TODAY
TeamScience WINTER 2008 Editor Michael Woloschuk
Celebrating a Tradition of Excellence
AL BREGMAN
TEAM SCIENCE TODAY
Editorial Advisors Dean Martin Grant Carole Kleingrib
n a Faculty newsletter published just a few short years ago, I wrote that we would soon see the fruits of our ambitious recruitment drive, which has resulted in the rejuvenation of almost of half of our faculty membership with new hires. As this current issue of Team Science Today demonstrates, these efforts have indeed borne fruit. Our running sidebar along the bottom of the newsletter turns its gaze this month to our interdisciplinary stars, who prove that one of the important reasons for the greatness of McGill’s Faculty of Science is the ability of our scientists to think outside the box and cross disciplines in their search for discoveries. Inside, you’ll read about the solidifying of our international reputation as leaders in the field of Behavioural Neuroscience, through such rising stars as Karim Nader, Dan Levitin and Jeff Mogil, and such eminent scholars as Al Bregman, Ronald Melzack and Brenda Milner. We’ll also take you to the opening of our new Life Sciences Complex, the largest infrastructure project in McGill history—and one that links the faculties of Science and Medicine in the quest to eradicate illness and alleviate suffering. Finally, this issue of Team Science Today will throw a spotlight on some of our award-winning Faculty members, from PhD candidate Jonathan O’Neil, who discovered the oldest rocks on Earth earlier this year, to Mathematics student Vincent Larochelle, the Faculty’s latest Rhodes Scholar. This newsletter is at once full of good news and full of promise for an even stronger future. I hope you enjoy it.
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THE AUDITORY BRAIN, BY BREGMAN
Yes, we know that most five-year-olds can draw better than Psychology Professor Emeritus Al Bregman, but no one understands the inner workings of the brain quite like Bregman. In this drawing, the celebrated behaviourial neuroscientist presents a simple view of how our auditory system miraculously interprets the world, represented by a lake containing a fishing boat, submarine, sea monster, speedboat and whale.With our back to the lake, and using two red floats in the channels as our only guides, we must explain to our companion the direction the objects are travelling. As impossible as this seems, this is exactly the job our ears do for us, correctly providing our brain with an image of the world via the sounds we hear. Read more about our behavioural neuroscientists inside.
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Parisa Ariya, William Dawson Scholar and Associate Professor in the departments of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and Chemistry. Ariya is investigating three major environmental issues: acid rain, cancercausing particles in the atmosphere, and compounds that may affect greenhouse gases.
Gary Brouhard, Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology, formerly of the Max Planck Insitute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Germany. Brouhard’s research mixes biology with biomedical engineering through the study of microscopic proteins that regulate the cytoskeleton, and the cells that control construction of its internal scaffold.
Faculty and Alumni News
A Bounty of Royal Society Honours Graham Bell, James McGill Professor of
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Biology, has been elected president of the Royal Society of Canada’s Academy of Science. “Graham Bell is one of the world’s most renowned evolutionary biologists,” said Dean of Science, Martin Grant. “His election as President of the Academy of Science bodes well for the Royal Society of Canada.”
Fessenden Professorship: A Tradition of Discovery Left to right: Janet Blachford, Nicolas Moitessier, Erik Blachford, John Blachford, Paul Wiseman and Martin Grant, at the inauguration of the Reginald Fessenden
Professorship in Innovation and the Reginald Fessenden Prizes in Innovation on October 28.The professorship, in honour of John Blachford’s uncle and radio pioneer Reginald Fessenden, is being shared by Nicolas Moitessier, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry, co-author of over 35 publications and co-inventor of two patents and three reports of invention, and Paul Wiseman, associate professor in both the Physics and Chemistry departments, who most recently developed a radically new technique to detect malaria infection in human blood.The Reginald Fessenden Prizes in Innovation will be announced this coming spring.
