UNews - team member

iGEM team celebrates North American Regional victory

trevor.kenney — Mon, 07 Oct 2013 21:10:49 +0000

The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge has further cemented its reputation as a leader in the teaching and research of synthetic biology by capturing first place at the 2013 North American iGEM Regional Jamboree in Toronto, Ont. this past weekend.

The competition, held at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Toronto, featured teams from across Canada and the United States. The U of L team of Dustin Smith, Graeme Glaister, Jenna Friedt, Suneet Kharey, Harland Brandon and Zak Stinson will now move on to the international competition, which will be held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston, Mass. Nov. 1-4.

“This certainly shows that bioengineering research and the aggressive approach we’ve taken to study this field is working at the U of L, and that the RNA Institute is playing a key role in both enabling research and training students,” says Dr. H.J. Wieden, director of the Alberta RNA (Ribonucleic acid) Research and Training Institute (ARRTI) at the U of L, the Innovates Centre of Research Excellence (iCORE) Chair of Bioengineering and faculty advisor for the U of L’s iGEM teams. “The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ is poised to continue to be at the forefront of this emerging field.”

The U of L team’s project includes developing a bioengineering part that compresses genetic information – essentially working like a zip drive. Every gene needs DNA, but there is only so much DNA that will fit in a cell. This novel part may allow future bioengineers more flexibility in their work.

Additionally, the U of L team developed software that quickly determines what DNA is compatible to compress together.

“Each year we are also tasked with exploring the social implications of our project. Our team sought to ensure that our part could not be misused to hide dangerous genes,” says team member Harland Brandon (BSc’13), a first-year master’s student and Winston Churchill High School graduate. “We hypothesized that our part could be used to hide dangerous sequences, such as Ricin or Ebola, from gene synthesis companies. We then took it a step further and actually consulted with gene synthesis companies, U of L Risk and Safety Services and even a representative from the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI). Not only do we see our project benefitting the field, but we found through our critical analysis that the potential for misuse is not possible.”

In addition to winning the overall Regional Overgrad award, the U of L also claimed the award for best Wiki (website explaining their project).

iGEM is the premier competition for young scientists interested in the emerging field of synthetic biology, which is quickly leading to new discoveries that will diversify key economic sectors such as pharmaceutical, agriculture, medical diagnostics, clean energy and resource extraction. It also facilitates scientific research and education by establishing and operating the Registry of Standard Biological Parts, a community collection of open source biological components.

The organization promotes the advancement of science and education by developing an international open community of students and practitioners in schools, laboratories, research institutes and industry.

Earlier this year, a team of Lethbridge high school students was awarded the coveted Green Brick grand prize at iGEM’s High School Jamboree.

Pronghorns women's rugby team kicks off season

trevor.kenney — Fri, 20 Sep 2013 17:49:55 +0000

For the first time since 2007, the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Pronghorns women’s rugby team enters the Canada West season as the hunter and not the hunted after seeing their reign of six consecutive conference championships snapped in 2012.

The ‘Horns will not have a home game until the Canada West Championships and will play all four of their conference games on the road, starting this weekend with a trip to the west coast to face the Victoria Vikes and UBC Thunderbirds.

In addition to losing their conference crown, the ‘Horns also had their 22-game conference winning streak snapped in the process, losing to the Calgary Dinos 31-18 during the regular season. It was the Dinos who also put an end to the ‘Horns' reign as conference champions, beating the U of L 33-32 in a thrilling Canada West semifinal.

Heading into the 2013 season, the ‘Horns will need to fill some key holes left by the departure of five-time Canada West all-star Brandi Van Eeuwen, fly half Laura Murphy-Burke, scrum half Alex Hendricks and heart and soul leader Kendra Reeves. Despite these departures, the cupboard is far from bare with the return of 2013 Canada U20 members Sarah Gordon and Ashley Delaney. Add in team captain Jillian Ankutowicz, Kim Leavitt, Tiffany Wideen and Lindsey Duxbury, and the leadership group will be solid.

