Backgrounder
August 27, 2008
STRENGTHENING ONTARIO’S INNOVATION ECONOMY
Funding world-class research is part of Ontario’s plan to build an innovation economy.
Ontario’s universities, colleges, hospitals and research institutes play a vital role in the government’s five-point plan to ensure Ontario remains at the forefront of the global knowledge-based economy by supporting cutting-edge research and developing world-class researchers.
The Early Researcher Awards program (ERA) helps promising, recently-appointed Ontario researchers build their research teams of graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, research assistants and associates. The goal of the program is to improve Ontario’s ability to attract and retain the best and brightest research talent from around the world.
Across the province, this investment will provide cutting-edge research opportunities for as many as 225 graduate students and post-doctorate researchers, and the engagement of as many as 6,700 high school students each year, giving them an inside look at real research and inspiring them to consider a career in science and technology.
The ERA program is a key part of Ontario’s Innovation Agenda. Supported by close to $3 billion in spending over eight years, the Ontario Innovation Agenda is building Ontario’s innovation economy on the strength of our province’s creative environment, diverse culture, highly skilled workforce, world-class educational system and internationally recognized research community.
EARLY RESEARCHER AWARDS RECIPIENTS IN THE GREATER TORONTO AREA
Advanced Manufacturing
Dr. Krishnan Venkatakrishnan
Ryerson University
Nanofabrication Using Ultrashort Laser Pulses
Dr. Krishnan Venkatakrishan and his team’s research on ultrashort laser processing will allow microelectronics and microelectrochemical systems manufacturers to physically alter device features during high-volume production. This will increase performance and boost production of semiconductor devices, passive electronic components and circuitry, high density interconnect circuit boards and advanced semiconductor packaging. This research will develop advanced technology involving both fundamental and applied research, providing hands-on training in marketable skills.
Dr. Bo Tan
Ryerson University
Laser micro/nano Manufacturing
In markets driven by the miniaturization in electronics, photonics and biomedical devices, new manufacturing techniques are necessary to realize the potential of micro- and nano-technology and their application to manufacturing. Dr. Bo Tan and her team’s short pulse laser fabrication research has the potential to replace the existing production techniques for certain applications with a method that yields lower costs, a more straightforward approach and higher production throughput, helping Ontario remain competitive in these areas.
Dr. Michael John Gruninger
University of Toronto
Self-Correcting Intelligent Manufacturing
One form of intelligent manufacturing involves the implementation of information systems that act in anticipation of future problems, needs, or changes of the user. This is often done using radio frequency identification technology to process and transmit data about objects as they pass through the various manufacturing stages. By analyzing data and events in real-time, objects become self-directing, processes become self-managing, and the supply chain becomes self-correcting. Dr. Gruninger and his research team will focus on specifying the manufacturing process knowledge that must be encoded on tags, and perform the automated reasoning using the knowledge encoded on the tags.
Clean Energy/Environment
Dr. Radhakrishnan Mahadevan
University of Toronto
Systems Biology and Microbial Fuel Cells
Microbial fuel cells are a promising technology to address environmental clean-up and energy generation issues. The current biological catalysts used in microbial fuel cells have low electricity generation rates. Dr. Radhakrishnan Mahadevan and his research team will develop, through computer modelling and bio-engineering, a community of different species of micro-organisms that can be used to generate electricity at higher rates, enabling their use in practical applications with higher power demands.
Dr. Olivera Kesler
University of Toronto
Building Better Solid Oxide Fuel Cells
Solid oxide fuel cells are the most efficient energy conversion devices and can use multiple fuels, but high costs and limited lifetimes prevent their widespread use. Dr. Olivera Kesler's research will lower solid oxide fuel cell cost by replacing more expensive ceramic materials with inexpensive stainless steel as their main structural component. As steels can oxidize at operating temperatures, Dr. Kesler and her team will seek to gain an understanding of the oxidation behaviour and to use that knowledge along with chromium protection coating methods to develop strategies for preventing the degradation of stainless steel in the fuel cells.
Biotechnology/Health
Dr. Peter Cheung
University Health Network
Understanding Gene Regulation in Normal and Cancer Cells
The human genome project estimated that each cell has about 30,000 genes. However, not all of these genes are active in a given cell type. Keeping the right genes on and off is critical since disruption of the proper balance of gene expression will lead to diseases such as cancer. Dr. Peter Cheung and his research team are working to learn more about the regulation of genes by the packaging of deoxyribonucleic acid around histone proteins. It focuses on the molecule that removes chemical “tags” from histone proteins to turn on specific genes. This molecule has been implicated in prostate cancer and may ultimately constitute a new target for developing anticancer drugs.