Meanwhile, the Faculty of Science is proud to announce that three of its researchers have been elected as Fellows to the Royal Society of Canada’s Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences in recognition of their outstanding achievements: Mathematics and Statistics Professor Pengfei Guan, Earth and Planetary Sciences Professor Alfonso Mucci and Physics Professor Vicky Kaspi. (Kaspi is also a member of a team of researchers in the Department of Physics who confirmed earlier this year a long-held prediction of Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity via observations of a binary-pulsar star system.Their results were published July 3 in the journal Science. McGill astrophysics PhD candidate René Breton and Kaspi, leader of the McGill University Pulsar Group, led this new test of Einstein’s theory). Finally, two Faculty of Science scholars were among 12 Canadians honoured with Royal Society of Canada medals and awards for outstanding scholarly achievements and contributions to knowledge and research in Canada. Henri Darmon, James McGill Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, was recognized with The John L. Synge Award and A.E. (Willy) Williams-Jones was presented with The Bancroft Award.
Crunching numbers at soup and science
David Wolfson, a Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, explains how to derive better estimates of how long patients live after the onset of Alzheimer’s disease, at this year’s ever-popular Soup and Science lecture series.The lectures, which run for one week at the start of each fall and winter term, give students a chance to see and hear Faculty professors. Afterwards, students and professors mingle over lunch.The next edition of Soup and Science takes place in January 2009.
Bradley Siwick, Canada Research Chair in Ultrafast Science, Assistant Professor in the departments of Chemistry and Physics. Siwick heads a laboratory engaged in developing a movie camera that can capture changes to the structure of molecules during chemical reactions, where atoms one ten-millionth of a millimetre in size are rearranged in less than one trillionth of a second.
the Department of Psychology, will be inducted in the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame at a special induction ceremony to be held in Montreal this coming April. For almost a half a century, Dr. Melzack has dedicated himself to the understanding of pain. In 1965, he developed a new theory of pain that led to an explosion in pain research. A decade later he developed the McGill Pain Questionnaire now used in clinics around the world. Dr. Melzack was the driving force and co-founder of the first pain clinics in Canada at McGill’s Royal Victoria (1972) and Montreal General (1974) hospitals.
Renée Sieber, Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and McGill School of Environment, is challenging the conventions of Western thinking in geography through her use of innovative tools such as GIS technology, e-commerce and the Internet in the study of social and environmental issues.
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Melzack to Canadian Medical Hall of Fame Ronald Melzack, O.C., Professor Emeritus in
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Trottier Symposium Weighs in on Moral Instinct Biology Professor and Moderator Graham Bell listens as (left to right) panelists Manfred Milinski, Executive Director of Evolutionary Ecology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Theodore Bergstrom, Aaron and Cherie Raznick Chair of Economics in the Economics Department, University of California Santa Barbara, Paul Seabright, Professor of Economics, University of Toulouse, and Stuart West, Professor of Evolutionary Biology, Edinburgh University, debate the foundations of our moral instinct at the 2008 Lorne Trottier Public Science Symposium on November 4.This year’s topic, Apes or Angels:What is the Origin of Ethics, commemorated the 150th anniversary of the joint presentation of the theory of natural selection by Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace at the Linnean Society in 1858.The debate dealt with the controversial relation between evolution and human behaviour.
kudos Gonzalo Cosa, an Assistant Professor
in the Department of Chemistry, has won the 2009 Inter-American Photochemical Society’s Young Investigator Award. Meanwhile, Hanadi Sleiman, an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry, has won the Canadian Society for Chemistry’s Strem Chemicals Award for Pure or Applied Inorganic Chemistry.
Jason Hessels, PhD’07, has won the 2008 Canadian Association for Graduate Studies/University Microfilms International Distinguished Dissertation Award in the engineering, medical sciences and natural sciences category. Mark Sutton, Ernest Rutherford Professor of Physics, has been named ViceChair of Canadian Light Source, Canada’s national synchrotron
research facility. Hong Guo, a Professor in the Department of Physics, has received the 2008 Award of Merit from the Federation of Chinese Canadian Professionals. Dmitry Jakobson, a Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, has won the Canadian Mathematical Society’s 2008 G. de B. Robinson Award, which
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, has discovered the oldest rocks on Earth, shedding light on our planet’s mysterious beginnings. The 4.28-billion-year-old rocks were found in northern Quebec, along the Hudson’s Bay coast. “Our discovery not only opens the door to further unlock the secrets of the Earth’s beginnings,” said O’Neil. “Geologists now have a new playground to explore how and when life began, what the atmosphere may have looked like and when the first continent formed.”The results were published in the September 26 issue of the journal Science. O’Neil’s research team, which includes Don Francis, a professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, and Boswell Wing, an assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, is now trying to determine whether the rocks contain evidence of activity by ancient life forms.