Newcomers Allison Toews and Lisa Hildebrand have also impressed early for the ‘Horns.

The ‘Horns' first opponent, the Victoria Vikes, will look to rebound from last season’s winless campaign and welcome a fresh, elite group of recruits to the fold. The Vikes boast 15 new members, 11 of whom competed provincially this past summer.

The UBC Thunderbirds enter the 2013 Canada West women’s rugby season with a new coach in Maria Gallo, who is working to replicate the success she enjoyed as a player at both Guelph ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ and ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Alberta. The former national team member won three CIS championships and was named the CIS Most Valuable Player in 2002.

Gallo takes over a relatively young squad that returns most of its players from last season, which ended with a loss in the Canada West bronze medal game. There are no fifth-year seniors on the roster, but there is a large group of third- and fourth-year players who will provide leadership.

The Canada West Championships will be hosted by the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge, Oct. 18-20 at the
U of L Community Sports Stadium.

Horns Soccer Debuts in Ghana

trevor.kenney — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 20:35:12 +0000

The players might be a bit small, but their enthusiasm and dedication to the sport of soccer showed recently as Calgarian Yenukwa Kombian, a third-year U of L student and men's soccer team member, returned to his native Ghana to spend some time with children who shared his passion for sport.

This is the fourth year in a row that the men's soccer team has outfitted children with soccer gear in countries around the world.

Are you Moodle ready?

trevor.kenney — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 16:48:54 +0000

Now that Moodle is here to stay on campus, you may need some pointers on how to get the most out of your Moodle experience. Moodleanswers.com is a tutorial website created to help instructors and students find their way around the Moodle learning environment.

The site contains tutorials that show instructors how to add resources and activities, post grades, and even how to customize the look of Moodle pages. Each of the tutorials contain screen captures, written instructions and in some cases video demonstrations that walk you, step-by-step, through a Moodle process. The site is a great resource if you need help when a Moodle team member is not available for consultation.

Students are also welcomed to come learn about Moodle on moodleanswers.com. Tutorials for students include helping them with the log-on process, submitting assignments and even participating in forums. Instructors are encouraged to send their students to the site for a crash course in Moodling.

Finally, the site offers users a way to seek help that may not be fully explained. A section entitled, Need More Answers, provides users with a friendly environment to submit a help request to the Moodle support team. This page identifies you as a user, what issues you are requesting help with, your contact information and then notifies multiple members of the Moodle support team. Your request will likely be addressed in a 24-hour period once it is submitted.

Happy Moodling!

Geography students take city hall

trevor.kenney — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 20:54:13 +0000

A team of Geography students recently received a high-profile lesson in public affairs by presenting their research to Lethbridge City Council.

As part of an Applied Studies project, five students from Gary Weikum's Geography 2535 Introduction to Planning and Geography 4500 Sustainability Issues in Planning classes spent the academic year conducting research on the sources and quantity of greenhouse gases produced by the corporate operations of the City of Lethbridge.

Craig Wiebe fields media questions with support from (l to r) Jordan Vine, Leo Chow, Andrew Malcolm and their instructor, Gary Weikum. Missing from the photo is Nicole Gergely. All students are in their third or fourth year of study.

Weikum, a sessional instructor at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ and former city planner, introduced the project to the student group as a means to complement their classroom knowledge with hands-on experience. He says the students demonstrated their commitment to the project and desire to promote the management of greenhouse gases even after the course was complete by presenting their findings to city council and discussing greenhouse gas issues with the media.

"This was a great opportunity for the group to put their knowledge to action and theory to practice by preparing a professional report for a real client," says Weikum. "The students can now go back to the classroom with an enhanced perspective and better context for classroom instruction."

Weikum adds that the project also benefits the students as they are exposed to potential work situations that may be available after graduation.

"The key elements acquired by the students include; the ability to manage large projects with firm deadlines, work in a team environment, and build successful relationships with a client," says Weikum. "They also participated in several workshops to examine their preferred working styles, and strengths and weaknesses of the project management component. These insights will help them refine their career plans."