Dr. Tom Chau
Bloorview Kids Rehab
“Body talk”: Technologies for Voiceless Communication
Due to a lack of supporting technologies, many cognitively intact individuals with severe and multiple physical disabilities cannot interact with their world or communicate with the people around them. Without speech or movement, these individuals still have some natural body responses, which can convey their intentions. Dr. Tom Chau and his research team propose to measure many different signals from the bodies of children with severe disabilities and to search for hidden patterns which reflect their intentions. Dr. Chau and his team will then develop hardware and software systems to automatically detect those subtle patterns, allowing the child to communicate through thoughts or “body talk”.
Dr. Mona Rafik Loutfy
The New Women's College Hospital
Anti-HIV Therapy for Women
Women constitute the fastest rising group at risk for HIV in Ontario. Until recently, women have been underrepresented in HIV research. Dr. Mona Loutfy and her research team will look at how anti-HIV therapy and its side effects differ between women and men. Managing side effects is one of the most important issues in HIV treatment. Understanding the differences in side effects in HIV-positive women is critical and has yet to be evaluated within a large group.
Dr. Catriona M. Steele
Toronto Rehabilitation Institute
Swallowing Safety and Stroke Rehabilitation
Dysphagia, swallowing impairment, may affect those who have been affected by stroke or a neurodegenerative disease and is a significant health concern for Ontario. Thin liquids such as water become unsafe to swallow due to the high risk of airway invasion. The tongue plays a critical role in swallowing, generating pressures that transport material through the mouth and throat. These pressures must be closely matched to a liquid’s viscosity for safe swallowing. Dr. Catriona Steele and her research team will show how the accuracy of viscosity perception depends on tongue motor skill and how a program of tongue motor skill rehabilitation can improve viscosity perception accuracy and swallowing safety.
Dr. James Robert Carlyle
Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
Improving our Understanding of Disease Immunity
Innate immunity is our first line of defence against disease. Natural killer cells are innate immune cells that detect and destroy undesirable entities, such as infected and cancerous cells. Dr. Carlyle has discovered a molecular interaction that mediates a new form of immune recognition between natural killer cells and their targets. The team will study how natural killer cells use this system to distinguish between healthy and abnormal cells, and how infections can overcome this defence strategy. Their work will improve our understanding of human resistance to cancer, infection, and transplantation and provide a foundation for the development of therapies and vaccine strategies.
Dr. Michael P. Scheid
York University
Finding New Starting Points for Cancer Treatment
Cancer is a disease where the body’s tissue begins to grow and spread inappropriately. Dr. Michael Scheid's research focuses on a group of enzymes involved in the signalling process that regulate cell functions, including the function which determines whether or not to initiate cell death. Dr. Scheid and his team have discovered a new mechanism of enzyme regulation which could be critical for developing new types of cancer treatment.
Dr. Kari Lee Hoffman
York University
From Perception to Memory and Back Again
Dr. Kari Lee Hofflam's research seeks to understand the relationship between ‘bottom-up’ or stimulus-driven neural activity, and ‘top-down’ memory-driven activity. Dr. Hoffman's team will ask which nerve cells are recruited to encode new stimuli, such as the faces of individuals, how newly encoded patterns are transformed into memory, and how different patterns of activity can alter perception. The research is expected to reveal the mechanisms underlying perception and memory formation, as well as pathologies involving excessive synchrony, such as epilepsy.
Dr. Douglas S. Lee
University Health Network
Predicting and Providing Treatment for Heart Failure
Heart failure occurs when the pump function of the heart is weakened or when the heart becomes stiff and relaxation of the heart becomes impaired. A significant number of Canadians will develop heart failure in the future. Patients with heart failure often seek care in the emergency department. Dr. Steele's research team will develop instruments to identify heart failure patients in the emergency department who are at high risk of death, repeated visits to the emergency room, or hospitalization.
Dr. Christopher Sushil Parshuram
The Hospital for Sick Children
Treating Critically Ill Patients in Ontario
Dr. Parshuram's research seeks to improve current systems and reduce error in treating critically ill patients. His bedside system identifies at-risk patients, permitting timely access to the Intensive Care Unit. Fatigue may impair the performance of healthcare practitioners and prevent the delivery of effective care. Dr. Parshuram’s research team is evaluating methods to reduce fatigue and improve performance through better scheduling of frontline doctors. His safety-focused research program measures key patient outcomes and provides a strong training environment. This research will improve the treatment of critically ill patients in Ontario.