Paul Wiseman, Reginald Fessenden Professor in Innovation and Associate Professor in the departments of Chemistry and Physics, is currently working on a device that will bring his breakthrough malaria detection technique using lasers and optical effects to the aid of health professionals around the world.
Science Student Named a Rhodes Scholar Vincent Larochelle, a 21-
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Meet the Faculty Rock Star! A research team led by Jonathan O’Neil (left), a PhD candidate in the
recognizes the publication of excellent papers in the Canadian Journal of Mathematics and the Canadian Mathematical Bulletin. Julia Christensen, a PhD candidate in the Department of Geography, who studies issues related to access to housing and homelessness in the Northwest Territories has won a $150,000 Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation prize.
year-old from Quebec City enrolled in an Honours BSc in Mathematics with a Minor in Classics, has won a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship, it was announced in November. “I chose to study Math in university not because of the possible career options, but because mathematics allows you to develop an incredible intellectual sharpness,” Larochelle said. A member of the McGill fencing team, Larochelle also devotes time to a local organization that supports people with reduced mobility. Rhodes Scholarships, established in 1902, are given to students with high academic achievement and leadership skills.The scholarships include two years of study at the University of Oxford.
Lauren Chapman, Professor of Biology, member of the McGill School of Environment and Canada Research Chair in Respiratory Ecology and Aquatic Conservation. Chapman explores the ecological and evolutionary consequences of respiratory strategies in fish and the role of oxygen-scarce waters in the maintenance, loss and recovery of aquatic biodiversity.
a window on the world throu NEUROSCIENCE TRAILBLAZERS
Two years ago, Associate Professor of Psychology Karim Nader turned the world of memory research on its ear with his experiments promising relief to post-traumatic stress disorder sufferers. Nader’s preliminary research is now showing such promise that patients at McGill’s Douglas Institute participating in Nader’s study—some of whom could not talk about their trauma prior to receiving Nader’s treatment—say they have become “bored” reliving their once-painful memories. “It’s like magic, like science fiction,” says Nader, whose partners in the study include Douglas Institute Researcher and Associate Professor in McGill’s Department of Psychiatry, Alain Brunet, and Roger K. Pitman, Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. “In some cases, the emotional strength of memories—even in people with 30 years’ worth of traumatic stress—returns to normal within a week of receiving treatment.” The experiments that won Nader, an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow and William Dawson Chair, international renown (and prompted Forbes to name Nader one of “10 People Who Could Change the World”) suggest that damaging memories can be stripped of their potency by administering a common blood pressure drug, propranolol, as a traumatic event is being recollected.The treatment, which has proven effective in post-traumatic stress disorder sufferers, does not erase memories, but simply removes the emotional baggage associated with the memory. Nader’s post-traumatic-stress research is also being conducted in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Defense on soldiers returning from action in Iraq and Afghanistan and with Canada’s Department of National Defence on soldiers returning from Afghanistan. One of the key elements of Nader’s research now involves determining how long the memory reconsolidation process lasts.
Barbara Sherwin, James McGill Professor and Canadian Institutes of Health Research Distinguished Scientist, cross-appointed in the departments of Psychology and Obstetrics and Gynecology. Sherwin’s research determines the influence of sex hormones on aging men and women. As Sherwin works out how sex hormones shore up cognition, treatments may be discovered that can protect the quality of life for people during their golden years.
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Memory reconsolidation proves its worth in clinical tests
Left to right: Al Bregman, Emeritus Professor of Psychology and pioneer in the study of auditory perception, whose students include renowned author and Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, who described Bregman as the smartest person he’d ever met as a student at McGill in the 70s; Brenda Milner, a neuropsychologist and Professor of Neurology and Neurosurgery at the Montreal Neurological Institute, conducted much of the early work that established how the different hemispheres of the brains interact, which has had an enormous impact on understanding cognitive learning, language, sensations and emotions; and Ronald Melzack, Emeritus Professor of Psychology, who revolutionized the study and treatment of pain, first through his Gate Control Theory and later, through the McGill Pain Questionnaire, which has been translated into 20 languages and is accepted as a standard worldwide.
