A celebration of research

Researchers from A-to-Z: Professors Peng Zhang and Heather Andreas attended the reception at the Great Hall. (NIck Pearce Photo)

Chemistry professor Heather Andreas is super excited about supercapacitors.

Like batteries, supercapacitors are devices that store energy, except that when the energy they hold runs out, they can be recharged countless times.

“We’re dealing with the last few problems with them,” says Dr. Andreas. “While you can charge it up over and over again it’ll discharge even if you’re not using it. So, say you drive your car to the airport. By the time you return to your car after being away, the energy’s run out. So I’ll be looking at why they do that and how we can stop it.”

Dr. Andreas’ research just got a boost with news of CFI funding and a matching grant from the Nova Scotia Research & Innovation Trust — more than $300,000 altogether —to buy equipment for her laboratory. She’s got her eye on a multipotentiostat, a device that will allow her to run eight experiments simultaneously.

“That’s just huge for us,” says Dr. Andreas, one of the Department of Chemistry’s newest professors.

Dr. Andreas and her colleague Peng Zhang were just two of many Dalhousie professors honoured during Monday morning’s celebration of research at the university’s Great Hall. Research at Dalhousie has grown by leaps and bounds in the past five years—bringing $115 million to the university in 2006/07. Approximately $25 million of that total comes to university researchers through the Canada Research Chairs program and the Canada Foundation for Innovation. The funded research projects cover the gamut, from the study of obesity and metabolism to petroleum exploration and the European Union.

“It’s nice to get together like this,” says Dr. Zhang, who studies nanoparticles, tiny particles measuring one-billionth to 10-billionth of a metre. Research on nanomaterials has applications in various fields including medical science, information storage and electronics. “We know some of our colleagues by name and this way we can put a face to the name.”

Canada Research Chairs honored at the Monday event include:

• Brenda Beagan, Faculty of Health Professions, Canada Research Chair in Women’s Health
• Robert Beiko, Faculty of Computer Science, Canada Research Chair in Bioinformatics
• Chris Blanchard, Department of Medicine, Canada Research Chair in Cardiovascular Disease and Physical Activity
• James Drummond, Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Remote Sounding of Atmospheres
• James Fawcett, Departments of Pharmacology and Surgery, Canada Research Chair in Molecular Biology of Brain Repair
• Katja Fennel, Department of Oceanography, Canada Research Chair in Marine Prediction
• Kimberley Hall, Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Canada Research Chair in Ultrafast Science (with a focus on semi-conductor materials)
• Sara Kirk, School of Health Services Administration, Canada Research Chair in Health Services Research (with a focus on obesity)
• Finn Laursen, Department of Political Science, Tier One Canada Research Chair in European Union Studies
• Mladen Nedimovic, Department of Earth Sciences, Canada Research Chair in Geophysics and Petroleum Exploration
• Aaron Newman, Department of Psychology, Canada Research Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience Psychology
• Sergey Pnomarenko, Faculty of Engineering, Canada Research Chair in Nonlinear Photonics
• Norbert Zeh, Faculty of Computer Science, Canada Research Chair in Algorithms for Memory Hierarchies
• Yonggan Zhao, School of Business Administration, Canada Research Chair in Risk Management 

Grant recipients from the Canada Foundation for Innovation's Leaders Opportunity Fund:

• Remigius Agu, School of Pharmacy, for the development and optimization of novel nasal drug delivery systems and screening methods
• Heather Andreas, Department of Chemistry, for state-of-the-art laboratory installation to support innovative and industrially important research in electrochemical capacitors, alternative energy storage and electrochemistry
• Younes Anini, Department of Physiology and Biophysics, studying cellular and molecular regulation of energy homeostasis: the role of proprotein convertases and new emerging enteric peptides
• Gautam Awatramani, Department of Anatomy & Neurobiology, probing structure and function of neural circuits in the retina
• Jason Berman, Department of Pediatrics, studying transgenic zebrafish models of myeloid disease and acute myeloid leukemia
• Stanimir Bonev, Department of Physics & Atmospheric Science, for a high performance computational platform for research in condensed matter physics
• Valerie Chappe, Department of Physiology & Biophysics, on molecular and cellular mechanisms involved in the CFTR chloride channel activity; role in Cystic Fibrosis
• Patrice Coté, Department of Biology, establishing a laboratory for the study of retinal development and function
• Denis Dupré, Department of Pharmacology, on the characterization of the assembly and specificity of seven transmembrane receptors homo and heterodimeric signaling complexes
• Zoheir Farhat, Department of  Process Engineering & Applied Science, for the Facility for Innovation in Nano-Mechanical Characterization of Advanced Materials
• Kerry Goralski, Department of Pharmacy, for the establishment of a laboratory for innovative multi-level studies of obesity and metabolism
• Laurent Kreplak, Department of Physics & Atmospheric Science, studying structural nanomechanics of self-assembled filaments, from single filament behavior to mechanotransduction in cell and tissue
• Robert Liwski, Department of Pathology, on the role of activated protein C and its ligand endothelial protein C receptor in ischemia-reperfusion injury and allograft vasculopathy
• Yuan Ma, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, for the Advanced MicroElectroMechanical System (MEMS) and application laboratory
• Gianfranco Mazzanti, Department of Process Engineering & Applied Science, for a rheo-NMR and scattering research facility
• Craig McCormick, Department of Microbiology & Immunology, for the establishment of a viral oncology laboratory for the study of AIDS-related malignancies
• David Morris, Department of Otolaryngology, for the clinical assessment of the hearing impaired using the scanning laser Doppler vibrometer
• Jan Rainey, Department of  Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, for a facility for determining mechanisms of biomolecular interactions and supramolecular assembly
• Tetjana Ross, Department of Oceanography, for infrastructure for the observation of small-scale bio-physical interactions in aquatic environments
• Sophia Stone, Department of Biology, studying plant growth and proteomics facilities
• Nikhil Thomas, Department of Microbiology & Immunology, researching the mechanisms of type III effector  injection by food-borne enteric pathogens
• Margaret Walsh, Department of Civil & Resource Engineering, for infrastructure for advanced process design in water and wastewater treatment
• Jun Wang, Department of Microbiology & Immunology, for a mucosal immunology and vaccinology research laboratory
• Peng Zhang, Department of Chemistry, for nfrastructure support for innovative research in nanoscience and technology.