Contours Winter 2023 by University of Alberta Faculty of Science

FACULTY OF SCIENCE MAGAZINE

WINTER 2023/24

Quantum Theory and the World You Can’t See To understand the things you can touch, you first need to understand the things you can’t perceive

UALBERTA.CA/SCIENCE

Tour

M U E S M U ONS I T C E L L CO

e s u o h e h t e v a e l r e and nev ience is home c S f o y lt u c a The U of A F facilities and h rc a e s re g in ons to world-lead s and collecti m u e s u m d e n world-renow ay of n amazing arr a e s a c w o h s that rch. science resea utting rcheology to c a m o fr g in th rything in Explore every ology and eve n h c te n a sc edge brain y time. anywhere, an , e lin n o ll a — between

LEARN MORE. UAB.CA/SCITOURS

WINTER 2023/24

VOLUME 40

contents

8 features 8 It Starts With an Idea

Everything we make or build began as a thought. Theoretical quantum science is no different. It has the potential to change the way we understand and experience our world.

14 The Sugar Code

Revelations in the field of glycomics mark a shift in how we view the building blocks of health.

20 Hot Days in the City

Climate change isn’t happening only in the forests, oceans and the Arctic. It’s affecting our urban areas, too. Research is doing something about it.

20 departments 2 Message from the Dean of Science 3 News

Water fleas cope; Experiential learning; Repeat the experiment; New fossil fish; Cow carbon capture; Off-grid energy solution; Healthy aging — and more!

27 Discussion

Prize for medical breakthrough; Grad creates award; Advocate for women in STEM; Super summer camps; Science by the numbers — plus more!

32 Closing Shot

Here’s hands-on help for student researchers.

contours | winter 2023/24

The University of Alberta’s Faculty of Science is a research and teaching powerhouse dedicated to shaping the future by pushing the boundaries of knowledge in the classroom, laboratory and field. Through exceptional teaching, learning and research opportunities, we competitively position our students, staff and faculty for future success. Contours is dedicated to highlighting the achievements of the Faculty of Science community, distributing to alumni and friends of the faculty. Supervising Editors Lisa Cook, Andrew Lyle Editor Mifi Purvis Senior Associate Editors Karen Sherlock, Lisa Szabo Editorial Advisers Declan Ali, Liz Hasham Contributing Writers Elizabeth Chorney-Booth, Caitlin Crawshaw, Kalyna Hennig Epp, Gillian Rutherford Copy Editing, Fact Checking, Proofreading Joyce Byrne, Philip Mail Art Director Marcey Andrews Circulation Associate Madisen Gee Contact Us The Editor, Contours alumni magazine Faculty of Science, 6-194 CCIC University of Alberta Edmonton, Alta., Canada T6G 2E1 science.contours@ualberta.ca Advertising newtrail@ualberta.ca 780-748-5726 The views and opinions expressed in the magazine do not necessarily reflect those of the University of Alberta, the Faculty of Science or its alumni community. All material is © The University of Alberta, except where indicated. If undeliverable in Canada, please return to: Alumni Relations, 3-600 Enterprise Square, University of Alberta, 10230 Jasper Ave., Edmonton, Alta., Canada T5J 4P6. The University of Alberta respectfully acknowledges that it is located on Treaty 6 territory.

ualberta.ca/science

Message From the Dean of the Faculty of Science i am thrilled to greet this incredible group of alumni, supporters and innovators as dean of the Faculty of Science, and it’s my pleasure to share my first issue of Contours with this community. I have been appointed dean of the faculty for a five-year term, which began on July 1, 2023. I’m proud to have been a member of the Faculty of Science for more than 20 years, and I look forward to continuing to work with this community and, as a leader, to support the incredible work our faculty and students do every day. Since I joined the faculty in 2000, I’ve served as a professor, associate dean (research), acting associate vice-president (research) and most recently chair of the Department of Biological Sciences. I am honoured to step into the role of dean of this outstanding faculty. I look forward to many opportunities to connect, getting to know many of you in this new role and being a champion for our groundbreaking research, transformational teaching and critical strides in improving EDI. This past year brings successes to celebrate. We have overhauled our bachelor of science programs, creating new opportunities for our undergraduate students to specialize their studies in topics they’re passionate about and improving accessibility to our high-demand programs. Our research expertise in health, urban planning, and data science and artificial intelligence — and the ethical considerations that come with it — is pertinent, and it is a critical part of the innovative spirit that drives our province. Last June, Quantum Horizons Alberta (QHA) was established as a $25-million Alberta-wide initiative to expand our foundational knowledge of quantum science. Initiated by a group of visionary donors, QHA brings together expertise across the University of Alberta, the University of Calgary

and the University of Lethbridge, and is poised to explore the potential of quantum physics. This is one of the many projects featured in the stories ahead, including how glycomics research is exposing the mechanisms behind major diseases and how new research is developing mitigation and adaptation technologies in the fight against climate change. As we look to the year ahead and its challenges, we know that there’s no shortage of problems for our community to solve. We teach the next generation of scientists and provide work-integrated learning opportunities so they graduate as capable, confident researchers and entrepreneurs. Our research expertise makes new discoveries and enables innovative new technologies. Our alumni and supporters help make these achievements possible. Please enjoy the stories in the following pages, which share a glimpse of the many ways your support makes our teaching and research possible, building a better future for our communities. Declan Ali Dean, Faculty of Science

PHOTO BY JOHN UL AN

CONTOURS

PHOTO SUPPLIED

Water Fleas Adapt Surprise findings about skin-care products and tiny freshwater creatures

a new study suggests the effect of sunscreen on freshwater ecosystems may be less harmful than first thought. “One of the goals of this project was to see if simple lab models line up with what we’d expect to see in a natural environment,” says Aaron Boyd, lead author of the study and PhD candidate in the Department of Biological Sciences. Boyd was part of professor Tamzin Blewett’s research, which showed that exposing Daphnia magna water fleas to ultraviolet filters (UVFs) over a two-week period was fatal to the tiny crustaceans. In this follow-up study, the team exposed five generations of the bugs to UVFs, which are common in sunscreen and which swimmers can introduce to our waterways. Boyd’s group learned that the water fleas acclimatized to the contaminants over generations. It’s one of few longer-term studies on the effects of UVFs and was published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials in March 2023. –ADRIANNA MACPHERSON contours | winter 2023/24

news PALEONTOLOGY

Student Makes a Splash First co-author credit is a fossil fish find

wiped out the dinosaurs. Murray and co‑authors Luke Nelson, ’23 BSc (Hons), and Donald Brinkman,’75 BSc (Hons), published their study in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology in 2023. “It’s the first fish description from within Edmonton’s city limits, so that’s kind of exciting,” says Nelson, who is a

HEALTHY AGING

Machine, Meet Data Research looks at how to predict people’s future health, and mitigate problems earlier Machine learning programs trained on health, lifestyle, socio-economic and other data could improve the health of aging Canadians in the future. The approach could help health-care teams provide personalized care and promote healthy aging, says principal investigator Bo Cao, adjunct professor of computing science, Canada Research Chair in Computational Psychiatry and associate professor of psychiatry. He says that researchers can use machine learning with anonymized data

ualberta.ca/science

to predict future patient health outcomes. Cao’s team recently published two studies describing how the team used machine learning to analyze data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging, which follows 30,000 Canadians between the ages of 45 and 85 for 25 years. “This is top-notch data,” says Cao, who is also co-director of the U of A’s cross-faculty Computational Psychiatry group. “Our goal is to contribute to the health of Albertans and Canadians.

graduate student and the second author on the paper. The fish also fills a geographic gap between sturgeons found in the southern localities of southern Alberta, Montana and North Dakota, and the northern localities of Alaska and Peace River, Alta. –GEOFF MCMASTER

We hope to develop a healthy aging trajectory for every one of us.” The team, which included Eleni Stroulia, Roger A. Dixon and Russ Greiner from the Faculty of Science, investigated associations in the gap between study subjects’ chronological and biological age and their lifestyle, environment and health conditions. Subjects who tested as “older” than their chronological age had higher incidences of chronic illness, more frequent consumption of processed and red meat and were likelier to smoke or live with a smoker. Subjects who tested “younger” than their chronological age were associated with several modifiable factors, including higher consumption of fruits,

legumes and vegetables. Cao hopes the approach will one day influence health care. In the second study, the team developed a program that accurately predicted which individuals would experience depression onset within three years. The machine learning model was trained by working backwards, using records of people who were eventually diagnosed with depression. The model was about 70 per cent accurate at predicting which study participants would develop full-blown depression within three years, Cao says. “We are trying to establish a conversation that includes different groups to demonstrate how this model can benefit the general public.” –GILLIAN RUTHERFORD

PHOTO BY ALISON MURR AY

some sharp-eyed hikers came across a 72-million-year-old sturgeon skull in Capilano Park, part of Edmonton’s North Saskatchewan River Valley, last February. At first they thought it could be fossilized dinosaur skin and took it to renowned University of Alberta paleontologist, Phil Currie. He was excited to find it was part of an ancient fish and passed the fossil to Alison Murray, fish paleontologist and interim chair of the Department of Biological Sciences. She identified it as a previously unknown type of sturgeon — a North American temperate freshwater fish still in existence. Her team estimated the fossil to be two metres long when it was alive, and named the new species Boreiosturion labyrinthicus. The fossil fills a gap in what’s known about the distribution of sturgeons during the end of the Cretaceous, just before a mass extinction event

STEM EXPERIENCE

Support for Students With Scotiabank QUOTED

“The old saying ‘You are what you eat’ is just flat-out wrong. You’re subject to whatever the bacteria and enzymes in your body do to that food. Our study found patients’ gut bacteria were disturbed by chemotherapy, and affected the immune system in ways that could also contribute to obesity. We used DXA scans to study breast cancer patients’ body composition, which is more accurate than measuring body mass index. DXA is the gold standard to measure their muscle versus fat.” Gane Ka-Shu Wong, professor in the departments of biological sciences and medicine. Wong and other researchers found that changes in the bacterial populations in the gut correlate with increased body fat in breast cancer patients treated with chemotherapy.