Craig Wiebe, a team member who intends to pursue a master's degree following graduation next year, says the project will help him should he continue on as a community planner.

"Gary deliberately structured the project to be similar to one of the many projects he had worked on as a planner for the City of Lethbridge," says Wiebe. "He even included a presentation to council, which is common in projects that planners work on. Working on this project as a team, with the amount of
external data sources and research that we needed to collect and analyze gave us all important work experience. Members of our project team have already found employers to be keenly interested in the experience that we gained."

Weikum said that with the success of this project, he plans to initiate further client-based ventures that relate classroom study to community issues.

The student group conducted an extensive review of all City of Lethbridge operations to assess the level of the city's greenhouse gas emissions. The final report is expected to be used by city council and administration for future planning.

The students found that overall, city operations produce more than 130,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents from such activities as heating and lighting buildings, providing transit service, road maintenance, etc. It was discovered that the city-owned landfills (one operating site and two closed sites) account for more than 80,000 tonnes of the total. It was also noted that half of the electrical and gas demand for the wastewater treatment plant is supplied by the combustion of methane gas produced from municipal sewage.

"The most surprising item we discovered during our research were the enormous amounts of greenhouse gases – in this case, mostly methane – being emitted by the city's three landfills," says Wiebe. "Much of the methane emissions are produced by paper and cardboard, which can conveniently be taken to recycling centres throughout the city."

Wiebe says that landfills were included in the corporate survey, as they are the city's responsibility, but their share of greenhouse gas emissions is disproportionately high in their report, because the entire community contributes to the emissions.

"A community survey would likely find both transportation and landfills to be leading sources of greenhouse gas emissions," he says.

While the quantity of greenhouse gases produced by Lethbridge municipal operations are similar to other prairie cities that were benchmarked, the students were able to make several recommendations for future planning to reduce the amount of equivalent CO2 emissions. The recommendations included more detailed studies, public consultation and input into community greenhouse gas reduction and other similar suggestions.

This story first appeared in the Legend. To view the Legend in a flipbook format, follow this link.

Horns benefit from Langevin's stature

trevor.kenney — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 19:39:32 +0000

The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge boasts some of the country's most distinguished researchers, professors who bring worldly knowledge to their classrooms on a daily basis.

The quality of the U of L experience doesn't end in the classroom however, as the campus is also home to one of the most accomplished coaches the country has to offer in women's rugby boss Neil Langevin (BA/BEd '91, MEd '10). The former head coach of Canada's National Senior Women's Rugby Team has been away from the national program for five years but Rugby Canada saw fit to make him an offer he couldn't refuse recently, and Langevin is once again back in the fold.

Toby Boulet (left), team manager, and Neil Langevin, head coach, have made the Horns women's rugby program a national power.

"I thought it was a great opportunity to get back involved at the national level but not at the commitment level that I had been involved with the senior team," says Langevin, who will take over the women's U20 program for what he describes as an open-ended tenure. At the very least, he is committed to working with the program through five regional evaluation camps this spring and summer and leading the squad when it participates in a summer international tournament in California.

"Helping identify and develop potential national senior players and potential Olympians is exciting," says Langevin. "The prospect of an international tournament this summer and the opportunity to work with potential Olympic sevens athletes was too much to turn down."

Sevens rugby is being added to the 2016 Olympic schedule and Rugby Canada wanted experienced coaches working with its junior players in preparation for their graduation to the senior level.

Langevin's credentials are unparalleled. The only head coach in Pronghorns women's rugby history, he has led the Horns to five consecutive Canada West titles and won three consecutive CIS championships from 2007 to 2009. It's no accident that elite players seek out the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge and the opportunity to play for Langevin. To that end, he says the Horns are restocked and ready to take another run at a national title in the fall, after failing to medal at last year's CIS championship tournament.

"We've been really active in terms of recruiting," says Langevin. "I think we've got about 10 players confirmed for next year already, including some pretty high profile locals who are with the junior national program."

