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Join us in congratulating Dr. Francis Amara on the opening of the Inner City Science Centre on Thursday, December 10, 2009! Five years ago Dr. Amara had a vision & with a lot of very hard work - the vision is now becoming a reality! Congratulations to Dr. Francis Amara, for the excellent article "Inner City Science Centre Brings Group Together" published in the Winnipeg Foundation's Spring 2009 magazine! Posted April 21/09 Key to rare genetic disorder found Posted Friday, May 29, 2009  Barbara Triggs-Raine with Carl Kleinsasser and his daughter Mackenzie. Kleinsasser lost a child to BCS. Scientists at the University of Manitoba and Manitoba Institute of Child Health have discovered that a small change in a gene (EMG1) that is involved in cell growth is the cause of Bowen-Conradi Syndrome (BCS). Their findings were published in the online edition of the American Journal of Human Genetics and will be published in the print edition next month. BCS is an inherited disorder that affects children, preventing them from growing and developing. Affected children typically die at birth or in early childhood. It occurs quite frequently among Hutterites of the Canadian Prairies and U.S. Great Plains. Knowing the genetic cause of this disorder is very important to this population as it provides a clear tool for diagnosing the condition and at the same time offers hope for a treatment in the future. The Manitoba-led multidisciplinary group was made up of researchers in the Departments of Biochemistry and Medical Genetics, Microbiology, Pediatrics & Child Health, Physiology and the Centre for Investigation of Genetic Disease at the Manitoba Institute of Child Health. The research also included an international team from the Excellence Center at the Institute for Molecular Biosciences, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany. Their team had been working with the same gene in yeast, where it was found that if it wasn’t present the yeast would die. This work hinted at the importance of the gene and encouraged the Manitoba team to move forward with their studies of the equivalent human gene. The team in Manitoba localized the gene to human chromosome 12 in 2006. They have searched through a region containing 59 genes on this chromosome, spanning a region of approximately 2 million nucleotides, to find the one change that causes Bowen Conradi Syndrome. “Identifying the gene was like searching for a needle in a haystack. Although we knew approximately where to look in the haystack, the needle was camouflaged to look like the surrounding hay,” said Dr.Barbara Triggs-Raine. “The experiments we performed to make sure that we had the needle, and not the hay, were what showed EMG1 to be the right gene.” Start-up funding from the Manitoba Institute of Child Health and subsequent funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Winnipeg Rh Institute Foundation, together with strong cooperation from the local Hutterite community, were central to the success of the research team. The gene that is affected is involved in making ribosomes, large molecules essential for making proteins that are required for cells to grow. Genes involved in synthesizing ribosomes have been identified to be defective in several genetic disorders such as Shwachman-Diamond Syndrome and Diamond-Blackfan Anemia. The Manitoba Institute of Child Health is the research division of The Children’s Hospital Foundation. The Institute is dedicated to excellence in pediatric research. At the Institute, more than 220 world-class pediatric medical researchers, technical staff, students and support staff are involved in over $8 million of research and clinical trial activities each year. For more detailed information, visit http://www.mich.ca/. Inner-city youths eager to learn in high-tech lab
Ben Salins, coordinator of the Inner City Science Centre in the Niji Mahkwa School with students Spring McKay (left), 11, and Cheyenne Johnson, 13, who will be in this program in the new year. The school’s principal calls it a “great opportunity.” ( WAYNE GLOWACKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS ARCHIVES) Background: The centre would be open evenings and weekends for community use. Now that centre is almost ready to go with the same equipment that graduate and medical students would use. Teachers will receive training in January and February, and elementary school students should be learning alongside U of M medical and science students by March. Update: Every large university medical school does outreach, and they've all been the same -- until now, said Dr. Francis Amara, head of the biomedical youth program and a professor of biochemistry and medical genetics at the University of Manitoba. Amara is unaware of anything else anywhere quite like the Inner City Science Centre. The $100,000 lab will bring students as young as Grade 4 together with university professors and graduate students using the same sophisticated equipment as the medical campus a few blocks away. Amara pointed to one machine on which