NEW EXPERTISE

Repeat the Experiment

A novel internship program immerses students in STEM scotiabank has been partnering with the Faculty of Science since 2018, supporting students with handson learning experiences like the Undergraduate Research Initiative, the High School Internship Program and Science Summer Camps. The bank helps fund initiatives through the faculty that allow students of all ages and backgrounds to develop skills and passions that can one day fuel lifechanging research and discoveries. Scotiabank’s community investment towards the Undergraduate Research Initiative supports diversity in STEM fields by providing a stipend for a fourmonth research term for students who identify as Indigenous, Black or people of colour. Mentorship, workshops and hands-on research projects prepare students to work in the sciences after graduation. The six-week High School Internship Program, funded in part by Scotiabank, immerses students in a computing research environment where they contribute to teaching and research projects. “Starting this fall, I’m going to pursue software engineering,

and this internship has been such a great opportunity for me to realize I’m going into the right field,” says Keta, who participated in the internship program in 2021. The Faculty of Science has been running Science Summer Camps since 2015 to help kids discover the wonders of science through such topics as video game design, forensic science, math and outer space. Scotiabank is helping to improve access to science camps for young women, Indigenous students and those from families that earn a lower income. In 2023, the bank provided 25 bursaries for campers from underrepresented groups. “The Scotiabank Artificial Intelligence Research Initiative gives youth the opportunity to explore their passions in STEM fields throughout their education,” says Maria Saros, vice-president and global head of social impact at Scotiabank. “Through ScotiaRISE, we are proud to work with the University Alberta to support hands-on learning experiences in the STEM fields and help youth reach their full potential.” –LISA SZABO

PHOTO BY DAWN GR AVES

It’s how you know if the science is sound What’s worse than a lack of research? Suspect findings. In the world of science, it’s known as the “replication crisis.” For at least the last two decades, scientists have become aware that the results of many studies can’t be reproduced, which means they’re likely flawed. In a 2016 survey of 1,500 scientists in the journal Nature, 70 per cent reported being unable to replicate at least one of their peers’ studies. Another report found 90 per cent of cancer biology studies couldn’t be reproduced. Evolutionary biologist Shinichi Nakagawa has been applying meta-science — or the science of science — to analyze mountains of data using artificial intelligence and statistical analysis, weeding out flawed research and developing best practices. He’s bringing his expertise to the Faculty of Science later this year as the newly named Canada Excellence Research Chair in Open Science and Synthesis in Ecology and Evolution. –GEOFF MCMASTER contours | winter 2023/24

news

Dementia Detector Researchers meet the challenge of developing a model that uses speech traits to identify cognitive decline, a potential screening tool researchers are striving to make earlier diagnoses of Alzheimer’s disease possible with a machine learning model that could one day be turned into a simple screening tool that anyone with a smartphone could use. The model was able to distinguish Alzheimer’s patients from healthy controls with accuracy of 70 to 75 per cent, a promising figure for the more than 747,000 Canadians who have dementia. Dementia from Alzheimer’s can be challenging to detect in the early stages, because the symptoms start out subtle. But earlier detection means earlier intervention. “Before, you’d need lab work and medical imaging to detect brain changes,” says Eleni Stroulia, a professor in the Department of Computing Science who was involved in creating the model. “If you could use mobile phones to get an early indicator, it would potentially start the treatment earlier, and we could even start with simple interventions at home, to slow the progression down.” A screening tool would create a convenient way to identify potential concerns via telehealth for patients facing geographic or linguistic barriers to services, explains Zehra Shah, a master’s student in the Department of Computing Science and first

ualberta.ca/science

NUMBERS

The number of scholars from the Faculty of Science (out of 12 from the U of A) who were named Canada Research Chairs in 2023

STUDENT RESEARCH

Personal Perceptions, Public Inaction Ideological barriers stall community climate adaptation Floods, fires, high winds and erosion spurred by climate change can disrupt communities and cost millions. A recent study gives insight into how personal beliefs become barriers to decisionmaking around climate adaptation, hindering urban planners, engineers and emergency management specialists. “The subjective perceptions people had about climate change and the need for adaptation were stumbling blocks for these professionals,” says Sarah Kehler, a study co-author and PhD candidate in urban and regional planning in the Faculty of Science. “They have the technical knowledge and often the responsibility for public wellbeing, but without support from political leadership or the public, they’re stuck.” The study focused on four British Columbia regional districts that had experienced climate-driven damage but had few adaptive strategies. Interviews with planners and other professionals revealed that politicians and the public hold subjective perceptions about the risks and responsibilities of adaptation, leading to “denial and discretion” and inaction, Kehler says. Government decision-makers saw climate adaptation as a problem for the future or a political liability. “If they take action that ends up not being needed in an election cycle, voters might see it as a waste of money.” Interviewees told researchers that discretionary decision-making allowed local leaders to avoid preparation. “Legislative discretion shifts responsibility, often in favour of profit-driven decisions such as land development,” Kehler says. She adds that while local governments are best positioned for climate change adaptation, the responsibility comes without appropriate support. “The end result is community vulnerability.” –BEV BETKOWSKI

GE T T Y IMAGES

ALZHEIMER’S PREDICTION

author of the paper. “Think about triaging patients using this sort of technology based entirely on speech,” says Shah. The research group previously looked at language used by patients with Alzheimer’s disease, but for this project they examined acoustic and linguistic speech features rather than specific words. “The original work involved listening to what the person says, understanding the meaning. That’s an easier computational problem to solve,” says Stroulia. “Now we’re saying, ‘Listen to the voice.’ There are some properties in the way people speak that transcend language.” The researchers started with speech characteristics that doctors noted were common in patients with Alzheimer’s disease: slower speech, more frequent pauses and disruptions, shorter words and reduced intelligibility. Researchers found ways to translate these characteristics that the model could screen for. “This technology has the potential to be used across different languages,” says Shah. –ADRIANNA MACPHERSON

BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES

Cow Carbon Capture Researchers interested in better carbon cycling are looking at what’s grazing on grasslands An interdisciplinary team is launching a research project with the goal to store 32.5 megatonnes of carbon in the ground through grazing management techniques and genomic tools.

“Evidence suggests that the grasslands of Canada have the potential to store more carbon,” says professor James Cahill of the Faculty of Science, co-lead of the Climate Action Through

CHEMISTRY

Produce Hydrogen, Purify Water

GE T T Y IMAGES

New catalyst could revolutionize off-grid energy university of alberta researchers have developed a new catalyst that could revolutionize how we generate power and purify water. The catalyst produces hydrogen that can be fed into a fuel cell to generate electricity along with distilled water that is safe to drink. You just need to place the catalyst in any type of water and heat to 300 C or, at room temperature, drive the reaction chemically. The catalyst was discovered almost entirely by chance when senior research associate Robin Hamilton, ’08

Grazing project, which received $6.2 million in funding. The project, co-led by Carolyn Fitzsimmons (with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and the Faculty of Agricultural, Life & Environmental Sciences) and project manager Elda Dervishi, will start by identifying how grazing management affects agricultural communities and greenhouse gas emissions, as measured in soil and cattle. Carbon cycling and