The World in Six Songs Dan Levitin, above, in his Laboratory for Music Perception, Cognition and Expertise, with members of rock group Steely Dan, who dropped into Levitin’s lab following a performance at the Montreal Jazz Festival earlier this summer. Levitin, James McGill Professor of Psychology and Bell Chair in the Psychology of Electronic Communication, continues to advance our understanding of music’s role in brain development through the publication of his latest book, The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature. In this book, which follows his 2007 bestseller, This is Your Brain on Music, Levitin makes the case that music was necessary in humanity evolution—and indeed, is the “soundtrack of civilization.” The World in Six Songs also explores Levitin’s idea that all songs can fit into six categories: songs of friendship, joy, comfort, knowledge, religion and love.
Hans Larsson, Canada Research Chair in Vertebrate Palaeontology, Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology and vertebrate curator at the Redpath Museum. Larsson’s fieldwork has taken him from Argentina to the Arctic, and has been involved in the discovery of eight new dinosaur species. Most recently, his team discovered fragments of a Tyrannosaurus Rex in the Arctic, the northernmost discovery of this species.
g h b e h av i o u r a l n e u r o s c i e n c e
Vive la Difference in Pain Research
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Jeffrey Mogil, Professor of Psychology and Canada
Whether you call its members rock stars of 21st-century science or simply scientists working at the cutting edge of brain research, the Faculty of Science boasts some of the top behavioural neuroscientists in the world. In fact, McGill played an historic role in developing both psychology and behavioural neuroscience, thanks to groundbreaking work by Wilder Penfield (mapping functions of the cerebral cortex) and Brenda Milner (physiology of memory), Donald Hebb in the area of perception and Ronald Melzack in the field of pain research. Top neuroscientists in the Faculty today include Frances Abbott, Curtis Baker, Evan Balaban, Keith Franklin, Robert Hess, Dan Levitin, Jeff Mogil, Karim Nader, Caroline Palmer, Michael Petrides and Barbara Sherwin. A relatively new field, Behavioural Neuroscience focuses on the biological basis of human behaviour.The Faculty of Science’s research in this area attempts to provide an understanding of how the behaviour of humans and other animals is controlled by physiological systems. “We’re linking genes to brain structures, and development to behaviour and thought—and that’s a very big deal,” said Dan Levitin, James McGill professor of Psychology and Bell Chair in the Psychology of Electronic Communication. Behavioural Neuroscience, he explained, examines how our everyday social interactions are determined by dynamic processes in the brain. “We’re not studying music in isolation. Music is a window to the human psyche and human development and evolution,” said Levitin. Despite its newness, Behavioural Neuroscience is fast emerging as a powerful research specialty with enormous potential to benefit society. “We’re learning how different parts of the brain communicate, and how genetics influences that development,” added Levitin. The Department of Psychology’s Behavioural Neuroscience program complements the Faculty’s strengths in neuroscience in general, from the genetics research performed at the Developmental Biology Research Initiative to the neurological research of such diverse scientists as Physics professor Peter Grütter and Chemistry professors Bruce Lennox and Chris Barrett.
Caroline Palmer, Professor in the Department of Psychology and Canada Research Chair in Cognitive Neuropsychology of Performance. Palmer’s research program combines two related issues in cognitive psychology: how people remember long sequences typical of speech and music and how they produce those sequences. Her research focuses on the time course of serial order in music performance, one of the most complex human skills.
