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July 26, 2002

Posted on July 26: Olympic leaders meet at McMaster

Canadian Olympic gold-medal swimmer Mark Tewksbury, Norwegian speedskating legend Johann Koss and president of the World Anti-Doping Agency Dick Pound will inspire more than 40 current and future Olympic leaders this week at McMaster. Athletes, coaches, olympic medalists, students, academics, administrators, officials and health professionals will learn the values of the Olympic Movement during the 17th Olympic Academy of Canada (OAC) workshops from July 27 to Aug. 2. "The goal of the program is that this group of aspiring and current leaders will be quite connected to promoting the Olympic movement when they return to their community," says Charlotte MacNaughton, manager of communications for the Canadian Olympic Committee and co-organizer of the event. "We want the delegates to be actively involved in the Olympic movement when they return home." The workshops also provide an opportunity for networking. "People who participate in the workshops stay connected for a long time," she says. Delegates from across Canada, ranging in age from 20 to 55, will attend the leadership development program designed for Canadians with a strong interest in the Olympic movement. They will discuss Olympic values and strategies for promoting these values across Canada, current issues facing sport and the Olympic movement. Olympic values, says MacNaughton, are fun, fairness, respect, excellence, leadership, peace and human development. "If more people lived by these values, the world would be a much better place."

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July 25, 2002

Posted on July 25: Summer school offers unique opportunities

Always at the forefront of undergraduate education, McMaster University is leading the pack again, this time, during the summer instead of the fall or winter. The Brockhouse Institute for Materials Research (BIMR) is holding summer school for a group of exceptional undergraduate students. These 57 students, including nine from outside of McMaster, are taking part in some of the strongest research projects on campus, says John Preston, director of the BIMR. "The primary issue is training," he says. "We want students to see that they are working on problems for which the professors and the graduate students don't know the answers." From his experiences with a former theme school, Preston learned the value of combining experience with a summer position, and helping students to see their summer job as part of their academic studies. That is just the case for Rudi Phillion, studying aerospace engineering at Carleton University. "I'm hoping to use what I learn here in another job," he says. "What I'm learning complements it (my program of study) very well. I didn't want to come here and relearn material. I wanted to learn something new." This year is the pilot year for this innovative program. At the beginning of the work term, students were matched with faculty members who were studying areas students were interested in. They then spend the summer working with those professors, and graduate students, on a variety of research projects. "These are not artificial undergraduate projects," says Preston. "The students get paid, and are working on these projects, and have a supervisor who cares about the project." As well as giving students access to world-class laboratories, facilities and equipment, organizers of the summer school have provided many opportunities for students to develop their careers and to discover more about the many fields of materials research. Supplementary activities include lectures by faculty or students on current research, information sessions by representatives from various industries, tours to research or industrial sites and small student-group workshops for training in specialized techniques.

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July 24, 2002

Posted on July 24: Research award raises McMaster biologist’s profile

McMaster's Juliet Daniel is one of the brightest young researchers in Canada. A $150,000 grant will help her shine even brighter. The assistant professor of biology is one of 34 researchers from greater Toronto universities included in round six of the Premier's Research Excellence Award (PREA), announced minister of enterprise, opportunity and innovation Jim Flaherty. The funding -- $100,000 from the Ontario government and $50,000 from the university -- will allow Daniel to continue her investigation into new regulators of cell adhesion and tumour progression. Her findings will increase scientists' understanding of tumour metastasis and significantly contribute to the development of improved therapies for cancer patients. "We're trying to understand what causes a tumor cell to break away from the primary tumor and spread to other organs," Daniel says. "We understand how a tumor arises, but we don't understand how it progresses to that really malignant and devastating state when it spreads to other organs." Daniel's lab is looking at the major epithelial cell adhesion complex, the "E-cadherin-catenin complexs", which is defective in human tumors. "We're studying a protein that I discovered when I was a post-doc, a transcription factor named Kaiso', after the Caribbean calypso music," she says. "The focus of our lab is to elucidate the relevance of the interaction between Kaiso and one of the adhesion catenins, p120ctn," she says. "We're trying to understand Kaiso's mechanism of action and identify the genes that it regulates, to see if any of those genes are directly linked to cancer." Daniel, who joined McMaster in November 1999, will use the funding to pay for personnel, students and technicians.

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July 23, 2002

Posted on July 23: CIHR funds 26 McMaster research projects

McMaster has received $9.1 million from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) to fund the operational costs of 26 research projects. Immune responses in HIV infection and AIDS, monitoring high blood pressure among older adults, and understanding the value, priorities and world views of families who raise children with chronic developmental conditions, are among 26 projects funded through CIHR's new and renewal grants program. "This CIHR funding will provide support, as well as training opportunities, in a wide spectrum of innovative, state-of-the-art medical, biomedical, and health-related research projects at McMaster and our affiliated teaching hospitals," says John Capone, associate dean of research in the Faculty of Health Sciences. "CIHR support will allow our research scientists to remain competitive and at the leading edge at the national and international levels, and potentially lead to the discovery and generation of new knowledge and products that will benefit the health and well-being of all Canadians." McMaster had one of its better showings in CIHR's latest round of funding, says Marie Townsend, research programs administrator on the Committee on Scientific Development. In total, 42.6 per cent of the projects McMaster applied for under its new and renewal grants were funded by CIHR, compared to the national average of 31 per cent, she says.

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July 23, 2002

Posted on July 23: Canadians support adult adoptees getting confidential information about birth parents, study finds

The first in-depth study of Canadian attitudes towards adoption shows that Canadians are strongly in favour of the unconditional release of confidential identifying information to adult adoptees about their birth parents. A majority also support some form of open adoption that allows for contact between birth parents and adoptive parents after adoption takes place. The study, conducted by McMaster University researcher Charlene Miall and Karen March of Carleton University, found that three-quarters of Canadians surveyed felt that birth parents and adoptive parents should not be able to prevent adult adoptees learning their original identities. At present, most adoption reunion registries allow birth parents to veto requests for information by adult adoptees. However, only 45 per cent of Canadians approved of birth parents learning the identities of their adopted adult children without their permission. "Adoption as an institution is in the process of change and this survey provides a unique snapshot of what Canadians think about these changes," said Miall, an associate professor of sociology. "Canadians are very supportive of adoption as a family form while recognizing that confidentiality requirements may place a unique burden on adults seeking to learn about their genetic and medical histories." Other findings from the survey: an overwhelming majority of Canadians approve of international adoptions Canadians are in favour of birth reunions with 46 per cent strongly approving and 45 per cent somewhat approving Canadians also think that confidential adoption, where there is no contact between birth parents and adoptive parents, should continue to be available if both parties want it Canadians are almost evenly split on whether lesbian and gay couples should be able to adopt children. The Institute for Social Research at York University collected the data from a Canada-wide telephone survey between May and July 2000. In addition, 82 comprehensive interviews were conducted to examine what factors were at work when respondents gave the answers they did. That analysis is now complete and the results of both the survey and interviews are in the publication stage. The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada funded this research. For complete information on the survey and the data, see http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/sociology/Miall-News.pdf and http://www.carleton.ca/socanth/Faculty/KarenMarch.htm.

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