs is a national non-profit organization that works to support collaborations between academia and industry. The Accelerate program is designed to assist companies in hiring interns for a minimum of four months for a $15,000 stipend.

“It allows us to help a company bring on an intern for a period of time and Mitacs typically covers half of that intern’s stipend,” says Hannah Scott, Mitacs business development specialist at the U of L. “From there, as long as the project is longer than four months, we can make a project of nearly any size.”

In the past couple of years, Mitacs has expanded programming and eligibility and Scott hopes to set up more collaborations between the U of L and community partners.

“The really exciting thing is that we have an increased leveraging opportunity for small to medium enterprises (SMEs),” says Scott. “Instead of covering 50 per cent of the intern’s stipend, this lets us cover 75 per cent of the stipend costs for any company with fewer than 500 employees. We’re really excited about this and there are a lot of potential partners in the area that could make use of it.”

Mitacs also offers the Business Strategy Internship innovation program for companies working on new and novel ideas that don’t necessarily involve research. The combination of programs offered by Mitacs provides a wide-playing field.

“Mitacs can work with any sector and any department on campus,” says Scott. “We can work with any for-profit company, eligible not-for-profits, hospitals and municipalities and with students at any level.”

The increased leveraging opportunity is only available for project applications submitted before March 1. For more information, contact Scott by email at hscott@mitacs.ca.

Researchers find potential new diagnostic tool to help pregnant women at risk

caroline.zentner — Wed, 13 Jan 2021 18:38:42 +0000

Collaborative effort between the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge, and other Alberta universities has identified a new technique to help identify women at risk of metabolic disorders

Between three and 20 per cent of pregnant women in Canada develop gestational diabetes mellitus, or GDM, and the health of both the mother and her developing child can be negatively affected if left untreated.

Hannah Scott

A study by researchers at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge, in collaboration with the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Calgary and the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Alberta, has identified a technique that may one day help health-care professionals identify women at risk of developing GDM early in their pregnancy. Their study, Metabolic dysfunction in pregnancy, was recently published by Wiley.

Hannah Scott (BSc '17), a master’s student at the U of L's Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience, wanted to know if specific biomarkers could identify a pregnant woman’s risk for obesity and GDM. She and her team obtained urine samples collected through the Alberta Pregnancy Outcomes and Nutrition (APrON) study. This long-term study, directed by researchers at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Calgary, involves thousands of women from Calgary and Edmonton and is designed to analyze the relationship between pregnant women’s nutrition, their mental health and the health and development of their children. Dr. Brenda Leung, a U of L associate professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences, was involved in starting APrON 10 years ago as a doctoral student at the U of C and she continues to be involved as an investigator. Leung facilitated the collaboration between APrON and the U of L research team.

“We examined these samples for biomarkers of risk using proton nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy,” says Scott. “What we were looking for was a profile, or you can think of it as a metabolite fingerprint, associated with the diseases or the later development of the diseases.”

The urine samples were taken before the development of GDM. By using NMR, the researchers could identify the women who were obese, those who later developed GDM and those who were part of the control group. This study shows it’s possible to predict if a woman will develop GDM based on a urine sample taken before any symptoms appear.

Dr. Gerlinde Metz

“We’ve established that those groups have unique urinary fingerprints or profiles that distinguish them,” says Tony Montina (BSc ’08, MSc ’10), NMR facility manager. “Something chemically or biochemically is different between them and we can accurately detect these differences.”

Using urine analysis for metabolomics is a relatively new field of research; most previous studies have used blood samples. The goal of studies like this one is to create diagnostic tests that can catch diseases early or even before they begin.

“There’s a huge trend now for predictive, personalized medicine and diagnostics,” says Dr. Gerlinde Metz, a professor at the Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience. “There is a lot of hype around NMR because, not only is it less expensive than other methods, it’s also more accessible.”

Gestational diabetes presents short- and long-term risks to both mother and child. Having a non-invasive diagnostic test available would allow for early intervention through lifestyle recommendations and dietary changes.

Dr. Nicole Letourneau

“This paper shows the best kind of collaborative work where you have outstanding researchers at the U of C, U of A and U of L collaborating to do great work with clinical impacts,” says Dr. Nicole Letourneau, APrON team leader and professor in the U of C’s Faculty of Nursing. “The fact we might be able to predict who develops gestational diabetes mellitus before they do and before we start to see impacts on mom’s health and the child’s fetal development and health outcomes, has tremendous clinical implications. That we in Alberta have collaborated to do that kind of work says a lot about APrON and the quality of people we have here in the province.”

The APrON Study was established by a $5 million grant from Alberta Innovates. This paper was made possible thanks to a grant from Alberta Health Services’ Diabetes, Obesity and Nutrition Strategic Clinical Network.

Summer students share their research and win prizes

caroline.zentner — Fri, 21 Aug 2015 21:53:06 +0000

The annual Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience Summer Student Symposium had 19 students present their research, covering topics as varied as facial detection using artificial retinas and the effects of maternal inflammation and prenatal stress on offspring behaviour.

First place, and a U of L Bookstore gift card worth $100, went to Marko Ilievski for his presentation on the exploration of face detection with the use of artificial retinas.

Rachael Chan captured second place, and a bookstore gift card worth $50, with her presentation on the impact of shipping stress on behavioural testing in rodent models.

Third place, which also came with a bookstore gift card valued at $50, went to Zach Wanner for his presentation titled ‘Establishing a collection process for in vivo metabolomics.’ Metabolomics can be defined as the study of the unique chemical fingerprints that specific cellular processes leave behind.

Hannah Scott earned an honorable mention for her presentation on the mechanisms that promote stress resilience across generations.

“Congratulations to all participants of the Summer Student Symposium for giving great presentations and special congratulations to the winners,” says Dr. Artur Luczak, one of the symposium organizers.

Photos of the winners and a list of all the presentations can be found on the symposium webpage.

UNews - Hannah Scott

U of L research propelled by Mitacs Accelerate grant

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