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Behavioural Neuroscience Takes Flight at McGill
Research Chair in Genetics of Pain, and E. P. Taylor Chair in Pain Studies led a team of researchers earlier this year whose research suggests there are two versions of the human brain, a male and a female version.The research suggests that men have a pain-suppressing circuit linking their brain to their spinal cord.When the circuit is activated by pain, endorphins are released and help lessen the feeling. However, the circuit does not release the analgesic endorphins in women. Mogil’s report, published this past July in New Scientist, said, “If even a small proportion of what has been inferred from these studies does not apply to females, it means a huge body of research has been built on shaky foundations. Working out exactly how women are different could explain some longrunning mysteries, such as why men and women are prone to different mental health problems and why some drugs work well for one sex but have little effect on the other.” In one experiment, scientists chemically blocked the pain receptors found in the brain and spinal cord of a male and female mouse.While this helped control the feeling in the male mice, it had little effect on the females. The gender gap has only just come to light because neuroscientists have traditionally carried out their studies on male brains, be they animal or human, explained Mogil. “It's scandalous,” he said. “Women are the most common pain sufferers, and yet our model for basic pain research is the male rat. Every year or two, we write a paper that says that something someone reported earlier is actually only true in males.”
Brian Alters, Tomlinson Chair in Science Education, Director, Tomlinson Project in University-Level Science Education (T-PULSE) and Associate Professor of Education, is a global leader in the field of evolution education and author of the bestselling Defending Evolution in the Classroom. Alters is known for his dramatic classroom antics, which leave lasting impressions on his audience.
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Where science meets medicine: the landmark McIntyre Medical Sciences Building is linked with the new McGill Cancer Research Building and Francesco Bellini Life Sciences Building to form the McGill University Life Sciences Complex.
Life Sciences Complex Launch: What a Party! ell-wishers from far and wide packed the atrium of the brand spanking new Francesco Bellini Life Sciences Building on September 18, as McGill University and the Faculty of Science launched a new era in interdisciplinary research. A joint project between the faculties of Science and Medicine, the McGill University Life Sciences Complex comprising the existing McIntyre Medical Sciences Building, the Stewart Biological Sciences Building, the new Francesco Bellini Life Sciences Building and the McGill Cancer Research Building (home to the Rosalind and Morris Goodman Cancer Centre) will help researchers bring their discoveries to the public faster than ever. “The Life Sciences Complex is a joint venture in the truest and broadest sense of the term,” said Martin Grant, Dean of the Faculty of Science. The complex houses more than a dozen core facilities expressly designed to encourage crossdisciplinary research and interaction.The new facility will ultimately be home to 60 principal investigators and 600 researchers, with 50 per cent of floor space dedicated to laboratories.With a total budget of $100 million in construction and equipment costs, the complex represents one of the most important capital projects ever undertaken by McGill. Besides consolidating existing talent, the complex is attracting new brainpower to the University, most
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notably professors Nam-Sung Moon of Harvard University and Gary Brouhard of the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Biology and Genetics to the Faculty of Science’s Developmental Biology From top to bottom: The Research Initiative. atrium of the Francesco The McGill Bellini Life Sciences University Life Sciences Building at the opening ceremony on Sept. 18; Complex was kickstarted by a $10 million Caroline Desmarais, Roberto Bellini, Marisa donation from Francesco Bellini and Darin Kouli Bellini, DSc’04, who share a laugh; Paul Lasko catapulted Canadian and Alvin Shrier listen to a colleague; Francesco biopharmaceutical Bellini and Martin Grant. research to global (PHOTOS BY OWEN EGAN) prominence through the development and commercialization of 3TC, the first anti-HIV compound drug, with BioChem Pharma, the Montreal-based firm he co-founded in 1986. “To see scientists from different departments and research areas working together in the same building is the realization of a big dream for me,” said Dr. Bellini.“I want to see this place flourishing. I want to see the ideas flowing and the Life Sciences Complex to become a centre for innovation.”
An Associate Professor in the Department of Biology and member of the Developmental Biology Research Initiative, Jackie Vogel’s research lies at the crossroads of science and medicine. Her work focuses on how yeast cells decide to go through the final stage of division, with an emphasis on how cells detect and repair problems in their biomechanical architecture during the process. Vogel hopes her research will help doctors battle cancer.
Michel Bourqui, Assistant Professor in the departments of Chemistry and Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, uses supercomputers to study the chemistry of the atmospheric ozone layer, which protects the earth from the sun’s dangerous ultraviolet radiation. Bourqui’s greatest challenge is predicting changes in the ozone layer while the climate undergoes rapid change.
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