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News Release

January 12, 2007

Province Invests $1.7 Million in U of G Research

The Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation is investing more than $1.7 million in ongoing research projects at the University of Guelph. It’s part of an $11-million investment to support 68 innovative projects at Ontario research institutions through the created Ontario Research Fund.

The funding was announced earlier this week by Premier Dalton McGuinty, minister of research and innovation.

“The Ministry of Research and Innovation is playing a key role in helping these researchers fulfil their aspirations and capability to conduct world-class research that will benefit Ontario,” said Alan Wildeman, vice-president (research).

The provincial investment matches funding commitments made earlier this year by the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) and the national Canada Research Chairs program. Support is also provided by the research institutions and private-sector partners.

Among other things, the provincial investment will support the construction of Canada’s first one-micron nuclear microprobe; Ontario’s first single-unit microneurography facility; and new laboratories for studying nutraceutical encapsulation and tissue, cell and protein dynamics.

It is also supporting U of G projects that will advance knowledge in pest management, mathematics, cardiovascular health and disease, physics, food science, and food packaging and design.

Funding recipients are:

• Madhur Anand, Department of Environmental Biology, $122,095 for her work as a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in global ecological change and forest biodiversity.

• Leah Bent, Department of Human Health and Nutritional Sciences, $86,529 for a microneurography facility to study sensory contributions to balance, posture and walking, work that will especially benefit the country’s elderly population.

• Milena Corredig, Department of Food Science, $98,911 to support her research as a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in food nanostructures. Her work focuses on incorporating more functional, healthier ingredients in food products.

• Diane de Kerckhove, Department of Physics, $145,795 to buy a complex lens system for the microprobe she’s building. She’ll use the state-of-the-art facility to study semiconducters and to fabricate microscopic light-emitting devices.

• John Dutcher, Department of Physics, $134,379 to support his research as a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in soft matter physics. He co-ordinates Guelph’s interdisciplinary Centre for Food and Soft Materials and is a theme leader (structure-dynamics-function of foods and biomaterials) for Guelph’s Advanced Foods and Materials Network.

• Doug Fudge and Todd Gillis, Department of Integrative Biology, $252,319 to establish a world-class tissue, cell and protein dynamics laboratory that will advance research in human health, biotechnology, nanotechnology and materials science.

• Paul Garrett, Department of Physics, $149,364 for technology to improve the high-efficiency gamma-ray spectrometer used for beta-decay experiments. The equipment will improve studies of neutron halos in light-mass systems and research on the evolution of nuclear shell structure.

• Ron Johnson, Department of Biomedical Sciences, $126,828 for equipment to advance investigations of altered venous function in chronic heart failure and to support long-term research into cardiovascular health and disease.

• Peter Sikkema, Department of Plant Agriculture, $380,282 for equipment that will support an extensive research program for sustainable pest management in field and horticultural crops at the University’s Ridgetown Campus.

• Loong-Tak Lim, Department of Food Science, $84,418 to apply and develop innovative technologies to improve the performance of food packaging and to advance fundamental knowledge of how food interacts with packaging.

• Amanda Wright, Department of Human Health and Nutritional Sciences, $126,045 to set up a nutraceutical laboratory to study how to encapsulate bioactive compounds.