As an important medicinal plant, Cannabis sativa produces bioactive molecules that provide symptom relief for conditions such as severe cancer pain, nausea and vomiting associated with chemotherapy. The cannabinoid biosynthetic pathway that generates bioactive molecules has been studied for over a decade. However, understanding of transcriptional regulators that control cannabinoid synthesis is fairly limited. The […]

Healthy and productive coastal regions are highly important to Canada, both socio-economically and for the ecosystem services they provide. In 2015, the Vancouver Aquarium launched a new coast-wide initiative in British Columbia (PollutionTracker) to assess coastal health by generating high quality contaminant data for mussels and nearshore sediments. In the proposed study, Dr. Gabriela Aguirre-Martinez […]

On the coast of British Columbia, both eelgrass meadows and Pacific salmon species are declining, yet eelgrass community dynamics and reliance of juvenile salmon on these communities are poorly understood. We will assemble the first large-scale dataset from monitoring efforts of coastal BC organizations in order to assess eelgrass community diversity and structure across environmental […]

Immunovaccine Inc. is developing immune therapies for cancer using the company’s DepoVaxTM vaccine technology. DepoVax is a patented formulation provides controlled and prolonged exposure of antigens and adjuvants to the immune system, resulting in a strong, specific and sustained immune response. Immunovaccine’s translational research team is focused on improving responses in advanced cancers by combining […]

Traditional research microscopy tools are entirely adequate for conventional static analysis, however, the evaluation of more complex dynamic cellular processes require unconventional methods of acquiring, displaying, and rendering dynamic data. Autophagy occurs when some of a cell’s cytoplasm, referred as cargo, is enclosed by a membrane to form an autophagosome in order to be degraded […]

Humpback whales show remarkable recovery after the impacts of commercial whaling, and their consumption of essential food resources could affect local herring and salmon populations. Little is known about the feeding ecology of humpback whales in BC waters, despite their increasing importance to fisheries and tourism. Both humpback whales and fish are vulnerable to prey […]

It is critical for consumers to be assured that Natural Health supplements being purchased commercially are of high quality and contain the ingredients as listed on labels. For regulatory agencies to make such assurances, it is important that third-party product testing be carried out to identify the presence of the appropriate botanicals and their active […]

Evaluating the impact of multiple stressors on aquatic ecosystems often requires robust biodiversity estimates. Traditional methods for sampling fish communities are very costly, may have a significant share of inaccuracy and require specialized taxonomic expertise and have numerous other inherent limitations. The general objective of our proposed project is: • to develop and validate genomic […]

Symbiotic EnviroTek Inc, in collaboration with the University of Calgary is undertaking a research project that will pilot and validate the efficacy and robustness of algae as a wastewater treatment technology and demonstrate a new business model for municipal wastewater infrastructure. The project provides a unique opportunity to optimize system performance in a pilot scale […]

The goal of this project is to develop management targets for grassland songbirds on native rangelands in western Saskatchewan. This research will identify grassland conditions required by priority species and examine how these differ between species and throughout prairie regions with very different soil and moisture conditions. Because native rangelands that are used for forage […]