PhD, was creating an electrode for an undergraduate student working on a waste biomass upcycling project. He mixed up a combination of powders and allowed them to sit overnight in water, intending to finish the cell the following day. When he returned in the morning, the mixture was bubbling — a surprise reaction. “When you mix these two things together, they interact, they work together and hydrogen comes off. It floored us,” says Hamilton. Hamilton consulted chemistry professors Jeffrey Stryker and Jonathan Veinot, sharing the unexpected discovery and drawing on their respective expertise. The team quickly realized they had something remarkable on their hands — the specific combination of powders served as a new type of catalyst composite made with non-toxic, plentiful material and can be used with any type of water. “There’s a scarcity of potable water and that’s the biggest problem

sequestration requires measuring what happens in the soil, the animal and its waste to see how it fits in that system. Researchers say the impact on Canada’s net carbon emissions could be significant. The team, comprising 33 researchers from the U of A, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and the University of Saskatchewan, will compare two grazing techniques — continuous grazing and adaptive multipaddock grazing — with the theory that the latter might improve carbon storage in grasslands. They’ll study production measurements such as growth and production from cows to take into account economic and environmental results for farmers. And they’ll use genomic tools to collect soil and fecal data, using them to develop measurements that show shifts in microbial communities and determine whether those changes reduce greenhouse gas emissions. –OUMAR SALIFOU

with water electrolysis to generate hydrogen — you have to use clean water,” says Hamilton. “With this, you don’t. We take something that is dirty, that you can’t drink, and generate hydrogen and electricity in a fuel cell. And it spits out water you can drink.” “You could turn oilsands tailings ponds into fuel while purifying the water. It sounds like it’s too good to be true, but it’s not,” adds Veinot. The new catalyst-driven chemical process results in little oxygen; hydrogen gas is fed directly into the fuel cell, without membrane deoxygenation. It’s low cost, energy efficient, sustainable and safe. The researchers want to craft off-grid devices to help remote communities or disaster areas, envisioning a compact, easy-to-use system. “Off-grid solutions are the initial target because that’s where we can make the most impact.” Dark Matter Materials, founded by Stryker, Hamilton and Veinot, is working to commercialize the catalyst and method. –ADRIANNA MACPHERSON contours | winter 2023/24

ualberta.ca/science

I T Everything we make or build began as a thought in someone’s head.

S T A R T S Theoretical quantum science is no exception.

W I T H This field has the potential to change how we live our lives.

A N It could introduce us to realities about the universe that we have yet to imagine.

I D E A And it could change the way we understand and experience our world.

By Kalyna Hennig Epp Illustrations by Myriam Wares contours | winter 2023/24

When’s the last time you played with LEGO? You probably started by pouring out the bags of tiny, mismatched pieces into a pile of plastic nonsense on the floor and flipping open the construction manual to begin. Maybe you sorted the pieces neatly first. Or maybe you dug through the pile of nonsense for the particular piece you needed as your build progressed. Either way, you were likely confident you could create that castle, spaceship or historical monument pictured on the box—even if you weren’t thinking too deeply about what it really took for the LEGO to exist, right there in front of you, on your living room floor.

ualberta.ca/science

together, but a product designer had to use their knowledge of engineering to come up with the design concept, a fabricator needed to know what the bricks were made of (not to mention a ton about mechanics) to program the moulding machines that superheat plastic granules to press the bricks into shape, and a scientist needed to have a complex understanding of chemistry to make the granules that went into those moulds. It goes on and on. The same goes for complex quantum technologies like an MRI machine. There are layers and levels and centuries of knowledge supporting the creation of an object or piece of tech, and when the layers are peeled back, you’ll eventually arrive at the foundation: some principle of basic science that was discovered simply through experimenting with thought. For example, the basic principle behind LEGO is polymer chemistry, and for an MRI machine, it’s condensed matter physics.

Maciejko describes the relationships of basic science to applied science as a pipeline. “The fundamental science of today is the applied science of tomorrow,” he says. “If we cut that pipeline, at some point applied science is going to run out. We’re going to run out of ideas, of inspiration.”

THE SMALL STUFF

Quantum science studies the properties and behaviours of the tiniest building blocks of the universe, exploring the world beyond what we perceive around us. It underpins all other science, but we don’t know that much about it. Of course, we do know some things about it. Otherwise, we would be without technologies such as sensors and lasers, which are used for anything from rotating an image on your smartphone depending upon the way you’re holding it (thanks, sensors!) to precision surgery to improve your eyesight (thanks,

PHOTO BY JOHN UL AN

“To understand things you can touch, you need to understand things that you cannot touch,” explains Joseph Maciejko, associate professor in the Department of Physics and interim director of the University of Alberta node of Quantum Horizons Alberta. To construct even a simple structure out of LEGO, you first need to understand how to put the little bricks together. The same is true for the kind of quantum science that results in innovative advances that change our world — you’re trying to get to a deeper understanding of how matter behaves in this world, how electrons talk to each other and react in different scenarios. You need to understand the rules before you can put together a solid structure, explains Maciejko. In order for a tangible LEGO figure to sit on a shelf in your house, a lot had to be understood to get it there. Your job was to read the construction manual and understand how the bricks click

of the properties of certain materials that make them best suited to the job at hand — knowledge that’s in the territory of theoretical quantum physics. “You have to think about them and you need mathematics and science to describe things that you can’t really see with your naked eye. This is where the theory comes in,” Maciejko says. While experimental and applied quantum physicists can test their hypotheses and ideas in the lab through experiments, theoretical quantum physicists work solely in the realm of thought. That makes collaboration a critical part of the process. “That’s how we theorists experiment. We experiment with thought, and so we need to bounce ideas around,” Maciejko says.

A LITERAL HOME FOR THE THEORETICAL

lasers!). These technologies made their way from the lab to the real world because of applied and experimental quantum science research — the same brands of research that will soon make quantum computing mainstream. But these tangible technologies are just a few parts of the larger quantum research pipeline — theoretical research is needed to advance the field and extend the boundaries of knowledge in the

quantum realm and open untold and unpredictable possibilities. “To make the most of applied quantum technology, you need to work backwards,” Maciejko says. He explains that before the first monolithic integrated circuit behind the modern computer microchip was made, Robert Noyce needed to decide on the material it was made of. To do that, Noyce needed an understanding

“TO MAKE THE MOST OF APPLIED QUANTUM TECHNOLOGY, YOU NEED TO WORK BACKWARDS.” JOSEPH MACIEJKO

Quantum Horizons Alberta (QHA), a new $25-million, provincewide network created in a partnership between the universities of Alberta, Calgary and Lethbridge, will allow that kind of collaboration between theoretical researchers to flourish. Supported by a group of visionary donors, the network is dedicated to advancing fundamental, theoretical quantum science. While Alberta is already home to quantum research and innovation excellence, QHA is unique because its focus is on building the capacity of theoretical quantum research in Alberta. “Our chances of achieving greatness, our chances of achieving a position on the world stage in quantum research, are much greater the more resources within the province we can gather,” says Richard Bird, one of five donors behind QHA (with Joanne Cuthbertson, Patrick Daniel, Guy Turcotte and Mac Van Wielingen). “We wanted to make sure we have the benefit of the bench strength that already exists in all three universities,” Bird says. The U of A alone already has $100-million-worth of infrastructure and equipment needed to support basic quantum research and training. QHA will allow these universities to expand contours | winter 2023/24

their social infrastructures by recruiting and partnering with professors, postdoctoral researchers and trainees from other universities and countries. This is key because all quantum scientists, not just theorists, are trying to answer increasingly complex questions, and as a result, no single researcher has all the required knowledge. Collaboration is needed among scientists working in various branches of quantum. During the QHA donors’ initial discussions, they learned that most funding for quantum science was going into applications and commercialization, and they realized that focusing their funding dollars in another direction would allow them to make a greater impact. “There was a real gap in the funding for foundational or theoretical quantum science,” Bird says. “All the academics we spoke to said we can only go so far developing applications based on what we already know. Eventually, we need to better understand the foundations of this area of science.” “You cannot do applied science without fundamental science, because all of applied science at some point relies on fundamental science,” Maciejko says. “Like mechanics and Newton’s laws: they are applied science now but were fundamental science in the 1700s.” The donors are eager to establish Alberta as a key source of research and discoveries in a field that promises to transform the human condition. And while it may take years, even decades, for fundamental quantum science research to produce everyday applications, Cuthbertson thinks Alberta is the perfect place to make it happen. “We have a milieu of magical ingredients in Alberta that make us a special place for investment and doing very big things,” Cuthbertson says. “Alberta has the talent and experience, and the right mindset. We have eyes for opportunities. We have experience with

ualberta.ca/science

starting something small and growing it into something large. We have a lot of respect for the relationship between making an investment and reaping a reward. And, very notably, we have a tolerance for risk-taking.” The good news is, even while we work towards and wait for those realitychanging, foundational discoveries, initiatives like QHA have the potential to attract experts to Alberta from around the world, significantly building and diversifying our economy — and maybe even establishing Canada as a destination for big-deal quantum discoveries. This is why Cuthbertson and her fellow donors prioritized a partnership model for QHA and expect that the group will continue to expand as supporters from across Canada join the initiative.

