The CRC program is a major investment by the federal government (up to $300 million+ per year) to attract and retain world-class talent at Canadian universities. The program also provides training opportunities for the next generation of highly skilled personnel through research, teaching and learning.

Jeffrey Schall

Schall鈥檚 research aims to further understand the complexities of the brain and how it enables decision-making processes for actions and experiences: how people decide what to do, how people control when they do it and how people know if they did what they meant to do. Insights from Schall鈥檚 research could improve the diagnosis and treatment of neurological conditions like dementia and schizophrenia.

Joel Zylberberg

Zylberberg and his research team train artificial intelligence (AI) to see and respond to images in the same way as the human brain. By teaching AI to process visual information like the brain鈥檚 visual cortex, deep learning algorithms could lead to the creation of devices that help visually impaired or blind people see again, in addition to potentially advancing technology for self-driving cars.

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Congratulations to Professor and Canada Research Chair Peter Backx, Department of Biology, for receiving nearly $750,000 from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Project Grant Program, for his project 鈥淯nderstanding the Causes of Atrial Fibrillation.鈥� The program is designed to fund ideas with the greatest potential to advance health-related fundamental or applied knowledge, health research, health care, health systems, and/or health outcomes.

Backx鈥檚 project will explore how atrial stretch is involved in promoting atrial fibrillation, the most common cardiac arrhythmia, affecting one to two per cent of the population.

鈥淎trial fibrillation creates a huge socio-economic burden as it increases the risk of stroke and heart failure, but the causes are still unclear and complex,鈥� says Backx. 鈥淢ost incidences are linked to aging and poor cardiovascular health, including obesity, metabolic syndrome and heart failure, but not all. But exercise can both reduce the risk of atrial fibrillation and, in the case of endurance athletes, increase the risk substantially. A common feature of all conditions leading to atrial fibrillation is high blood pressure in veins, called venous filling pressure which causes atria to stretch."

Regardless of cause, the atria of these patients show fibrosis, hypertrophy and inflammation, which Backx and his team have linked to the critical inflammatory factor referred to as TNF. Because the activation of TNF is driven by stretch, the team will examine the mechanisms whereby stretch activates TNF and the effect of TNF inhibitors.

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Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Faculty of Science mathematics and statistics Professor Jianhong Wu has been working non-stop with both federal and provincial agencies and a National Modelling Task Force to project the spread of the disease and its variants throughout the country 鈥� a testament to both his expertise and 91亚色鈥檚 leadership in mathematical modelling.

Wu, a Distinguished Research Professor at 91亚色, is one of Canada鈥檚 most prolific researchers for publications in COVID-19 and mathematical modelling and joins several other 91亚色 faculty members who helped lead the way with research in the area (SciVal, 2021).

It鈥檚 nothing new to Wu, who is . He was tasked in 2003 with leading a national network of mathematicians and researchers to model the path of SARS-1. In 2020, the Fields Institute asked him to organize a national modelling Task Force for COVID-19, and he responded to the call by simply reactivating and expanding the network.

鈥淥ver the last two decades, my research time has been spent on establishing and leading national teams from one pandemic to another,鈥� says Wu, whose work focused on big data and neural networks prior to the SARS outbreak.

Sitting on multiple provincial, national and international panels, Wu is also a member of the Ontario Modelling Consensus Table that builds consensus 鈥� using research results of multiple modelling teams from across Ontario universities 鈥� about the projected COVID-19 cases and the disease burden on the health system under a range of intervention scenarios. This consensus has been providing critical data to inform the government鈥檚 policy about closures and re-openings: how to do so and how quickly to do so. By integrating mathematical modelling and stochastic optimization, Wu鈥檚 group suggested optimal pathways and likely scenarios for escalating or de-escalating social distancing, and estimated the costs and benefits of each 鈥� factoring in economics and mental health.

