The evolving resistance of pathogenic (bad) bacteria to antibiotics is already causing a large number of illnesses and deaths not only in Canada but throughout the world. Countries are calling desperately for new drugs to address these bacteria that are becoming untreatable by current drugs. Viotika Life Sciences has identified a new platform of drugs […]

Peregrine falcons (Falco peregrinus) and rough-legged hawks (Buteo lagops) breed throughout the Canadian Arctic. Several monitoring programs were established in the 1970’s and 1980’s to evaluate the recovery of these and other raptors following the banning of DDT. DDT is a pesticide that was once widely used, but resulted in severe population declines in many […]

Most of the drugs used to treat cancer have been originally identified from natural sources. While Nature did a great job selecting those compounds, some of them have shown limitations in the treatment of cancer and others have shown to be insufficient on some cancer types. Furthermore, it exists a gigantic number (nearly infinite) of […]

Rangelands store carbon, regulate water, and conserve biodiversity. This research will study the effect of cattle grazing on wet meadow rangelands and their soils. Specifically, this project will measure the effect of changes in plants on soil nematodes. Soil nematodes are important in the cycling of nutrients and carbon and help sustain soil health. We […]

Cannabis production requires highly manipulated, sterile growing conditions for optimum yields and product quality. However, plant performance, and in particular plant biosynthesis of metabolites such as cannabinoids, terpenes and alkaloids, depends on beneficial plant/microbial interactions. This project aims to develop a cannabis-specific bioinoculant of beneficial microbes to improve production yield and metabolic profile. We will […]

The Suncor/McMaster partnership is generating a pipeline of novel, green, agricultural chemicals to be applied as crop sprays. The proposed collaboration will expand the application of the sprays to various crop species in both greenhouse and field settings and contribute to the understanding of the mode of action of the active ingredients.

The Fraser River watershed, British Columbia provides habitat for Chinook salmon, which delivers food for First Nations, recreational anglers, commercial fisheries and endangered Southern Resident killer whales. Extensive forestry, agricultural, industrial and urban activities take place in the Fraser Valley exposing early life history stages of Chinook to a mix of legacy and new contaminants, […]

The presence of newly identified or emerging contaminants (ECs) in bodies of water is of growing concern for the health and safety of humans and the environment. These undesirable organic compounds range from endocrine disruptors and pharmaceuticals to personal care products, pesticides, and fertilizers. The existing wastewater treatment plants lack adequate infrastructure for removing these […]

Solar cells are an incredible source of renewable energy. As with all technologies, though, they should be cheap, easy to adopt, and smart. Dye-Sensitized Solar cells are solar cells that are not only highly effective at creating energy from the sun but are also capable of being adopted into homes in new and unique ways. […]

BOLD-100 is a promising new clinical stage therapeutic, originally developed for the use as a cancer treatment. The mechanism of action for BOLD-100 suggests that this therapeutic might also protect against infections with viruses, including coronaviruses like SARS-COV-19. The purpose of this project is to test the antiviral efficacy of BOLD-100 against SARS·COV-19 in 20 […]

Narwhals are an iconic ice-associated species that are seasonably distributed across much of the Canadian archipelago that are also of immense cultural importance to the Inuit First Nations. While narwhal are highly adapted to their sea-ice environments, their susceptibility to the stresses of a changing climate and increased human activity in the area are a […]

The research project will find optimal conditions for instrument-free, fast, and sensitive/specific detection of pathogen (COVID-19). The project is composed in two units(IU), each module within IU is offering independent technical solution for the current bottleneck in diagnostics industry. The first module is temperature-based denaturation of biological sample, coupled with nucleic acid-based detection (IU1). The […]