THE UNKNOWN REALM

The quantum realm is home to fascinating possibilities like unbreakably secure communications, efficient computation for difficult optimization problems and unprecedented measurement sensitivity, many of which are research areas in Alberta today. Another area of ongoing Albertabased research is quantum computing. Scientists see this yet-to-be-realized technology as the key to cracking many as yet intractable problems as well as a possible solution to the world’s insatiable need for computing power. While regular computing uses binary digits, a.k.a. bits, where each bit can store one piece of information — it’s either a zero or a one — quantum computing uses quantum bits, called qubits [kyoo-bits]. Thanks to a quantum property called superposition, qubits level up the standard binary code. Rather than being either zero or one, they can be both at the same time. While the era of quantum computers is near, that doesn’t mean you’ll be able to grab one at Best Buy soon. Quantum computers will likely be bespoke (not to mention physically gigantic and extremely cold) systems that serve very specific purposes for very specific businesses — such as defence or cybersecurity. Large companies and governments around the world

are fervently working to develop their own quantum computers as we speak. Once they figure it out, it will make the decryption and cryptography systems we currently rely on seem quaint and antiquated. On the flip side, though, quantum computing will also provide more security than we’ve ever imagined. Because of the complexity of qubits, any attempt to look at, or hack, protected information stored by a quantum computer will destroy the copied information before the hacker can see it. Innovations in this sphere could help keep our data, from health care to banking, safer than ever. Experts like Maciejko are working in the field of topological materials to study exotic new materials with distinct properties that could be the key to the next generation of devices. Experts in Alberta are also studying materials like superconductors that can conduct

electricity perfectly — with zero electrical resistance and without losing energy, creating heat or experiencing deterioration of materials. There’s also particle physics, which studies the fundamental building blocks of nature by looking at matter in its most minute form, at the subatomic level, and quantum sensing and communications. Quantum sensing measures physical quantities such as electric and magnetic fields, chemical processes and temperature with tremendous accuracy and precision. It promises to give us new insight into what’s in our bodies, in the ground and all around us. But unlike these examples of experimental and applied quantum research, the tangible results of today’s fundamental, or basic, quantum science research are completely unknown. The unknowns make the investment and the field more intriguing as a fruitful way to advance humanity.

It’s a tale as old as time: people prefer to invest in a solution for *insert a very specific and scary issue here* rather than basic research. It’s easy to understand why it seems more meaningful and actionable to donate with an aim to solve a specific and circumscribed problem than donate to a group of scientists “experimenting with thought.” While we all definitely want to cure diseases and address global issues, the truth is that fundamental research has the potential to lead us to a whole new scientific reality that presents opportunities to solve big problems. Imagine what it was like to discover electricity, the atom or the molecular structure of DNA. Those discoveries, which came from fundamental, theoretical research, were transformational to the human condition. They changed the way we understand, experience and live in our world. They gave us completely novel

information to work with to better it. Fundamental quantum science research has the potential to make more of those world-changing discoveries. The ones that have the potential to provide solutions for today’s confounding problems — and future problems we haven’t even faced yet. It will take decades for advances in quantum science to move from the realm of thought to the real world. But without the theoretical and fundamental components, we’re missing key pieces of the puzzle, Maciejko says. As with LEGO, before we could contemplate building a model of the Millennium Falcon from tiny plastic bricks, we needed to make the discoveries that underpin the creation of our favourite building toy. Making those discoveries that lead to those pieces? That will change everything — and bring the amazing and unimaginable to life. –With files from Adrianna MacPherson contours | winter 2023/24

Revelations in the field of glycomics are marking a shift in how we view the building blocks of health and approach the treatment of disease

THE SUGAR By Gillian Rutherford

Photos by John Ulan 14

ualberta.ca/science

CODE contours | winter 2023/24

ugars are one of life’s building blocks, influencing the expression of many facets of health and the course of disease. Chances are you know of someone with the neurodegenerative disease Alzheimer’s. Half a million Canadians have it or some other kind of dementia. But you might not know that specialized carbohydrates could have a role in the disease. A carbohydratebinding receptor may influence the rate at which the tangled plaques, a hallmark of Alzheimer’s, form in the brain. It’s one of many life processes that glycobiologists are studying. More trivially, if you’re a human of a certain age, you’ll know about wrinkles. Whether you spend your time smiling or frowning, or just maintain a poker face, there’s no avoiding wrinkles. But check out the beauty aisles at your local drugstore and you’ll find one of the hottest skinplumping additives to face creams: hyaluronic acid, also a discovery of the field of glycoscience. The field is wide-ranging, and it’s revolutionizing our understanding of how the human body works. It is revealing solutions to some of the most confounding questions we have about human health and disease processes. Hyaluronic acid is a kind of glycan. Glycans are sugars, strings of saccharides that make up the most abundant class of biomolecules on Earth. Without them, many human cells would not be able to interact with one another and some biological processes simply would not happen. The effect of glycans on our health starts at conception, when sperm meets egg and an embryo begins to take shape. Glycans influence the formation of our immune systems. Our blood types are differentiated thanks to glycans, meaning a life-saving blood transfusion for one person could be a death sentence for another, because of just one sugar molecule. Glycans answer the door when viruses come knocking, but each virus binds to a specific glycan, and the location of that glycan in your body can mean the resulting disease is more or less severe. Much like the fields of genomics, proteomics and metabolomics before it, glycomics — the study of glycans — is putting another building block of life under the microscope, or more accurately, the microarray. (More on that later!) The goal is to identify, categorize, describe and understand how these sugars work in our bodies. University of Alberta scientists are leading the way, using that new knowledge to save lives with breakthrough discoveries to treat cancer, skin diseases, transplantation and even neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s.

Group Effort Leads to Large Effects

Most of us understand that when we talk about “protein,” we might mean an egg we’re frying for breakfast or we might be referring to the large molecules inside our bodies that are required for our cells to work. Similarly, we tend to use the words “sugar,” “carbohydrate” and “glucose” interchangeably, to mean both our food and our molecules. “Glycan” is yet another synonym. In science parlance it refers to the specific class of molecules that decorate a wide variety of proteins and lipids. In the case of proteins, glycans are what’s known as post-translational modifications: they show up after the genetic instructions in DNA are transferred to mRNA and coded to make a protein. Glycans are like the finishing layer, thanks to a process called glycosylation.

ualberta.ca/science

“The glycans help fine-tune the biological function of proteins,” explains biochemist Warren Wakarchuk, who was recruited to the U of A in 2019 to become scientific director of GlycoNet, which leads Canada’s glycomics research efforts. That organization serves 190 researchers at 36 institutions across Canada, as well as international collaborations, providing critical support for research in the field of glycoscience. “For a long time people thought these glycan decorations couldn’t be too critical for biology because they’re everywhere,” Wakarchuk says. “But it turns out they are central to all kinds of biological systems.” Wakarchuk points out that a key technology to study glycans — mass spectrometry, which measures the mass-to-charge ratio of ions — has improved by leaps and bounds in recent years, leading to a better understanding of the many glycans humans produce. He expects the improvement to continue, much as technology has improved for genome sequencing. “When I worked at the National Research Council, we had a project proposal to sequence an entire bacterial genome and the price tag was going to be $2.1 million and it was going to take two years,” Wakarchuk says. “That happens in an afternoon now and it costs $60.” GlycoNet was awarded a grant from the Canada Foundation for Innovation’s Major Scientific Initiatives Fund starting in 2023 and is also an inaugural recipient of a grant from the new Strategic Science Fund from Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada. Wakarchuk says he accepted the GlycoNet position because it was an opportunity to continue the collaborative tradition of glycan research in Canada. “The Canadian community, by nature of the people who populated it in the beginning, is quite collaborative,” he says. “Here was an opportunity for carbohydrate-specific projects of a translational, very applied nature that would capitalize on the network of carbohydrate scientists across the country.” Since 2015 GlycoNet has funded more than 200 research projects and trained more than 600 new scientists. Trainees are now getting faculty positions at universities and taking carbohydrate science to the next level, he says. “And I think it’s important that it comes out of the University of Alberta.” Headquartered at the University of Alberta, the organization also has integrated research facilities at seven institutions across the country to provide glycan analysis, carbohydrate synthesis and drug discovery. “As a direct result of the success of GlycoNet, we have these established centres doing high-level glycomics analyses for everything from infectious diseases to neurological diseases,” Wakarchuk

“We are getting science out of the laboratory and into the real world,” says Warren Wakarchuk, scientific director of GlycoNet. “And that’s a good reason to get out of bed every day.”

says. It’s a model that is being adopted by others in Europe and elsewhere. “It’s nice to see that people recognize that geographically we have this huge country, but scientifically we’re a small group,” Wakarchuk says. “Thanks to this high level of expertise and co-operation, we are not just doing discovery science: We’re doing translational science in biology, medicine, even engineering. It crosses a lot of boundaries.” Wakarchuk’s own research laboratory uses both synthetic biology and glycoscience to improve the way pharmaceutical companies make protein-based drugs so they are more effective. “We are getting science out of the laboratory and into the real world,” he says. “And that’s a good reason to get out of bed every day.”

A Sweet History

The fact that the U of A is the epicentre of glycan research in Canada and quickly taking its place as a world leader in the field is no accident. We can thank our collective “Sugar Daddy” for getting it all started. Ray Lemieux, ’43 BSc, ’91 DSc (Honorary), was an Alberta-born scholar who is one of the progenitors of glycoscience.

