On April 16th, US President Biden put taxpayer money behind the Administration’s pledge to “follow the science.” That’s the day he officially announced a US investment of $1.7 billion “to improve the detection, monitoring, and mitigation of SARS-CoV-2 variants and to build infrastructure for future genomic sequencing needs.” Tucked inside of that plan is $300 million earmarked to build and support a National Bioinformatics Infrastructure.   According to a report by the Association of American…

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                                    In his book Life’s Edge, Carl Zimmer is in search of what it means to be alive. He explores the boundary, brink, fringe, margin, and threshold that defines life. He takes us on a journey through the history of the concept, and when we think that he is on the verge of giving us the answer… [spoiler…

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As Canadians are eagerly rolling up their sleeves to receive one of many Health Canada-approved vaccines, a gap in Canada’s preparedness to respond to future pandemics has become apparent. Past assessments of Canada’s biomanufacturing capabilities revealed that its capacity to produce pharmaceuticals and therapeutics is underdeveloped. Investment in this space could not only arm us against the next global health crisis but could provide a new avenue of economic recovery post-pandemic.   Biomanufacturing refers to…

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Earlier and faster cancer detection is the goal of research underway here in Alberta. ​ With funding from the Spark Grants, The Metabolomics Innovation Centre (TMIC) based at the University of Alberta is leading the new effort. Too often cancer is detected at a late stage but when lung cancers are treated early, survival rates increase significantly.   TMIC co-director David Wishart's team could transform lung cancer detection and save lives with a metabolomics-based blood…

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If you thought morning sickness was an ordeal, try dealing with PRRS infection during pregnancy. Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) is one of the most important diseases of pig production. Infection in pregnancy results in abortion and reduced litter size and viability, which has a major impact on production, welfare and the pork industry’s environmental footprint. In light of those implications, understanding reproductive PRRS and creating data to validate genomic results from previous studies…

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                          Previously, I called it the March Madness of Science Fair Season. Regional science fairs across the country are held in late March and early April so that teams of student finalists can be selected to represent their regions at the Canada-Wide Science Fair. As with most of the regionals, this year the Canada-Wide will be a virtual fair to be held May…

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By Vanessa Carias PhD, Genome Alberta Research Program Manager A pregnant woman’s diet affects not only her own maternal health but that of the developing fetus. But how do doctors know what diet to recommend which will increase the chances of a healthy pregnancy and baby? Dr. Britz-McKibbin and his team who are part of the McMaster node of The Metabolomics Innovation Centre, are working on answering that question using a new technique involving metabolomics.…

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Few headlines today announce the winner of computing challenges to be something other than artificial intelligence (AI). Judging by many media accounts, the robots always win, even the bodiless software ‘bots. But other computing approaches do win challenges, at least some of the time, and now bioinformatics has thoroughly thumped AI in one.   To be clear, AI is a bit of a misnomer in this context because most of those challenges are won by…

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The non-Ministerial MLAs in the Alberta Legislature – or any Legislature for that matter – often find it difficult to express their thoughts about events which they feel are important to constituents. Question Period is one route to raise matters but ,no surprise here, that time is reserved for questions, not speeches. So what is an MLA Supposed to do to raise topics that should be on the record and heard by members of the…

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Tuesday, March 9, 2021 Ottawa, ON $8.6 million in federal funding to support healthier Canadians and a resilient food supply Genomics is on a mission to develop new knowledge, tools and technologies to improve Canadians’ lives. Today, on behalf of the Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, William Amos, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry (Science), announced $8.6 million in federal support through Genome Canada to five applied genomics…

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