鈥淔rom SARS-1 onward, we鈥檝e been working with a variety of stakeholders on collecting data of population contacts, drug resistance, vaccine efficacies, waning and vaccination priorities, and health-care system,鈥� Wu says. 鈥淭he data quality and accessibility has been much improved in Ontario this time, as well as the co-ordination of efforts from different research groups. Each of these modelling teams has a different collection of expertise and that helps cross-validation, which is important when the disease moves so fast and our knowledge about the disease advances fast.鈥�

Wu鈥檚 group has also incorporated artificial intelligence into its work, facilitating the real-time processing of 鈥渢he huge amount of data to identify vulnerable populations and hot spots.鈥�

鈥淎I and Mathematics don鈥檛 have emotion, and they allow us to think several steps ahead,鈥� says Wu, 鈥渂ut with the disease moving so fast, it has been a challenge to convince the decision makers to take a proactive approach rather than being reactive, and, unfortunately, sometimes with a delay.鈥�

Being at the forefront of pandemic modelling isn鈥檛 something Wu anticipated when he arrived at 91亚色. Born in China, he came to Canada to pursue post-doctoral research in Alberta with an international expert in mathematical biology. He joined 91亚色鈥檚 Department of Mathematics and Statistics in 1990 and became the nation鈥檚 youngest Senior Canada Research Chair in 2001. Some of his ongoing research concerns the impact of Lyme disease. He is working to predict the tick-borne infection risk worldwide and looking at how its trajectory is being affected by global warming. In 2017, he was awarded the , and has been leading a large 91亚色-Sanofi collaboration to evaluate the cost and benefits of various immunization programs.

His research interest includes big data and informational analytics, and he is the funding co-chair for a major global conference on this topic.

鈥淒uring peaceful times, it鈥檚 my hobby,鈥� he says.

However, these aren鈥檛 peaceful times and COVID-19 is currently a priority. Wu鈥檚 stellar work serves to demonstrate 91亚色鈥檚 impact on COVID modelling, which will continue to support efforts for future outbreaks and pandemics, COVID-19 related or otherwise.

鈥淒uring a pandemic like this, our theories confront reality,鈥� Wu says 鈥� and big data analytics is a part of his tool kit.

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NSERC/SANOFI INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH CHAIR

In 2018, a $2.6-million NSERC/Sanofi Industrial Research Chair in Vaccine Mathematics, Modelling and Manufacturing was awarded to Distinguished Research Professor Jianhong Wu in the Department of Mathematics & Statistics. Sanofi Pasteur invested $1.5 million over five years; the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) provided $1 million through its Industrial Research Chair program; and the remainder was contributed by 91亚色 through various supports.

The focus of the research program is to develop mathematical techniques to identify populations most susceptible to infectious diseases and enable manufacturers to produce cost-effective vaccines that can be deployed quickly.

ENDOWED CHAIRS

The Faculty of Science is home to three endowed research chairs.

MCLAUGHLIN RESEARCH CHAIR

The McLaughlin Research Chair, funded by a $1 million donation from the McLaughlin Foundation, supports world-class life sciences research within the Faculty of Science at 91亚色.

The Chair is held by Biology Professor John McDermott. McDermott focuses on the mechanisms that cause a simple cell to become more specialized. This work is primarily undertaken using cardiac, skeletal and smooth muscle cells and neurons as model systems, and it is aimed at understanding the role of specialized proteins that bind to DNA to orchestrate gene expression. Professor McDermott is particularly interested in studying the basic regulatory mechanisms involved in muscle cellular differentiation.

GUY WARWICK ROGERS CHAIR IN CHEMISTRY

The Rogers Chair was created as an endowment fund with a donation from Mrs. Mary Rogers in 1988, in memory of her late husband, Guy Warwick Rogers, to support faculty research in the Department of Chemistry.

The Chair is held by Professor Cora Young. Young conducts research on environmental chemistry, using state-of-the-science analytical techniques to characterize chemicals, their sources, and their fates in the environment. Her primary area of interest is in atmospheric analytical chemistry, particularly in understanding how the atmosphere interacts with the terrestrial and oceanic environment, how contaminants are transported through the atmosphere, and the mechanisms and chemical drivers of partitioning.

ALLAN I. CARSWELL CHAIR FOR THE PUBLIC UNDERSTANDING OF ASTRONOMY

The Allan I. Carswell Chair for the Public Understanding of Astronomy is funded by a $3-million investment made in partnership with the Carswell Family Foundation. The Chair is dedicated to science engagement and outreach, and it benefits students and the public through education and activities.

The Chair is held by Professor Adam Muzzin, whose research interests are in the study of galaxy formation through observations of distant galaxies. 聽He is the Principal Investigator of the MINERVA survey, a large James Webb Space Telescope Treasury Program designed to find the most distant galaxies and search for the first stars to form in the universe. 聽He is also Project Scientist of GIRMOS, a state-of-the-art adaptive optics instrument being built in Canada and designed to map galaxy formation at cosmic noon with unprecedented spatial and spectral resolution. 聽Professor Muzzin is particularly proud of the junior scientists working with him and playing key roles in realizing these projects.

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