Lemieux was working at the National Research Council lab in Saskatoon in 1953 when he and a postdoctoral fellow (George Huber) were the first in the world to synthesize sucrose. Sucrose — table sugar — is a relatively simple molecule, but it was very hard to reproduce. In fact it’s been referred to as “the Mount Everest of organic chemistry.” “Ray Lemieux literally had to invent the chemistry that was necessary to carry out those reactions,” says Wakarchuk. Lemieux perfected techniques to produce sugar molecules and developed theories to understand their structures and interactions with proteins. Several of those techniques and ideas are still in use today. These include the halide-ion method, the anomeric effect, the concept of “key polar groups” on glycans and the importance of water in mediating the binding of glycans by proteins. Thanks to Lemieux’s breakthrough, glycans could be synthesized and studied at a much deeper level, harnessing their power to improve human health. His discovery laid the groundwork for the development of antibiotics, vaccines, methods to overcome rejection in organ transplant, and treatments for hemophilia. Lemieux returned to the U of A in 1961 to lead the university’s organic chemistry research, and it’s here that he did much of his most groundbreaking and creative work. He went on to synthesize all of the glycans that determine human blood groups. He launched Alberta’s biotechnology industry by founding companies such as Chembiomed Ltd., R&L Molecular Research and Raylo Chemicals. He was recognized with the Gairdner Foundation International Award in 1985 and the Albert Einstein World Award in Science in 1992, among a long list of accolades. His work helped inspire a generation of sugar scientists. contours | winter 2023/24

“We’re trying to foster collaboration within the university and outside it to educate people about the importance of glycomics,” says Lara Mahal, Canada Excellence Research Chair in Glycomics.

The Next Generation

“We’re trying to foster collaboration both within the university and outside it to educate people about the importance of glycomics, so that the work we do shines and brings it forward to the next generation of scientists,” says chemist Lara Mahal. She was recruited to the U of A as Canada Excellence Research Chair in Glycomics in 2019, a position that comes with $20 million in federal funding for her research, disbursed over seven years. In addition to holding the chair, Mahal’s leadership in her field is evinced by the fact she is also the founding director of the Glycomics Institute of Alberta. The institute was launched at the U of A in 2022, building on Lemieux’s legacy. It communicates the importance of glycans to the public, educates students from high school chemistry of the cells. Those to postdoctoral levels, and creates innovative reactions are used in labs around research collaborations within and outside the world to do things like trace GLYCAN the university. In the effort to improve human biological changes in disease Can also be referred to as sugar, carbohydrate or glucose, health through glycoscience, the institute also and improve the effectiveness of but in scientific terms, glycans serves to establish provincial expertise in this cancer drugs. Bertozzi developed are polysaccharide molecules research area. her Nobel-winning process in usually attached to a protein The Glycomics Institute of Alberta is a crossorder to study glycans. or lipid. They are found on campus effort that brings together dozens of “This was early in chemical every cell in our bodies and basic scientists with experts from disparate glycobiology, when we were still are key to cell communication medical fields such as oncology, neuroscience, trying to figure out how sugars GLYCOSYLATION organ transplantation and bioengineering. In really work,” Mahal recalls. The naturally occurring fact, the institute’s associate director, Simonetta She and her fellow glycan biological process in which Sipione, is a neurobiologist in the Faculty of researchers wanted others in proteins are modified with the Medicine & Dentistry. The aim, Mahal says, the scientific community to addition of glycan molecules is to create new partnerships and bring new understand “the fact that sugars GLYCOCODE perspectives that are leading to discoveries with were important.” The information encoded in immediate payoff for patients. “We needed high throughput the structure of a glycan Part of the work of Mahal’s team at the research with lots of data that GLYCOME institute is to engage the next generation of showed unequivocally that All the glycans in a given glycan scientists. Her team has developed changes to the glycans in cancer, biological system, such as the teaching materials available for teachers in immunology, in brain diseases, human body to download and use in the classroom. The are not just indicative of the GLYCOMICS materials educate about these sugars, which diseases but are actually part of The study of all of the above include, for example, fucose, which helps cells the mechanism,” Mahal says. recognize each other and communicate. When There was a problem. The something goes wrong with fucose, cancer or tool to demonstrate the diseaseinflammatory disorders may follow. Mahal causing role of glycans just hopes to improve the understanding of the “glycocode,” the information didn’t exist. So she devised one herself. encoded in the structure of a glycan. One of her goals is to make sure that Sugars are slippery characters. Not only do the average biochemistry student is as familiar with glycans as they are they like to bind with water, proteins and fats, with amino acids. they are also hard to differentiate from each other. Mahal fell in love with glycan research at the University of California, Mass spectrometry can accurately detect the Berkeley while studying with Carolyn Bertozzi, who went on to win the mass of molecules in order to tell them apart, but 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing chemical reactions that many sugars have identical mass. Mahal found can be carried out inside a living organism without changing the normal it laborious to analyze the sugars on a single

Glycomics Glossary

ualberta.ca/science

protein, one at a time, when her goal was to compare samples from a hundred cancer and a hundred non-cancer patients all at once to look for patterns. “It was just too time-consuming to make it usable, so I thought, ‘How can we get this kind of data in a simpler way? Instead of looking at them one by one, what if we could make an array and look at all of the differences simultaneously?’ ” The solution Mahal’s lab developed was to bind the glycans with common proteins called lectins in a microarray that compares dozens of samples at once. The lab of a Japanese researcher (Jun Hirabayashi) came up with a similar idea a few months later and both labs are credited with inventing the lectin microarray, which is now in use in Europe, the United States, Japan and, of course, in Mahal’s laboratory at the U of A. Mahal has numerous collaborative projects underway that have already changed our understanding of how sugars affect the progression of pancreatic cancer and the severity of influenza, as well as how glycans are involved in opening the door to SARSCoV-2 viral infection. Her next targets include revealing how glycans help skin cancers metastasize, looking for a biomarker to determine which patients who have a multiple sclerosis episode will go on to develop full-blown disease, and looking further into how to slow down the immune over-response that occurs in some people and not others when they get infectious diseases.

Better Together

For both Wakarchuk and Mahal, the more connections that are made between experts in basic science and other fields — including treating patients in the clinic — the more likely they are to unlock the potential of glycoscience to solve confounding and complex health challenges. Here’s just one powerful example: about four years ago rheumatologist and immunologist Mohamed Osman knew little about glycoscience, but he understood that his patients with scleroderma needed hope. The rare disease causes an overproduction of collagen, which leads to fibrosis: a hardening of the skinand, in severe cases, blood vessels and internal organs. Approximately 40 per cent of patients die within five years of diagnosis. Medication, diet and exercise may slow progression and ease symptoms, but there is no cure. And until now there has been no way to predict who will develop the most severe form of the disease. Oddly, though considered an autoimmune disorder, scleroderma often has only a modest response to immunosuppression.

FROM THE GROUND UP Some of Ray Lemieux’s top trainees returned to work at U of A, like David Bundle, founder of the Alberta Glycomics Centre and Ole Hindsgaul, ’80 PhD. They were followed by Todd Lowary, ’93 PhD, who did graduate work with Hindsgaul and a postdoctoral research with Bundle, and was the first scientific director of GlycoNet. Lara Mahal describes the foundation of glycoscience as “part of the bones of University of Alberta science.” Current U of A sugar researchers continue to touch most aspects of human health:

Transplants

Pioneering pediatric heart transplant expert Lori West is working with a B.C. company that uses an enzyme to remove blood group antigens from organs so that hearts, kidneys and lungs can be given to mismatched recipients.

Brain Disease

Simonetta Sipione, associate director of the Glycomics Institute of Alberta, is a neurobiologist and pharmacologist who is studying the role of glycolipids in brain diseases such as Huntington’s disease, Alzheimer’s and neuroinflammation.

Cancer and Inflammation

Chemist Chris Cairo and his research team are working to develop tools that block an enzyme family linked to human disease in order to develop new therapies for cancer and inflammation.

SARS-CoV-2

Chemist John Klassen, ’96 PhD, used a mass spectrometry technique called catch-and-release to study what sugars interact with the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2.

Neurodegenerative Disease

Chemist Matthew Macauley is Canada Research Chair in Chemical Glycoimmunology and the Raymond U. Lemieux Chair of Carbohydrate Chemistry. He studies how proteins that bind to specific glycans are involved in neurodegenerative diseases.

Novel Drugs

Chemist Ratmir Derda is the founder of the company 48Hour Discovery, which uses novel approaches to discover new drugs that work through glycan-binding interactions.