Dr. Stephane Angers
University of Toronto
Molecular mechanisms for Cell Health
Cellular proteins have a limited lifetime as cells destroy their proteins on a regular basis to remain healthy and stable. Enzymes called ubiquitin ligases control the recognition and destruction of proteins in the cell. Several diseases, including cancer, have been linked to the inability of cells to destroy their protein. Dr. Stephane Angers and his research team will work to understand this process, leading to the design of better treatments for disease, and improved quality of life in Ontario.
Dr. Asher Damon Cutter
University of Toronto
How General are Genetic Pathways?
This research will determine whether different species of nematodes, or roundworms, use the same sets of genes to allow them to develop resistance to environmental stress. Nematodes cause major damage to crops, and are difficult to control due to their stress-resistance. Scientists are also interested in these nematode genes because their interaction closely resembles that of human genes linked to diseases like diabetes and Alzheimer’s. Dr. Asher Cutter and his research team will work to determine how these genes differ across species and how this could lead to better pest management and therapies for human diseases.
Information and Communications Technologies
Dr. David Juen Fung Lie
University of Toronto
Securing Computing Systems with Virtual Machine Monitors
Businesses and individuals rely heavily on computers to perform security-sensitive tasks. Computer security breaches have cost businesses significant amounts of money and statistics indicate that computer security is a great concern for even the average computer user. Dr. David Lie and his research team aim to improve the security of computing systems by enhancing software at layers below the operating system to implement defences that cannot be circumvented or disabled by attackers. Securing computer systems in this way will prevent security breaches and reduce lost time and money and increase privacy, thus enabling computing to further benefit security-sensitive areas such as health care and critical infrastructure management.
Dr. Ashvin Goel
University of Toronto
An Integrated Approach Towards Client Computer Security
The continued growth of the Internet is limited by the fact that it cannot be fully trusted for critical tasks such as online banking and healthcare, despite many organizations working hard to make their online services secure. Dr. Ashvin Goel and his research team will investigate this issue and provide comprehensive solutions that can be applied to existing client computers to make Internet use safe and more secure.
Fundamental Research
Dr. Wendy J. Taylor
York University
Capturing Particle Physics Data
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva, Switzerland will be the highest energy particle physics facility for decades. This facility offers enormous discovery potential, including the elusive Higgs Boson particle, believed to give mass to all matter in the Universe. In 2015, its proton beam luminosity will be increased by a factor of ten. This change requires significant detector upgrades using technologies capable of handling the higher event rates and radiation doses. Dr. Wendy Taylor's team will develop the low-noise, radiation-tolerant readout electronics for the replacement inner tracking detector necessary to capture the discovery potential of the facility.
Dr. Andrew Stephen Toms
York University
Classifying C*-Algebras
A fundamental goal in mathematics is to classify various objects, often by means of an invariant, an identification tag which carries the essential structure of the original object. Dr. Andrew Tom's research team will focus on the classification of C*-algebras, specifically non-simple C*-algebras. This class of objects has its roots in quantum mechanics, and touches much of modern mathematics including group theory, geometry, and dynamics.
Dr. Cody Howard Storry
York University
Comparing Matter and Anti-matter
Antihydrogen is the simplest atom made entirely of antimatter and consists of one antielectron bound to one antiproton. Dr. Cody Storry's research group will model antihydrogen and trap it. This will allow them to compare antihydroden’s atomic structure to that of hydrogen and provide the first direct comparison between matter and antimatter atoms as well as a strong test of fundamental symmetries in nature. Positronium is the bound atomic state of one electron and one antielectron. Dr. Storry and his team will compare measurements of the energy level structure in positronium to the best theoretical predictions and provide a strong test of quantum electro-dynamic theory.
Dr. Yanqin Wu
University of Toronto
Planet Formation: Perspectives from the Outer Solar System
Does planet formation around other stars start from largely the same conditions and reach largely the same outcomes as those in our own solar system? Modern technological advances have allowed us to examine these issues by giving us a view of other solar systems where planet formation is ongoing, as well as the deep icy space called the outer solar system. Dr. Yanqin Qu and her research team will try to interpret these exciting and sometimes complex views to try and answer the ancient question: is our solar system unique in the universe?
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