Sediment transport in gravel-bed rivers controls the river morphology, aquatic habitat, and landscape evolution. The sediment supply together with the flow dictates the amount and texture of the supplied sediment to the channel and likely influences the transport rates, bed stability, and evolution of the bed surface. However, the previous research mainly focused on the […]

We have developed a natural product acaricide that is based on balsam fir (Abies balsamea) essential oil. The product kills overwintering ticks. It is designed to be applied to lawns, gardens and municipal parks in the late fall to kill ticks over the winter. The purpose of this project is to complete testing under semi-natural […]

The results obtained in this project will lead to new tools for the preparation of molecules of interest, possibly with biological activities. These studies will contribute to the development of new green synthetic methods using environmentally friendly catalysts. Efficient and practical synthetic methods are in high demand in the industrial and academic sectors. In particular, […]

Urbanization can have a strong impact on biodiversity. In particular, the changes in temperature, habitat fragmentation and pollution are expected to affect the species that are present in cities, both directly and indirectly via their effects on other species. In this proposal, we aim to test if certain plant reproductive strategies are favoured by urbanization. […]

Stem cells and other pluripotent cells are under active investigation for the development of new therapeutic treatments to regenerate and repair diseased and damaged tissues. Published studies indicate that some mesenchymal cells derived from adult human hair follicles exhibit stem cell properties and can form different cells types if they are given specific biological signals […]

Canola is a highly bee-attractive crop which is widely grown in Saskatchewan and commonly treated with agrochemicals, including neonictoinoid insecticides. The impact of canola production on native pollinator populations in Saskatchewan is unknown. In this Mitacs project, Sofiia will compare the abundance and diversity of wild pollinators in canola and non-canola habitats in Saskatchewan and […]

Depuis le début de la phase aiguë de la guerre russo-ukrainienne, plus de 12 millions d’Ukrainiens ont été contraints de quitter leur foyer. Plus de 4 millions d’entre eux sont partis à l’étranger, principalement dans les pays voisins. Qu’ils soient déplacés dans les régions occidentales ou vers d’autres pays, la principale préoccupation des Ukrainiens est […]

Tissue transglutaminase (TG2) is a protein that is able to mediate the cross-linking of other proteins. The unregulated activity of TG2 is implicated in fibrosis, celiac disease as well as cancer cell survival. Blocking this activity has been shown to decrease tumour size and growth in mice. We have previously designed small molecules that are […]

In many real world problems, the design process involves iterative steps with generation of candidates and evaluation of these generated candidates to evaluate their utility for the relevant task. This evaluation can be done with say expensive wet lab experiments or some computational oracles. We might want to make the best use of both of […]

This project will measure the behavioural responses in a certain fly species, ‘Ormia ochracea’, to a variety of cricket mating songs, and from geographically separated North American populations of the fly. This type of fly attacks crickets so that their larvae may feed and mature within the cricket’s body. They locate the cricket’s position by […]

Biological-system-based production of chemicals and fuels (Eg: ethanol, bio-diesel, bio-nylon, etc.) has lesser or no impact on the environment than their conventional, chemical processes But, these biofactories are not evolved to produce industrially important chemicals yet. Hence, the productivity of the desired chemical is low in an isolated biological system. Metabolic engineering modifies the metabolic […]

In cattle, energy requirements after parturition increase exponentially, primarily, due to increase in milk production. Negative energy balance hampers reproductive efficiency, inflicting heavy economic losses to dairy industry. Poor reproduction is the most important cause of culling dairy cows. Feed supplementation with vitamins improves energy balance. Also, observations in humans indicate that folic acid and […]