Then Osman met Lisa Willis, a glycobiologist in the Faculty of Science and an expert in polysialic acid, a glycan that affects cells in the immune, reproductive and nervous systems and is also associated with cancer. The two got talking and realized scleroderma shares characteristics with cancer, which might mean the two are connected. They got their labs together, thanks to funding from GlycoNet and others, to determine whether that sugar, polysialic acid, might be the missing link. Sure enough, in research recently published in the Journal of Autoimmunity, the Osman and Willis teams report that polysialic acid is elevated in both the skin and blood of patients with systemic sclerosis and correlates with their levels of fibrosis. It’s a new biological marker for scleroderma that they hope can predict which patients will develop severe disease and could also lead to new avenues for treatment. Willis expects polysialic acid will be revealed as responsible for other chronic diseases as well. “We’ve developed technology to find the proteins that the glycan is attached to, and if you can figure out what protein the glycan is attached to, you can start to figure out how it is actually causing these changes,” she explains. “I think what’s happening is the glycan is controlling the immune response.” “This is the most exciting type of science,” Osman says. “It’s a potentially important, different way of looking at how to manipulate immune responses.” It’s hard to overstate the nascent understanding we have of the role of glycans in health, and of the role Alberta scientists have in it. Looking at how sugars create or suppress the conditions in which disease arises could be the most important field a lot of people have never heard of. “As an immunologist, it’s very exciting,” Osman says. “It’s a paradigm shift.” contours | winter 2023/24

ualberta.ca/science

Climate change is not just happening in the forests, oceans and Arctic. It’s affecting our urban areas, too. Fortunately, research is doing something about it.

Hot Days in the City By Elizabeth Chorney-Booth

Illustrations by Kathleen Fu

hen we look out our windows, we can see that the effects of climate change are no longer part of some potential, far-off future. The smoke from wildfires across Western Canada last summer was overwhelming, and a dry winter threatens more of the same. Terms like “heat dome” and “atmospheric river” are common. Flood mitigation is a permanent and ongoing concern in parts of the world, while European rivers have experienced unusually low water levels, thwarting tourism and the transport of goods. But even as Canadians order air purifiers to protect themselves from the wildfire smoke that leaves the sky a shade of muddy orange, and Albertans had less cause to use their snow shovels this winter, it’s easy to think of climate change as a faraway problem, in a burning forest or on a melting glacier. For the most part, if you live in an Albertan city it’s easy to feel safe from the most drastic effects of climate change, even as we acknowledge that cities are contributors to the problem. But our municipalities are getting hotter, too. They are subject to floods and droughts; every Albertan remembers the 2013 Calgary flood and 2016 Fort McMurray wildfires. The very skeleton of our cities — concrete — acts as a “We can plot out what a more sustainable city looks like. barrier to water absorption, allowing rainwater to pool. And it’s a trap for It is denser in large part. There are more opportunities heat, acting like a radiator on a hot day. for people to live in multi-family buildings.” Cities create a hefty carbon footprint. “I teach a pretty large second-year ROBERT SUMMERS sustainability class, and I always start by noting that I’m a part of the problem when it comes to climate change,” emissions. But there are also specific problems with the way says Robert Summers, director of the University of Alberta’s urban developers planned how our cities function. School of Urban and Regional Planning, noting that he drives Agrawal, who was the first director of the School of Urban a car to work and heats his home with the same gas-fired and Regional Planning, says that not only do cities contribute furnace system that most Albertans use. “My lifestyle is not to the global weather trends that are melting glaciers and sustainable, even though I’m a firm believer in our need to causing extreme weather events, but we’re also feeling the act on climate change, but I live in a world where functioning effects of changing weather within cities themselves. “And in a normal way causes me to have an unsustainable housing in high-latitude cities like Edmonton contributes environmental impact.” higher greenhouse gas emissions than transportation, Summers is far from alone. Living in most 21st-century contrary to the prevailing belief,” he says. “Buildings contribute North American cities requires driving to places or having almost 45 per cent more than the transportation.” He things driven to us, heating homes when it’s cold and studies a phenomenon called global heat islands, which can (increasingly, even in Canada) cooling them when they’re too raise the temperature within a dense urban area by several hot. Plus, the level of consumption that drives our degrees during a hot spell. If you’ve ever felt like collective culture creates a whole lot of garbage. the atmosphere is sweatier and more stifling Sandeep Agrawal, an Earth and Atmospheric downtown during the summer than it is in rural Sciences professor and associate dean areas, it’s not your imagination. of the Faculty of Graduate & “Urban heat islands cause a difference of Postdoctoral Studies at the U of A, temperature between a rural area and its urban says that cities are responsible counterparts,” he says. “Essentially, concrete, for 60 per cent of the world’s asphalt, fewer trees and more buildings greenhouse gas emissions. This is all combine to increase the land surface partly because so many of us live in an temperature. When we see heat waves across urban environment and more people B.C. and Alberta, they get exacerbated in the using things naturally results in more cities by the heat-island effect.” In 2021, Western

ualberta.ca/science

Robert Summers (facing) and Sandeep Agrawal spend a lot of time thinking about what a safer, more resilient city will look like in a changing climate.

Canada experienced a heat dome that the B.C. coroner said claimed more than 600 lives in the province, mainly in cities, and mainly in neighbourhoods that offered little respite from the heat, such as a green canopy. The good news is that when we have a lot of people in concentrated areas creating the bulk of the world’s emissions, those same people can make an impact in the opposite direction by collectively changing behaviours. There are two things cities have to do in response to climate change: mitigate it and adapt to it. Mitigation, which is proactive, means decreasing emissions so that climate-caused changes don’t continue to worsen. Adaptation, which is reactive, means taking steps to protect citizens from weather-related damage caused by climate changes that are already well in motion. Summers believes changes to transportation are an important part of the mitigation effort. Cars are a culprit here and, while more public transport is a good step, creating greater urban density is also important so that cities don’t end up with large buses chauffeuring two or three people at a time out to far-flung suburbs. This doesn’t need to come in the form of a dramatic overhaul — easier access to transit, municipal zoning changes to help build density and more dedicated entertainment zones to give people a walkable place to go when they want to take in some culture can make a big difference. This is especially true if we factor in eventual technology-based

moves to cleaner energy and technological advancements in electric and automated vehicles. “We can plot out what a more sustainable city looks like,” Summers says. “It is denser in large part. Certainly, there are more opportunities for people to live in multi-family buildings where many people share walls and sometimes ceilings and floors. When you are more packed together, it’s often easier to walk or bike to places or use public transit.” Compact cities help eliminate unnecessary transportation, and research shows they should be accompanied by other measures. Both Summers and Agrawal advocate for ample shady green spaces to give people a place to cool off outside, mitigating the urban heat-island effect. Other heat mitigators include water features, parks, local-species tree canopies and building practices that include roofs made of reflective rather than heat-absorbing colours and materials, or are planted with greenery. Some cities may need to implement infrastructure changes, such as more robust stormwater systems, flood barriers and dams where necessary. This research into creating sustainable cities is essential, but knowing how to help cities mitigate and adapt to climate change is only part of the equation. Realistically, getting citizens and governments to act on those recommendations is its own uphill battle. Researching public opinion and questions around policy is of interest to Jeff Birchall, director of the University of Alberta’s Climate Adaptation and Resilience Lab. Birchall researches the effect of climate change on communities and how people in those communities can address it. His efforts are more in the realm of adaptation than mitigation. “It’s about balancing the two. We’re always going to have to adapt, so we need to sort out the best approach,” he says. “That means collaboration between all levels of government, because each level of government brings different strengths. Coming to a consensus on what those impacts might be and how to adapt to them is not just a matter of recognizing that lower emissions are better than higher emissions, that density is better than sprawl, or that spending money on mitigation and adaptation today will likely save money in the future. Birchall, whose work involves interacting with urban communities across Canada, particularly on coastlines, says that not only do citizens, politicians and commercial interests often disagree on how to allocate money and solve problems, but they often don’t even identify the same things as problems. We contribute to and are affected by greenhouse gases unequally. Agrawal says affluent neighbourhoods are bigger emitters because of the large building footprints and higher use of private vehicles. But lower-income neighbourhoods feel the heat more acutely. Seniors with lower income might feel the health effects of hot summers when they leave windows open to manage the temperature inside, introducing wildfire smoke. Their major concern may not even register for suburbanites with air-conditioned houses and shady yards. contours | winter 2023/24

Kyle Whitfield (left) works with students across disciplines and faculties to understand how older adults think about climate change.

