The building blocks of life are housed in our cells and the tens of thousands of different proteins within those cells. Researchers at the Manitoba Centre for Proteomics and Systems Biology (a joint initiative of the University of Manitoba and Health Sciences Centre) are using new methods to find answers to how those systems work. The Centre brings together leading researchers from a variety of departments in the Faculties of Medicine and Science, which represent a wealth of knowledge in cell biology, physiology, genetics, microbiology, chemistry and physics. The group has an emphasis on providing high-quality training in instrument design, laboratory practice and bioinformatics necessary for this new discipline to flourish.

The need to develop new materials and technologies to meet the growing demand for faster and better components is pushing research not only to new heights, but to the nanoscale. The Nano Systems Fabrication Laboratory at the University of Manitoba – the only facility of its kind in Manitoba and one of only a handful in Canada – gives students and researchers in industry access to new technologies and custom-made components that range in size from tens of nanometers to several microns in size. These components are used in applications such as telecommunications, microscopic medical devices, and sensors for detecting the safety of structures. Working together with researchers in complementary facilities at the University of Manitoba, the components designed and manufactured are often a combination of several technologies into a single powerful nanosystem device.

Imagine having to recreate the entire human body from man-made materials – creating the skeleton, the sensory systems, vascular systems, and the brain. The more than forty researchers at the Manitoba Institute for Materials could likely do this using the many materials at their fingertips. The group works in multidisciplinary research teams with professors from a number of different departments and faculties on campus. Their research areas range from electronic materials to spin glasses, from nanostructures to polymers and soft biomaterials, from complex structured metamaterials to superalloys, from composite material systems and intelligent sensing to high performance computing materials research, from magnetic materials to photonic and phononic microsystems, and from MEMS and NEMS to minerals, as well as to research related to the environment. These focus areas are dynamic and evolving, and are leading the pack in the rapidly evolving fields of materials science and engineering.