And while last year's squad fell short of extending the program's national title run, he was quick to point to how close his injury-depleted squad came to defending its three straight crowns.

"To be really honest, we were only seven points and two minutes away from going to the final with a very beat up team," he says, referring to a tight semifinal loss to Concordia Stingers. "Knowing that and the incoming recruiting class, I'm pretty confident in saying this team will be competitive for the next five years."

It has been a good offseason for Horns rugby on the whole. In addition to Langevin's appointment and a strong recruiting class, two more Horns were named to senior national teams. Both Kelsey Willoughby and Brittany Orr earned senior national team appointments with the Canadian Sevens squad, joining erstwhile national team member and former Pronghorn Ashley Patzer.

"We're really proud of those athletes," says Langevin. "The number is six now that have gone on to the senior national program over the years, either in the sevens or the 15s, and I think it's a testament to the girls who come into our program and take to the environment we have in training."

Golden effort for U of L iGEM team

trevor.kenney — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 17:14:31 +0000

A group of ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Chemistry/Biochemistry and Neuroscience students returned from a recent international genetically-engineered machines (iGEM) conference at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston, MA as gold medalists and with a new appreciation for teamwork, inventiveness and taking chances.

The iGEM competition is regarded as the premier undergraduate synthetic biology competition in the World. Student teams are given a kit of biological parts – called 'BioBricks' – at the beginning of the summer from the Registry of Standard Biological Parts. Working at their own schools, they use these parts, along with new parts of their own design, to build biological systems. They then operate these systems in living cells.

The 8-person U of L team worked on harvesting solar energy by refining what was termed a 'bio-battery', focusing on a type of bacteria called a cyanobacteria (also known as blue-green algae) that has photosynthetic properties when exposed to sunlight.

"My iGEM experience, or my introduction to synthetic biology, began and ended with a bang," says team member Megan Torry.

"The competition was intriguing because it introduced me to a future that we cannot grasp. We have no idea of the vast number of possibilities of where the world will take us, and our future decisions regarding change. There does not seem to be an academic program that is as multi-disciplinary as iGEM. People from numerous backgrounds can come together and offer the team different perspectives and skills, further making it a ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge goal to get more students involved."

The U of L iGEM team was one of the few composed mainly of
undergraduate students, and competed against more than 100 university teams to finish with a gold medal standing, one of 48 groups to achieve that mark.
They share their iGEM Gold Medal standing with such heavyweight universities as Stanford, Tokyo, Osaka, Johns Hopkins, Paris, and Cambridge, among others. They even outdid the incomparable Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) itself.

Team supervisor Dr. Hans-Joachim Wieden says the team did a tremendous job of making their project not only work, but also be complete enough to have other teams take an interest in their research.

"The team constructed some functional biobricks by successfully using synthetic biology to engineer an organism. We also furthered knowledge within the synthetic biology community and helped other teams with their projects. This is a lot of work, which the students take on in their spare time."

Torry and the others didn't seem to mind the time commitment or the complexity of their project. As successful as the project ultimately was, changes and chances were the order of the day to make the project work.

"Throughout the summer our project was forced to change as our team took chances again and again, and consequently were wrong, again and again. It was good that we were all too stubborn to stop showing up. I realized that being a risk taker and taking chances will expand synthetic biology because it will lead to the development of new ideas. I would suggest that anyone interested should take a chance with iGEM," says Torry.

"I have a BSc in Neuroscience, but iGEM allowed me to come to a conclusion that there are numerous novel lab procedures to expand my personal skills.

"I had to learn all of these new lab procedures, and I had to ask a lot of questions, interact, present, travel, write and develop myself over the last eight months. I was successful on a personal level because I was able to expand my talents, discover talent within myself, and see it in those working around me."

The iGEM project has evolved to become a credit course, and there is now scholarship money available for travel. As well, the group developed a business plan to further take advantage of any ideas that come out of the iGEM process.

UNews - team member

iGEM team celebrates North American Regional victory

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