ualberta.ca/science

Overcoming those discrepancies and identifying research indicates that Albertans are much more concerned community-wide concerns is important, but Birchall says the about addressing climate change than stereotypes about them way various groups and people go about advocating for their indicate, but transforming those concerns into policy involves personal priorities can make or break healthy policy discourse. Albertans actively listening to each other rather than making Fighting and finger-pointing does not accomplish as much assumptions about what people may think based on identity, as looking for points where different parties’ interests may political affiliation or occupation. intersect. “In terms of their climate change reactions, the people I Birchall recently presented some of his findings interviewed talked a lot about fears to Canada’s standing Senate committee on of the unknown and also about food transport and communications. He told the insecurity, as well as their own wellcommittee that support from higher levels being as it pertained to the smoke,” of government is crucial to motivating local Whitfield says. “They said they cared governments and communities to plan for for the younger generations and are climate change. concerned about the younger people “Local governments, as the level closest to that are coming up. Their views the people, are in the best position to address certainly should be part of changing climate change adaptation,” he says, “but it policy. Older adults are a growing often comes as a downloaded responsibility portion of our population and are also without appropriate support.” In the case of infrastructure, a group that is too often dismissed.” he says, higher levels of government support the initial stages Imagine if policy eventually fell in line with what of development, while local communities can struggle to researchers said cities needed to protect themselves and the maintain it. “Ultimately, there’s a need for greater provincial rest of the world from climate change. What would these initiatives to support local governments in adaptation.” future cities look like? Technology may be the wild card “We can’t solve this problem by fighting with people who here — driverless cars and alternative energy platforms could don’t believe in climate change, because that’s a non-starter,” play a part in the physical infrastructure of a metropolitan Birchall says. “We have to help people better understand that centre in 2065 — but Summers doesn’t want people to expect a it is something that’s important, that it is going to cost them Jetsons-like makeover in our lifetime. One scenario would be moving forward and that they’ve got a role to play.” more townhouses, duplexes, better public transit and easyPeople usually want to do the right thing, to make good to-use bike lanes. If so, the Canadian city of tomorrow would decisions. Birchall says the best way to ensure it happens is appear to be a more efficient version of its current self. to build climate adaptation into regional policies. That way, it’s there for planners to use when they make decisions. “The people I interviewed talked a lot about fears of the For Birchall, better policy planning means taking a multidisciplinary unknown and also about food insecurity, as well as their approach to research — bringing in the own well-being as it pertained to the smoke.” perspectives of environmental scientists, KYLE WHITFIELD but also social scientists, health-care specialists, economists and more — while also consulting people in the community who may otherwise go unheard. In the same vein, Kyle “I suspect most cities will look quite a bit similar to what Whitfield, a professor with the faculty’s Department of we have, but hopefully with some denser pockets and better Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, is participating in a study connectivity between those dense areas,” Summers says. led by Shelby Yamamoto in the School of Public Health for “Maybe we’ll have a shift towards train transport for outlying which she collected data from older adults who have suffered communities. But I think we’ll still see a lot of cars.” health problems as the result of climate change. To help put Will that be enough to move the needle on climate change? Yamamoto’s data into context, Whitfield conducted research Probably not in the sense that we’ll see a dramatic turnaround among a group of adults with an average age of 76 living in that will bring us back to “normal,” but most of the University Red Deer and Calgary. of Alberta’s climate change researchers seem surprisingly Whitfield says that before Yamamoto’s study little research optimistic about not only the survival of our species, but our had been done on the opinions of older adults regarding cities’ ability to thrive. The combination of policy changes, climate change. People might assume that older adults new technology and a willingness to collectively adapt holds aren’t as concerned about climate change as their younger promise that things can — and will — get better, if we work at counterparts who will see the effects that a changing climate them together. brings into the latter part of this century. But Whitfield says “We have responded to challenges before. We are resilient the research she is carrying out for Yamamoto shows quite people,” Agrawal says. “But with climate change, it’s not just the opposite. The information the team is uncovering may a few of us, the entire world needs to come together. Some prove to be valuable as policy makers make decisions about positive changes are occurring, but we are not there yet. But cities that will appeal to a wider swath of constituents. The I’m hopeful.” contours | winter 2023/24

e r co

e h t o t g n i t Get

e g n a h c e t a m i of cl Lab (CICL) re o C e Ic n ia d s at the Cana spent decade e v a Researchers h a rt e lb ersity of A ver from the Univ s that span o le p m a s 0 0 ,3 er 1 from compiling ov nge evidence a h c te a m li c of 10,000 years be. world’s around the glo lab offers the unique ritical g done at this l answers to c a The work bein ti n te o p rs e e research climate chang ent. our environm g in c fa s n io st que

To learn more, or to donate to this important research, visit UAB.CA/CICL

PHOTO BY DAWN GR AVES

Growth Industry From the Earth to the stars, the faculty’s summer camps feed the next generation’s scientific curiosity

where does a love of science begin? Most kids are curious about how the world works. When that curiosity is nurtured, it can grow into a lifelong passion. Science Summer Camps help kids from grades 1 to 9 foster a love of natural and applied sciences through week-long day camps that focus on everything from computer programming to experimental physics to the natural world. Campers visit U of A museums and labs, conduct hands-on experiments and even play with robots. For many kids, it’s their first time at the U of A — but it won’t be their last. Since 2015, nearly 8,000 kids have attended Science Summer Camps and some have gone on to become your fellow grads. Five action-packed days where youngsters get to explore and discover the marvels of the world? We can’t think of a better way to inspire the next generation of scientists. –LISA SZABO contours | winter 2023/24

discussion

COMPUTING SCIENCE

Mechanical Ruminations

Generative AI models like ChatGPT may sound like us, but to truly understand language requires human experience ask an ai language model like ChatGPT to generate a travel itinerary, and you’ll receive a surprisingly humanlike reply. Because language models sound human, it may be tempting to think they understand words like we do — but do they? Alona Fyshe, ’05 BSc(Spec), ’07 MSc, is one of the researchers investigating this question. An assistant professor in the Faculty of Science, she co-authored a study assessing whether nine- to 12-month-old infants and language

models process language similarly. Fyshe discussed both her research and the basics of language models at a Science Talks webinar.

Thoughts Can Be Mapped

First, Fyshe’s team recorded how infant brains and machine neural networks responded to a number of simple words such as banana and spoon. To collect data from the infants, researchers prompted them with one word at a time. As the babies heard the

word, their brain activity was recorded using an electroencephalogram, or EEG. The team entered the same words that the babies had heard into the language model, and they analyzed the response from the model’s neural network. Language models compute information using a series of digital neurons that take in user input and transform it into numbers before spitting out a prediction. The numbers generated by the neural network create a sort of map of the model’s ‘thought’ process.

Similar Doesn’t Mean Equal

Next, Fyshe and her colleagues fed the infants’ EEG data into a separate AI model that was tasked with predicting the numbers the neural network had come up with for that same word. If the neural network and brain were too dissimilar, the prediction would be impossible. Ultimately, their model predicted the neural network’s computations with above-chance accuracy, suggesting both the infants’ and neural networks’ responses to words were more similar than different. “What a neural network is doing is not exactly what the brain is doing, but it’s not completely random, either,” says Fyshe.

If a model can predict a neural network’s computed numbers based on an infant’s brain activity with some accuracy, does that mean neural networks get what we’re saying? Not exactly. A neural network may produce a similar result to an infant brain, but that doesn’t indicate true language comprehension. Not only do neural networks have a different structure and complexity than the brain, they also lack the experience with the banana or spoon that the infant brings. “Neural networks don’t exist in the world. They’ve never opened a door, they’ve never seen a sunset. Can an AI that’s never had real-world experiences actually understand language that is about the world? A lot of people would say no.” –SANDRINE CAMMINGA Fyshe is one of many speakers to share expertise at alumni events. For more, visit ualberta.ca/alumni/events.

ualberta.ca/science

ILLUSTR ATION BY KUBA FERENC

It Comes Down to Humanity

WITH THANKS

We Count on You From a student’s first step into a lab to a researcher’s groundbreaking discovery, your support makes science possible Every year, donors and supporters like you champion science. You support research and education, open doors to new ways of teaching and provide more inclusive opportunities for students. Your financial support fuels the curious minds of students and researchers seeking to address the world’s great challenges. They study the

role of glycomics in degenerative disease, combat climate change and biodiversity loss, and harness data science for better health outcomes. Thanks to you, students and researchers from all backgrounds solve pressing problems with a foundation built by alumni, donors and industry partners. Together, we are shaping a better world.

Number of Donors to the Faculty of Science in 2023*

265 436

32 103

833

Friends

Foundations

Alumni

Corporations

Total Donations

Academic Endowments

�21.2 M Research

�5.6M

�7.4M

Facilities

�1M

Programs

Awards

�3.9M

�3.3M

Multi-year Donors

Bequests

1,274 478 212 154 �10.9M 19 donors made gifts to the future of science through their estates, for a total of

5-9 years

10-14 years

15-19 years

20+ years

*All numbers and information are from the 2023 fiscal year (April 1, 2022 - March 31, 2023)