students will be able to grow and manipulate cells. Another is a $20,000 microscope, attached to a biomedical imaging screen on which students can manipulate material under the microscope. "We can do manipulation of genetic materials here," he said. The Inner City Science Centre is a partnership of U of M, Winnipeg School Division and the Winnipeg Foundation, but Amara expects parents will work to raise money to cover the annual operating costs of about $13,000. "We know why kids in the inner city are at risk, not represented in proportion to the general population in medical school," said Amara. Three years ago, Amara and other medical professors at U of M started talking about how to do effective outreach, after working on a Science Buddies program which saw them take equipment to about 15 schools. Universities also bring kids to campus for a tour or hold a short summer camp, said Amara. "Universities all do it the same way -- you go to a school for half an hour. You might as well get a video from the Discovery Channel," said Amara. But the Inner City Science Centre will operate 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. once it's up and running. Teachers will come there for training January and February, then start bringing their students. "We want to create an attitude of science," he said. When students walk by the lab, "It gets the smoke coming out of their ears," laughed Niji Mahkwa principal Rob Riel. "It's a great opportunity for the children to see a fully functioning high-end science lab within a school." Niji Mahkwa will probably block off a week at a time for classrooms to use the Inner City Science Centre. "Like in universities, we'll do some course work and some lab work," Riel said. Graduate student Ben Salins said the lab will inspire inner-city kids and push their science knowledge and ambitions to higher levels. "We don't have too many First Nations doctors," said Salins, a program co-ordinator for the project. "If Canada is going to regain its pre-eminence in science, it's very important something like this happens." Niji Mahkwa students Spring McKay and Cheyenne Johnson are avid members of Science Buddies who eagerly await being able to get into the science centre regularly. "I'd like to be a doctor," said Cheyenne. "Me too," echoed Spring.
Please see the following article written by Dr. Jane Evans.
Eugene Burchill Double Helix was designed in memory of Francis Crick after reading of his death in 2004. It is not meant to be a representation of the structure of crystalline DNA, but is rather a symbol of the era of intense activity in determination of the structures of biological molecules which was, to a large extent, triggered by the Watson/Crick model. About the Artist Eugene Burchill (Department of Chemistry, University of Manitoba, retired) was born and raised on a farm near Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan. Educated at the Universities of Saskatchewan and Leeds (England), he taught for six years at the University of Victoria and for thirty one years at the University of Manitoba. Dr. Burchill's interest in art quilts began with drafting templates and scaling patterns for his wife. This led him into design and when, after retirement, there was no rush to realize them, he took a deep breath, bought a sewing machine and started sewing. His designs are strongly influenced by the geometric works of the late M.C. Escher, Dutch artist and print-maker.
New program nurtures budding scientists | |||||||||
| Friday, July 20, 2007 12:41 PM | |||||||||
Fifteen Grade 5 and 6 students got hands-on experience as budding scientists in the recently launched Head Start Biomedical Youth Program.
The program targeted Winnipeg inner city schools, with a specific focus on Aboriginal schools Niji Mahkwa, Marion and Fort Rouge.
The goal of the program is to encourage them to learn more about science and to eventually pursue careers in the health profession.
Jasmine Boulette, who proudly said she’s entering grade six at Niji Mahkwa School had a great time.
“I really liked the tour and the science experiment,” she said.
When asked what she would like to accomplish as a scientist, she answered, “I want to learn how long mosquitoes live and I want to cure cancer.”
Boulette’s excitement was demonstrated by all 15 participants as they toured the lab facilities at both St. Boniface Hospital Research Centre and the Faculty of Medicine and later participated in hands-on experiments with grad students.
Next year the program will continue, and Dr. Amara would like to see more inner city students have the opportunity to participate.
“I am hoping that this program will create a sustainable interest in science, and have an impact on the career choices for these children,” said Dr. Amara.
The Head Start Biomedical Youth Program and the Science Buddies Program are proudly sponsored by the Faculty of Medicine, St. Boniface Hospital Research Centre, Sanofi-Aventis Biotech, MINDSET Manitoba, and the Centre for Aboriginal Health Education. | |||||||||
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