Dr. Stephen Fai, director of the Carleton Immersive Media Studio (CIMS), and a team of 17 other principal investigators, have received a $1.8-million grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Strategic Training Initiative in Health Research to fund a six-year training program in neurodegenerative lipidomics.
This unique trans-institutional program funds the recruitment of the best and brightest neuroscientists, biologists, chemists, bioinformaticians, engineers and architects for 18 different laboratories working collaboratively at Carleton University, the University of Toronto, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and the University of Ottawa.
Dr. Fai will be training a new generation of hybrid researchers to visualize changes in brain lipid metabolism that wreak havoc on brain cells in Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.
As an architect and historian, Dr. Fai is dedicated to the advanced study of innovative, hybrid forms of representation.
“We work with our colleagues in the biomedical sciences to visualize lipid processes,” explains Dr. Fai. “Representation of the human body and architecture has a long history dating back to the 16th century. We continue that tradition in this unique research training program.”
“Lipidomics uses the power of mass spectrometry, the depth of lipid biochemistry, the insight of neuronal cell biology and, unique to our team, the communication afforded by hybrid visualization technologies to define the crucial role that brain lipids play in neurodegenerative disease and to demonstrate the impact of intervention,” says program director Steffany Bennett.
Neurolipidomic researchers in CIMS use state-of-the-art visualization and immersive technologies to facilitate communication within the research community and general public.
“There is incredible beauty in the biochemical pathways elucidated by our collaborators but their ability to convey this beauty is limited to diagrams,” says Nico Valenzuela – the training program’s first post-professional architectural recruit whose first visual neurolipidomic collaboration has been recently accepted in the Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE). “Our goal is to convey the science in a way that others don’t see them as diagrams but as a new means restoring life to complex biological pathways.”
Working with post-doctoral fellow Dr Sophie Imbeault in Dr Bennett’s laboratory, Mr. Valenzuela and Dr. Fai used a hybrid combination of graphic editing and 3D modelling software to re-assemble the 3D structure of brain stem cells and visualize the cellular position of channels that pass lipid metabolites to and from these cells. This project is exemplary of the collaborative advantage fostered by the CIHR Training Program.
The training program supports its curriculum through an extended mentorship network of principal investigators and peer-mentors, as well as through award funding to undergraduates, graduate students and post-doctoral fellows.
The program also recognizes the challenges of collaborating across disciplines and supports the development of new integrative ways to connect and communicate.
In addition to Drs. Fai and Bennett, team members include: Drs. John Arnason, John Baenziger, Kristin Baetz, David Bickel, Jean-Francois Couture, Daniel Figeys, Claude Messier, David Park, Michael Schlossmacher, Ruth Slack, John Woulfe, and Zemin Yao affiliated with the University of Ottawa; Anurag Tandon and Paul Fraser at the Centre for Research in Neurodegenerative Diseases (CRND), University of Toronto; and Krista Lanctôt and Sandra Black at Sunnybrook Health Science Centre, Toronto.
To see the “Ask Me About Lipidomics” videos: (https://www.med.uottawa.ca/lipidomics/askmeaboutlipidomics.html)
You are invited to see and hear about the research at the Neurolipidomics 2010 meeting to be held on Monday, Nov. 22 at the Canadian Museum of Nature, 240 McLeod Street, Ottawa. Visit the program’s website to register for the meeting. https://www.med.uottawa.ca/lipidomics/index.html
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For more information:
Dr Stephen Fai
Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism
Director, Carleton Immersive Media Studio (CIMS)
URL: http://www.cims.carleton.ca/
Carleton University
Tel: 613 520-2867
Email: sfai@cims.carleton.ca
Lin Moody
Media Relations
Carleton University
Tel: 613-520-2600, ext. 8705
Cell: 613-371-4843
Email: Lin_Moody@Carleton.ca
Sarah Gelbard, MArch, MRAIC
Program Manager, CIHR Training Program in Neurodegenerative Lipidomics
URL: https://www.med.uottawa.ca/lipidomics/index.html
Neural Regeneration Laboratory
Ottawa Institute of Systems Biology
Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology, Immunology
Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa
Tel: (613) 562-5800 x4236
Email: ldomic@uottawa.ca
For more information about the CIHR/STIHR program:
http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/22174.html
Monday, October 18, 2010 in News Releases
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