Researchers at U of T got a boost last Wednesday when they received $104 million through the Ontario Research Fund infrastructure grant. Going to 16 campus-based projects and 10 at partner hospitals, the grant is intended to further cutting-edge research and commercialize it.
The projects have interdisciplinary teams that explore topics ranging from environmental sustainability and digital media to healthy diets and miniature satellites. Stem cell research focusing on potential medical applications, headed by Janet Rossant, received over $9.9 million. A study of new ways to combat neuro-degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, hosted at UTSC’s Centre for the Neurobiology of Stress, received $2.1 million.
Much of the equipment involved is as intriguing as it is intimidating. Take the mass spectrometer, an instrument that can pick up extremely small traces of a compound and determine what it’s made of. “This same kind of mass spectrometer is used in the Olympics for identifying and confirming the use of illicit performance-enhancing drugs in athletes,” said Scott Mabury, chair of the chemistry department and vice-provost of academic operations, with a touch of pride. Mabury and his team are studying how fluorinated compounds used in industrial and consumer products affect the environment and people’s health. That’s where the latest mass spectrometers come in. “In your blood you have microgram per litre part per billion concentrations of flourinated acids,” Mabury said. “We are looking at, in particular, why you are contaminated with these compounds.” The team believes that some contribution comes from paper packaging in food, which uses these compounds as a preservative, and aims to design safer versions of the compounds.
Another researcher, David Jenkins, also has a project that could affect what’s on supermarket shelves. Many of the packaged foods we eat are designed to dissolve and be absorbed into the bloodstream quickly. “People want food to melt in the mouth, that’s what they like,” Jenkins said. “The trouble is, this food will do the same things in the intestines, liberating vast loads of glucose.” High amounts of glucose, a type of sugar, increases the risk of diabetes and various cancers, and Jenkins’ research aims to create new diets that will direct people to natural and synthetic foods with low sugar counts.
The grant is part of over $290 million of funding going to U of T and its partner hospitals, with over $135 million coming from the Canada Foundation for Innovation and another $52 million from institutional support and other U of T partners.