GRAD EARNS ACCOLADE

Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences when he started university in the 1980s, Fred Van Goor, ’91 BSc, ’97 PhD, planned to become a physician, but a summer internship changed everything. After landing a job in the lab of zoologist John Chang, ’83 PhD, studying goldfish, Van Goor discovered the joy of using science to solve mysteries. “I abandoned any ideas of going to medical school because I wanted to do research,” he says. Cystic fibrosis (CF) — a hereditary disease that impairs lungs and other organs — was not on his radar until research about ion channels led him to a job with Vertex Pharmaceuticals in 2001. Taking the job put Van Goor on the path to transforming treatment for the disease, earning him a 2024 Breakthrough Prize, which recognizes top researchers in basic sciences. At Vertex, Van Goor and his team created the first medications to treat the underlying cause of CF symptoms. Their drug, Trikafta, is effective for up to 90 per cent of Canadians with the disease, improving quality and length of their lives. Trikafta reduces the need for lung transplants by 87 per cent and may increase a patient’s lifespan from a median age of 57 to 83 years if taken starting around age 12. “We want to treat all people with CF,” Van Goor says. For their work revolutionizing CF treatment, Van Goor, Paul Negulescu and Sabine Hadida earned a $3 million Breakthrough Prize, on the heels of a Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences (with Michael Welsh). –CAITLIN CRAWSHAW

contours | winter 2023/24

discussion GIVING

Award Eases Financial Burdens

Grad Advocates for Women in AI and Stem Frincy Clement broke barriers to become a leader in AI. Now she’s helping other women find success in the field born and raised in Kerala, India, Frincy Clement, ’21 MSc, has crossed the globe to solve problems, not only in business and technology, but in creating a more equitable climate for women in STEM and AI. After years working in business and data science roles, Clement completed the U of A’s multimedia master’s program in the Department of Computing Science and transitioned to a career in artificial intelligence. Ever since, she has worked hard to empower women in the field. In 2022 the Women’s Executive Network named Clement among Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women in the science and technology category, for challenging the status quo for knowledge and female empowerment. What made you decide to pursue computer science, and specifically AI? I was always good at math and logic, so I thought I would be a software developer or engineer. But my career took a turn when I got the opportunity to pursue an MBA from one of the top business schools in India. I worked in marketing, sales and business strategy for four years, but I always yearned to get back into the world of logic-building and problem-solving. AI was a field that was up-and-coming and was a perfect balance between business and technical knowledge. Why did you choose the U of A? After immigrating to Canada, I wanted to pursue a master’s at the U of A, as it has one of the best computer

ualberta.ca/science

science programs in the country and a very knowledgeable and supportive faculty. I was particularly interested in the eight-month internship in the multimedia master’s program, which is designed to give students the industry experience that hiring managers are looking for. It really helped set me up for success. Why is it important to you to advocate for women in STEM? I want to see the day when women are no longer considered a minority in these roles. Even after moving to Canada, it was hard to find female mentors in the field of data science and AI. I started volunteering with Women in AI — a global community dedicated to advancing female participation in AI. The real motivation for me is hearing the stories of women who advanced into their dream careers because we gave them a helping hand, or the girls who were inspired to pursue a career in AI after seeing role models in the field. The theme of 2022’s Canada’s Most Powerful Women: Top 100 was ‘leading from a place of truth.’ How do you interpret this? As a young mother, a woman of colour and an immigrant, it was not easy to make a mark in the Canadian ecosystem. I was often a minority in the room but with hard work, I was able to break barriers, create room for myself and grow as a leader. Everyone has something to offer and if we continue to put our best efforts forward, nothing can stop us. –DONNA MCKINNON This interview has been edited and condensed.

The Bridget Casey Award supports women in chemistry and finance from a low-income household, Bridget Casey, ’10 BSc, enrolled in university to create a financially secure future. But the monetary burden threatened to derail her plans. Casey took out as many student loans as possible and worked through her education, juggling jobs and tutoring. “If tuition had been even $2,000 higher each year there’s a good chance I wouldn’t have been able to afford to finish,” she says. And Casey, who is now a single mother, says she wouldn’t have graduated if she’d had a child at the time. After earning her BSc in chemistry, Casey began blogging about her experience paying off student debt. Her interest in finance piqued, she got an MBA and launched a financial literacy company, Money After Graduation, to help people invest in the stock market. Her insight earned international attention and a TikTok following of 52,000. “My education was how I was able to lift myself out of poverty and enjoy the lifestyle that I have now,” she says. Casey knows that there’s a lot at stake for students from low-income families seeking long-term financial security, so she created an award to alleviate some of the stress. The annual Bridget Casey Award provides financial support to women earning either a bachelor of science degree in chemistry or a bachelor of commerce in finance, with priority to single mothers. Like Casey, Jenny Baek, ’23 BSc — the award’s inaugural recipient — knows about the economic stresses of school. Despite living in Canada for a decade, Korea-born Baek isn’t a citizen, meaning she paid steep international tuition fees. Baek says receiving the Bridget Casey Award helped set her up for success as she transitions to the working world. She recently began a job as a chemist. “Having that extra money has helped me start my journey to financial independence.” –CAITLIN CRAWSHAW

PHOTO SUPPLIED

LEADERSHIP

Elena Xu is the first recipient of the Joan Ethier Women in Science Award. She wants to work in e-learning and educational app development.

ROLE MODELS

Mentorship Support Is Part of the Prize

PHOTO BY JOHN UL AN

Joan Ethier Award supports women in STEM Elena Xu, ’23 BSc, almost didn’t believe it when she opened an email in April telling her she’d earned the Joan Ethier Women in Science Award. She did some online research and learned that the award comes from an endowment established last year by entrepreneur Joan Ethier, ’68 BSc, to support third- or fourthyear U of A students identifying as female, based on their aptitude, academic standing, interest and need. The endowment

focuses on two components: providing student financial support, and facilitating mentorship and networking opportunities. “OK, this award is legit,” Xu remembers thinking. “That was so exciting!” Xu, who is the first recipient, graduated in June with a BSc in computing science and a minor in biological sciences. She hopes to put her skills to work in a job in e-learning and educational app development or bioinformatics. While seemingly unrelated,

says Xu, both fields use tools to simplify complex concepts and solve problems — something she is passionate about. “The award has really helped me in developing more confidence,” she says. “There are so many possibilities and I’m excited to explore them.” Ethier, who founded and ran a computer systems consulting firm in Calgary, established the endowment to encourage young women to pursue careers in STEM. The encouragement

continues with mentorship support long after the award has been given. Xu has met several times virtually with Ethier, who is helping her improve her interview skills. Hourlong practice sessions and feedback on her resumes and cover letters have been a huge help, Xu says. She knows the importance of this type of support, having volunteered as a mentor herself with two student organizations while she was in school: Future Creators, which helps students from grades 5 to 12 create technological projects, and TeamUp Science, which puts on computing science and other workshops for elementary, junior high and high school students. It was a TeamUp Science workshop Xu attended in high school got her interested in pursuing computing science at the U of A. Three years ago, as a TeamUp volunteer, “I organized the same event that drew me into computer science in the first place,” she says. The Joan Ethier Women in Science Award helps to increase creativity, innovation and productivity in the physical sciences by fostering a more equitable environment, says Tara McGee, associate dean of EDI in the College of Natural and Applied Sciences. “This important award supports women in the Faculty of Science by celebrating their success and encouraging them to become leaders in the physical sciences.” –KERI SWEETMAN contours | winter 2023/24

the closing shot

Hands-on Help della and alan wells, ’78 PhD, are passionate about research. That’s why they created two awards for students studying biological sciences: an undergraduate summer studentship and a graduate research dissertation scholarship. These opportunities support students by providing hands-on experience, helping them develop foundational research skills they can carry into their careers. “Undoubtedly, one of the most influential factors in our lives has been our university education,” the pair writes. “It helped fuel our curiosity to gain a better understanding of the world around us, for which we are eternally grateful.” Both with science degrees under

ualberta.ca/science

their belts — Della and Alan met during their undergraduate years at California State University Long Beach — the couple know first-hand how research opportunities for students can improve their science education and pave the way for more future scientists in the workforce. “Undergraduate summer studentships have the potential to be life-changing,” says Declan Ali, dean of the Faculty of Science. “Mr. and Mrs. Wells understand the opportunities afforded by hands-on research and we are grateful that their generous gift will help our students achieve success.” With the support of donors like Della and Alan, undergraduate and graduate students can contribute to meaningful discoveries during their studies, with the relief of financial support. “We hope our financial assistance enables more students to pursue educational opportunities leading to productive, joyful and fulfilling lives.” –LISA SZABO

PHOTO BY JOHN UL AN

Students do some hands-on research in a field school at the Danek Bonebed in 2019. The experience was led by Philip Currie, professor and Canada Research Chair in Dinosaur Paleobiology and Eva Koppelhus, assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences.

Apply your passion.

. D L R WO E H T E G CHAN

ORTUNITIES P P O L IA T N EXPERIE NDERGRADS U E C N IE C S FOR rad every underg if e k a m n a c t we c ositive impac world scientifi la re e c n Imagine the p a v d ading e chance to a at Canada’s le g in rn student has th a le n -o dvantage ugh hands ential Skills A ri pe Ex research thro ce en ipate in tution. The Sci ents to partic ti s ud st in s h le rc a ab e en s re s. that e their degree new initiative m is a complet (SESA) progra arning as they le ed at gr te in ire scientific of workative and insp iti in a wider range is th t or pp u can help su Learn how yo curiosity. d an s, equity gh ou hr kt ea br

LEARN MORE. UAB.CA/SESA

Where ideas collide. This world has been challenged like never before. We meet those challenges grounded by our roots — yet spurred forward by our profound responsibility to seek truth and solve problems. Because at the University of Alberta, we will never be satisfied with the “now.” We will always be seeking, always be innovating and, most of all, always be leading.

Leading with Purpose. ualberta.ca