Daily News

New researchers awarded $1.8 million for research equipment, labs

Ten new McMaster researchers are celebrating after receiving a total of $1.8 million to build labs and acquire machinery to help them do their research. The research awards are from the New Opportunities Fund distributed by the Canada Foundation for Innovation. The New Opportunities program is designed to help launch the careers of new and talented faculty members. The faculty members have to be at the University less than 18 months to be eligible for the funding. Mamdouh Shoukri, vice-president research & international affairs, welcomed the investment for cutting-edge infrastructure support. "Recruiting excellent faculty is a high priority for McMaster and this program has allowed us to do just that," said Shoukri. "This investment will help our new faculty to expand their research programs and build their research capacity." For assistant professor Alison Sills in the physics & astronomy department, her $174,422 award means she can get a rare hybrid teraflop supercomputer - one of a handful in the world - for her research into the dynamics and evolution of globular clusters (dense groups of 100,000 stars). "This will help me study the oldest objects in our galaxy, which constrain the age of the universe and trace how our galaxy was formed," said Sills. "This is amazing really. It will put me in the forefront of computational stellar astrophysics."

Med Students debuts tonight

Med Students, a new 13-part documentary series featuring McMaster's medical students and residents, airs tonight on the Life Network at 9 p.m. The series provides audiences with a behind the scenes look at the innovative style of learning in the Faculty of Health Sciences. Filmed by Breakthrough Productions, each episode chronicles the diverse experiences of medical students as they work alongside faculty and hospital staff within McMaster Health Sciences and its affiliated teaching hospitals. The distinct environment in which these future health care professionals are educated and trained will be portrayed along with the perspective of staff participants who facilitate this unique process. By allowing viewers to witness McMaster's self-directed and problem-based learning styles, the series places a human face on McMaster's rigourous academic programs. "The film series offers important opportunities for all of us in Hamilton," says John Kelton, dean and vice-president of McMaster's Faculty of Health Sciences. "First, it will help support our students since all profits will be used for student scholarships and bursaries. Second, the series will enhance the image of our city, our University, our hospitals, our students and all of our dedicated health care providers." The series also raises McMaster's profile nationally while highlighting the University's many attributes and innovative learning style, Kelton says. The series focuses on individuals as they experience real life challenges on their journey to becoming doctors. A range of stories will showcase the spectrum of challenges unfolding at McMaster as well as the contribution students offer to the health care system. Students experience first-time exposure to a trauma, a birth, surgery and everyday emergencies. The documentary series will air every Monday on the Life Network at 9 p.m. beginning tonight and again on Discovery Health this fall.

Lautens legacy lives on in McMaster Libraries

McMaster University Library has acquired the papers of distinguished journalist, humorist, and McMaster alumnus, Gary Lautens '50. Born in Fort William, Ontario, Lautens moved with his family to Hamilton in the early 1930s and completed his high school education at Hamilton Central Collegiate Institute in 1946. He graduated from McMaster with a bachelor's degree in history. Lautens' apprenticeship as a journalist also occurred at McMaster. Editor of the Silhouette from 1948 to 1950, he joined the staff of the Hamilton Spectator after graduation and worked there for a dozen years. His newspaper work as a columnist continued at the Toronto Star from 1962 to 1982. He was executive managing editor of the Toronto Star from 1982 to 1984 and editor emeritus and columnist at the same newspaper until his death of a heart attack in 1992 at the age of 63.

New manager of athletics appointed

McMaster's Department of Athletics & Recreation has appointed Tim Louks as its new manager of athletics. Louks has worked for the Department of Athletics and Recreation since 1988 and has held various positions including: women's volleyball coach; co-ordinator of intramurals; co-ordinator of clubs and the director of the McMaster Sports Fitness School. Louks was a recipient of the prestigious McMaster President's Staff award in 1998 for his outstanding commitment and service to the University. Louks brings valuable experience to his new role having represented McMaster at the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) and Canadian Interuniversity Sport meetings for the past four years and serving on the OUA Sport Technical Committee for the past three years. Despite his new position, Louks will continue to coach the women's volleyball team. He has coached volleyball at McMaster since 1984, spending three years coaching the men's team (1984-87) and the last eight years coaching the women's volleyball team (1988-present). In his tenure, he has twice been named the OWIAA (now OUA) coach of the year (1990-91 & 1997-98). Louks holds two degrees from McMaster University and as a student-athlete was a two-time Most Valuable Player in men's volleyball. "We are pleased that Tim will be taking on this role at McMaster," said director of athletics and recreation Therese Quigley. "Tim is an excellent leader, and wonderful ambassador of the university." Robert Hilson is manager of marketing and communications, athletics and recreation

McMaster pilots personal library for northern physicians

McMaster University has received $1 million from the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care to create and test an information service, McMaster Plus, for physicians in isolated areas. "McMaster Plus: Harnessing Digital Libraries for Better Health Care" will find out what medical information northern Ontario doctors need, provide them online with the best evidence-based health literature available and then test to see if and how doctors are using the service. "Rapid changes in medical knowledge have made it very difficult for physicians to keep up with breakthroughs in health care," says John Kelton, dean and vice-president of McMaster's Faculty of Health Sciences. "We see McMaster Plus as the first step in gathering new medical knowledge and making it available in an easily digestible form to doctors and, in the future, to patients as well." "It used to be that northern Ontario physicians struggled most with getting up-to-date information when they were so far away from a big medical library," says Brian Haynes, chair of the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at McMaster's Faculty of Health Sciences. "The development of digital libraries has in some ways solved this problem, but created a new challenge in sorting through the overwhelming array of information available to find what's most relevant and most reliable. "A doctor might do a literature search on arthritis and get 1,000 articles. Only a tiny fraction of this literature is high quality and relevant to clinical practice," Haynes says. "Our role at McMaster will be to help doctors find that therapeutic needle in the information haystack. We predict our new service will be an enormous time-saver and lead to better practice." "McMaster pioneered the concept of evidence-based medicine," Kelton said. "As a result, we are well-equipped to take on this project. We are very grateful to the government of Ontario for supporting this very significant innovation."