Space is the place...to talk about life on Earth

Dr. George Heckman, the Schlegel Research Chair in Geriatric Medicine at the University of Waterloo, discusses intersections in aging and space research with retired Japanese astronaut Chiaki Mukai and Life in Space for Life on Earth conference organizer Richard Hughson, a professor in Waterloo's Department of Kinesiology.

Heckman, Mukai and Hughson were speakers at the first Aging in Space symposium held on Tuesday, June 17 at the University of Waterloo. Supported by the Faculty of Applied Health Sciences and the Schlegel-UW Research Institute for Aging, the symposium featured more than a dozen experts who discussed how astronauts age in space, and what that can tell us about aging on Earth. It was part of the larger Life in Space for Life on Earth conference continuing at the University until Thursday.

Other presentations this week focused on how to prepare for long space flights, how plants grow in zero gravity and balance control in lunar gravity.

Photograph by Light Imaging.

 

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Researcher wins women’s health award

A doctoral candidate in the University of Waterloo’s Department of Kinesiology has been awarded a 2014 Women’s Health Scholars Award from the Council of Ontario Universities. The $20,000 award, which is funded by the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, recognizes outstanding research in women’s health issues.

Kristin Marks researches the ways estrogen affects the synthesis of different fats, and the results of her study will have wide-ranging implications for women’s health. 

In cells, estrogen binds to a receptor that then binds directly to DNA and affects gene expression, including the way a cell produces the enzymes that make fatty acids. Marks has discovered that estrogen influences enzymes that increase the length of and the amount of unsaturation in saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acid in the body.

Marks is the first person to identify a clear link between estrogen and an enzyme called elongase 6.  In the body, elongase 6 converts a fatty acid linked to cardiovascular disease and obesity (palmitic acid, 16:0) to a healthier saturated fatty acid (stearic acid, 18:0).  These elongation reactions also affect other fatty acids, including omega-3 fatty acids such as DHA. DHA affects everything from reproductive health and fetal development to disease resistance.

The results of her work will help improve the design of clinical trials, and will also provide a foundation for dietary guidelines that account for women’s different needs during the premenopausal, pregnant, and postmenopausal phases of their lives. 

The 24-year-old Marks grew up in Brampton and earned her BSc and MSc from the University of Waterloo. Now she works with associate professor Ken Stark, the Canada Research Chair in Nutritional Lipidomics, and assistant professor Robin Duncan, both in the Department of Kinesiology at the University of Waterloo. An avid runner, she says a long-standing interest in health and wellbeing led her to study fats as a graduate student. Now she’s something of an advocate for the oft-misunderstood molecules, which have been vilified for North America’s growing obesity crisis.

“I’ve always been interested in eating well and living a healthy lifestyle, and the more I learned about what fat does, the more interested I became,” says Marks. “So many people think fat is bad in general, and when I tell them what I do they say ‘Oh, so you’re going to tell me how to lose weight!’ But fat is so important to so many different functions in our bodies.”

Marks is one of six recipients of the Women’s Health Scholars Award across the province, and one of three PhD candidates to receive the prize this year. 

The prize is part of a decades-long push from the health research and medical communities to include women’s health issues in scientific studies. Marks’s work will be relevant to both reproductive issues and sex differences in the treatment of disease, areas that have historically been neglected, as this recent editorial in Nature describes. 

“I'm excited to see where all this work goes,” says Marks. “Hopefully it will be relevant to women of all ages. That’s why I’m especially thankful to have received this award.” 

Photograph by Light Imaging.

 

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Reading the tea leaves after the election

Another Ontario election has come and gone. Locally, NDP MPP Catherine Fife retained her seat in Kitchener-Waterloo, with Liberal Daiene Vernile winning in Kitchener Centre, the seat formerly held by John Milloy. Liberals also won big in the Cambridge district, with Kathryn McGarry unseating Conservative Rob Leone. This is the first time a Liberal has been elected in Cambridge since the riding was created in 1975. Progressive Conservative incumbent Michael Harris won the day in Kitchener-Conestoga, and in Perth-Wellington, Ontario PC Party incumbent MPP Randy Pettapiece was re-elected.

The overall result of the provincial election—the re-election of the Kathleen Wynne Liberals, this time to a majority government—has been viewed by many with surprise, and so a moment's reflection on what this result could mean to the University of Waterloo in particular and the post-secondary education sector in general is probably in order.

The Premier has confirmed that she will bring back the Ontario legislature in July and plans to reintroduce the budget which was originally tabled in early May. That budget re-announced a number of investments for postsecondary education including the commitment to a Deferred Maintenance Capital fund of $500 million over ten years, the continuation of the Ontario Tuition Grant subsidy, and the implementation of the new Strategic Mandate Agreements. In addition, there was the announcement of $25 million in support of Waterloo's Institute for Quantum Computing.

For Waterloo Region, the government has made significant capital commitments around transit, including two-way all-day GO trains from Kitchener to Union Station, and industry-specific investments such as the one announced in April with OpenText.

The budget also suggested some of the measures the government believes are necessary in order for them to deal with the province's fiscal challenges. These include income tax increases for the top 2 per cent of earners, no additional grants for negotiated compensation increases, and the creation of a new Ontario Retirement Pension Plan.

With their new majority status, it is anticipated that the Liberals will likely pass the budget with fewer amendments than recent Ontario budgets, and the province is not likely to see another election until 2018. Due to the retirement or defeat of a number of cabinet ministers, it is expected that a significant cabinet shuffle will occur, which could affect both the ministries of Training, Colleges and Universities and the Ministry of Research and Innovation.

"Now that the Ontario election is over, we look forward to working with both our returning and newly-elected MPPs to renew our  provincial advocacy efforts for the important role the University of Waterloo plays in this province," says Rob Esselment, senior director of government relations for the University.

 

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Building better brains at neuroscience event

Tomorrow, participants in a University of Waterloo-hosted workshop will be demonstrating large-scale brain models they have built over the last two weeks, running on laptops, robots, and specialized brain-like computers as they simulate neural functions.

The two-week workshop has taught researchers how to build sophisticated brain models that reproduce behaviours such as hearing, seeing, learning, spatial navigation, and analogical reasoning, using new kinds of biologically-inspired sensors that include an artificial retina and artificial touch-sensitive skin, and brain-like computer processors.

The workshop is focussed on using the Nengo brain simulator to build state-of-the-art cognitive and neural models. Nengo was developed by Chris Eliasmith's lab at the Waterloo Centre for Theoretical Neuroscience, and the software program was recently used to build the world's largest functional brain model - Spaun. Nengo provides its users with a versatile and powerful environment for simulating cognitive and neural systems.

The open house-style event takes place Friday, June 20 from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. in HH 373.

 

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