Dr. Jayne Elizabeth Yack
Understanding and Controlling the Destructive Wood-boring Beetle
 
Destructive wood-boring beetles such as the emerald ash borer and mountain pine beetle impose significant threats to forests and urban landscapes throughout North America.  Management strategists rely heavily upon knowledge of pest species' life history attributes and sensory ecology to develop effective control programs.  Dr. Jayne Yack's research team will explore bioacoustic communication in these pests by identifying novel sensory organs and assessing the role of sounds and vibrations in host tree selection, reproduction, defence, and spacing patterns. This research will contribute to improved pest management strategies.

Dr. Mads Kaern
Control of Gene Expression in Synthetic Gene Regulatory Networks
 
Precise control of gene expression is critical to all living organisms, but our understanding of the mechanisms that enable this control remains limited. Dr. Mads Kaern and his research team will combine advanced genetic engineering and mathematical modeling to shed new light on regulatory mechanisms in complex biomolecular interaction networks. This research will allow biomedical scientists to build more reliable models of gene dysregulation in disease and help bioengineers to develop improved biotechnologies with the aim of improving human health.

Dr. Hanan Anis
Medical Imaging Technology for the Study of Deep Tissue
 
Dr. Hanan Anis has developed an affordable optical imaging technology to probe the behaviour and response of biological matter including tissues. Existing technology cannot perform real-time imaging of live tissue in its natural biological state. Dr. Anis and his research team will work to extend the capabilities of the technology to enable real-time in-vivo imaging of deep tissue. This affordable technology will increase the productivity of a broad spectrum of multi-disciplinary fields that rely on real-time, high resolution imaging.

Dr. Ramesh Balasubramaniam
Timing in the Body’s Motor Behaviour
 
Many people in Ontario suffer physical movement impairment due to neurological damage. Despite significant developments in neuro-imaging, mapping the relationship between brain structure and movement disorders has proven difficult. Dr. Ramesh Balasubramaniam and his research team will use new experimental methods and computational tools to understand how brain damage causes functional movement impairment. The knowledge gained will pave the way for innovative rehabilitation technologies that will serve Ontarians recovering from the effects of stroke.

Dr. Natalie Kazumi Goto
Understand Bacterial Cell Division
 
Bacteria divide symmetrically at the cell mid-point to produce two equal-sized cells, but how do bacteria know where the middle is? Dr. Natalie Goto’s research team will focus on one of the proteins important for this "middle-finding" function. This will improve the understanding of bacterial cell division, the disruption of which is sought in the development of new antibiotics.

Dr. John E Lewis
The Dynamics of Sensory Processing
 
Dr. John Lewis's research focuses on how brain sensory systems acquire and encode information from the outside world. Dr. Lewis's team uses the weakly electric fish as a model system, because these fish are experts in sensory processing. To capture prey and communicate, electric fish must detect minute signals amongst many distractors. Understanding how the brain solves this problem will have wide-spread benefits for biotechnology and high-tech in Ontario, through improved sensory prosthetics, pattern recognition systems, and novel communication technologies.

Dr. Robert Joseph Smith
Modelling Human Papillomavirus Vaccination
 
Dr. Robert Smith and his research team are working to construct mathematical models for the human papillomavirus vaccination, the recent cervical cancer vaccine currently being rolled out in Ontario schools. These models will represent the immune system, where some strains of the disease may be controlled by the vaccine, but others might not. Dr. Smith and his team will also address the population-level impact of rolling out the vaccine, such as the critical number of people who must be vaccinated in order to eradicate the disease and how that number may vary in different communities such as urban, rural and aboriginal.

Dr. Jamie Brehaut
Healthcare Knowledge and Better Decision-making  
 
Translating new research knowledge into better healthcare is dependent on an understanding of how individuals incorporate this knowledge into healthcare decisions. Dr. Jamie Brehaut and his research team will use methods and theories from cognitive and social psychology to better understand the process of health care knowledge translation, and to improve health care decision-making by both patients and practitioners.