A Report on the Academy of Science Annual Business Meeting, Victoria, BC, 28 November, 2015
Jacques Derome, Secretary, Academy of Science
There was a lot of sustained, lively discussion at the last Academy of Science Business meeting, to the point that one Fellow remarked to me later that this had been one of the most interesting business meetings he had ever attended - not bad for an Academy business meeting. The interest was due in part to the quality of the interventions, but also to the importance of the topics being discussed, so I hope this summary will also be of interest to the entire Fellowship. Read more

From the Biologists' Benches to Business and Brokerage
Peter Kevan, University of Guelph
Over 20 years ago, Dr. John Sutton and I started thinking about using managed pollinators (honeybees and bumblebees) to carry microbiological control agents from hive mounted dispensers to flowering crops where the agents might suppress pestiferous fungi, such as grey mould. He had isolated strains of the common and native fungus Chlonostachys rosea which is not a pest but is a natural antagonist to other fungi, including crop pathogens.

We did that successfully using honeybees to carry spores of C. rosea to the flowers of strawberries and using bumblebees to carry them to the flowers of raspberries. The spores of C. rosea germinate on the developing fruit but are otherwise benign. Once the fruit ripen and grey mould (Botrytis cinerea) would be expected to colonize and develop, the effect of C. rosea was evident, grey mould was suppressed. Read more

Muthukumaran Packirisamy, Concordia University
Need for Micro-Bridging: As per Nobel Laureate Philip Sharp, the third revolution [1] in life sciences that can tackle the existing challenges in studying Brain and nervous systems, cardiovascular systems, cancer diagnosis, commercializing of ideas from lab to clinics or training of personnel can happen only through collaboration of life scientists, physical scientists and engineers as seen in Figure 1, which could explore the synergy that exists at the fundamental level between life sciences, physical sciences and engineering. The newly emerging fields of nano-bio technology, synthetic biology, bio-informatics, genetic engineering and tissue engineering are examples of this fundamental convergence of these fields. Read more

Frank C.J.M. van Veggel, University of Victoria
Before I will describe my current research I would like to state that I am absolutely flattered by being elected as a fellow of the RSC.
My current research deals with nanoparticles that act as contrast agents for MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) of cancer. The prime reason for me to work on this is to provide oncologists and surgeons with better information of the exact location of the tumour and its shape. The location and exact shape are both important for radiation therapy because the (external) X-ray radiation must be localized in the tumour, so as to spare healthy tissue (50% of all cancer treatment involve ionising radiation). This information is also important for a surgeon because the resection should remove the whole tumour, so in practise the surgeon would cut a little bit larger than the tumour, but of course the surgeon doesn't want to make a big hole. Read more