Five researchers at York are delighted this week with the announcement that they’ll be receiving grants from the Canadian government under the auspices of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). Judy Sgro, Member of Parliament for York West, dropped by the Core Molecular Biology Facility in the Farquharson Building congratulate York recipients, and learn more about the projects view the lab.
In all, CIHR is investing over $78 million in 183 health research projects across Ontario and of that, York is receiving $2,571,989. Those heading projects at York are:
André Bedard, professor, Department of Biology, Faculty of Pure and Applied Science – $310,864 for his study of the regulation of the AP-1 and MEN1 tumour suppressor gene in v-Src transformed cells
Ellen Bialystok, professor, Department of Psychology – $192,693 for research into cognitive aging and the bilingual mind: mental representation and executive control
John D. Crawford, professor Department of Psychology – $790,456 for his studies of spatial representations for head-free gaze control in the monkey
Ronald E. Pearlman, associate dean, Faculty of Graduate Studies – $540,860 for research into developmental genome recognition and RNA processing in unicellular eukaryotes
Gillian E. Wu, dean, Faculty of Pure & Applied Science – $737,116 for her studies into the molecular biology of lymphocyte development
One research funding recipient, Associate Dean Ron Pearlman, Faculty of Graduate Studies explained to Sgro that the Core Molecular Biology Facility, which the latter toured, is the facility that does DNA sequence analysis for York users and for a large number of external users on a fee-for-service basis. Several labs send samples to the facility for analysis.
In addition, those working in the facility do a “very large proportion” of the research-based sequencing for the Toronto area, including all of the University of Toronto campuses, the hospital-based research institutes and many biotech companies, said Pearlman. They also do a “significant amount” of sequencing for users outside the Toronto area from as far away as Charlottetown, PEI.
