Thirty Faculty of Science researchers received Discovery Grants totalling more than $6.0 million, with 10 of these faculty members also receiving Discovery Launch Supplements (valued at $12,500 each). Additionally, four Science researchers received a total of more than $2.1 million in Sub-atomic Physics Discovery Grants. For a complete list of recipients, see below.

Discovery Grant (including Discovery Launch Supplements) recipients:

Andrew Donini, Department of Biology
Salt and water balance in aquatic insects
$47,000 per year for a five-year term

Gordon Fitch, Department of Biology
Tritrophic interactions in a changing world: understanding how urbanization shapes plant-pollinator-parasite interactions to influence pollinator health and pollination services
$38,000 per year for a five-year term
*Discovery Launch Supplement ($12,500)

Katalin Hudak, Department of Biology
Regulation and activity of plant ribosome inactivating protein
$48,000 per year for a five-year term

Kohitij Kar, Department of Biology
Probing the mechanisms of primate visual intelligence
$38,000 per year for a five-year term
*Discovery Launch Supplement ($12,500)

Terrance Kubiseski, Department of Biology
Regulation of Caenorhabditis elegans Stress Response
$40,000 per year for a five-year term

Raymond Kwong, Department of Biology
Understanding the homeostatic regulation and neurophysiology of essential trace metals in zebrafish
$39,000 per year for a five-year term

John McDermott, Department of Biology
Nucleolar Regulation and Function in Myogenic Cells
$48,000 per year for a five-year term

Eryn McFarlane, Department of Biology
The interplay between genetics and the environment on hybrid fitness
$29,000 per year for a five-year term
*Discovery Launch Supplement ($12,500)

Sandra Rehan, Department of Biology
Integrative genomics for pollinator health and social evolution
$65,000 per year for a five-year term

Gary Sweeney, Department of Biology
Examining cellular consequences of excess iron on skeletal muscle
$33,000 per year for a five-year term

Yongjoo Kim, Department of Chemistry
Methods to Create Mutations in Cells to Understand and Improve Protein Function
$37,000 per year for a five-year term
*Discovery Launch Supplement ($12,500)

Arturo Orellana, Department of Chemistry
Modern Approaches to Electrocyclization of Heptatrienyl Anions
$36,000 per year for a five-year term

Derek Wilson, Department of Chemistry
Advancing Hydrogen Deuterium Exchange Mass Spectrometry to Explore the Dynamic Origins of Protein (mis)Function
$36,000 per year for a five-year term

Cora Young, Department of Chemistry
Characterizing the abundance, sources, and fate of fluorinated gases in the atmosphere
$62,000 per year for a five-year term

Tao Zeng, Department of Chemistry
Theoretical studies of vibronic and spin-vibronic couplings: methodological development and applications in materials science
$36,000 per year for a five-year term

Nantel Bergeron, Department of Mathematics & Statistics
Quasisymmetric varieties, Schubert polynomials and other algebraic combinatorial systems
$27,000 per year for a five-year term

Miles Couchman, Department of Mathematics & Statistics
Turbulent mixing in stratified flows
$26,000 per year for a five-year term
*Discovery Launch Supplement ($12,500)

Ilijas Farah, Department of Mathematics & Statistics
K-theory reversing automorphisms of the Calkin algebra. Disintegration of von Neumann algebras
$48,000 per year for a five-year term

Xin Gao, Department of Mathematics & Statistics
Statistical learning methods for multi-task and network data
$27,000 per year for a five-year term

Jane Heffernan, Department of Mathematics & Statistics
Towards an immuno-epidemiological framework: Tradeoffs between biological detail and mathematical complexity
$31,000 per year for a five-year term

Paul Skoufranis, Department of Mathematics & Statistics
Linearization in Bi-Free Probability
$24,000 per year for a five-year term

Jianhong Wu, Department of Mathematics & Statistics
Delay Differential Equations: Theory of Global Dynamics with Applications to Public Health of Zoonotic Diseases
$60,000 per year for a five-year term

Kaiqiong Zhao, Department of Mathematics & Statistics
Novel statistical methods for complex data-enabled learning and causal discovery
$23,000 per year for a five-year term
*Discovery Launch Supplement ($12,500)

Scott Beattie, Department of Physics & Astronomy
Optical Frequency Combs and Atomic Clocks for Frequency and Time Metrology
$19,900 per year for a five-year term
*Discovery Launch Supplement ($12,500)

Charles-Eduoard Boukaré, Department of Physics & Astronomy
Solidification Dynamics of Rocky Planets Interiors
$28,500 per year for a five-year term
*Discovery Launch Supplement ($12,500)

Eric Hessels, Department of Physics & Astronomy
Tests of Fundamental Physics Using Atoms and Molecules
$61,000 per year for a five-year term

Matthew Johnson, Department of Physics & Astronomy
Fundamental Physics from Microwave Background Secondary Anisotropies and Quantum Simulation of Vacuum Decay
$75,000 per year for a five-year term

Rahul Kannan, Department of Physics & Astronomy
Modelling high redshift structure formation and reionization
$39,000 per year for a five-year term
*Discovery Launch Supplement ($12,500)

Adam Muzzin, Department of Physics & Astronomy
Resolving Galaxy Growth with Canadian-Built Astronomical Instrumentation
$50,000 per year for a five-year term

Paul Scholz, Department of Physics & Astronomy
Revealing the nature of Fast Radio Bursts and unlocking their potential as probes of the Universe
$33,000 per year for a five-year term
*Discovery Launch Supplement ($12,500)

Sub-atomic Physics Discovery Grant recipients:

Nikita Blinov, Department of Physics & Astronomy
Three Directions Toward the Discovery of Dark Matter
$55,000 per year for a five-year term

Deborah Harris, Department of Physics & Astronomy
Paving the way for Neutrino Oscillation Measurements at DUNE
$300,000 per year for a three-year term

Eric Hessels, Department of Physics & Astronomy
Probing PeV-scale physics: Measuring the electron electric dipole moment using barium monofluoride embedded in an argon solid
$165,000 per year for a three-year term

Randy Lewis, Department of Physics & Astronomy
Lattice gauge theory on classical and quantum computers
$90,000 per year for a five-year term

Read the about all of the 91��ɫ recipients.

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Congratulations to Professor Mark Bayfield, Department of Biology, for receiving more than $920,000 from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) for the project “Regulation of gene expression by the La and La-related proteins.” He was one of at 91��ɫ to receive funding in the latest CIHR Project Grants competition – a program that supports a variety of health-related research initiatives from initial discovery to practical application.

The La and La-related proteins (LARPs) are a family of RNA-binding factors that play fundamental roles in cellular processes linked to human health. When DNA is transcribed into messenger RNAs (mRNAs) that are then translated into proteins, the La and LARPs have important functions to make sure this happens correctly. When they are not working properly though, problems can happen. The dysregulation of La and LARP function has been linked extensively to cancer and infection by viruses; but details on how this happens are thin.

In his project, Bayfield aims to identify the genes that rely on La and LARPs as well the ways in which these proteins control gene expression. His team plans to expand on their previous work studying these proteins in human cells and simple organisms like fission yeast and ciliates. Their research will aim to advance the understanding of the roles of La and LARPs in causing diseases and how human cells respond to stress, ultimately leading to substantial new understanding for many challenges to human health.

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