U of G Research Makes Headlines
May 25, 2010 - In the News
The International Barcode of Life (iBOL) project led by University of Guelph professor Paul Hebert is receiving media attention with stories appearing in the National Post and the Ottawa Citizen.
The stories are focused on how the project will make Canada the world's epicentre of DNA barcoding if researchers are able to attain the funding to run and maintain it. The push is on to raise $150 million to start building the database. This past April, the Ontario government invested an additional $8.1 million in iBOL.
The Guelph-based initiative is the world's largest biodiversity genomics project. U of G'’s Biodiversity Institute of Ontario (BIO) will be the scientific hub for iBOL, which will officially launch in the fall. Already researchers are quickly amassing barcodes or identifiers for a growing database of life forms and developing new informatics tools and technologies. Once fully activated, it will involve more than 100 researchers from 26 countries.
A recent study by Prof. Yoshinori Mine is also featured in the news. The food scientist's research on developing a novel way to help children build a tolerance to food allergies is highlighted in a story on the CTV News website.
Mine found that mice predisposed to an egg allergy became desensitized to the allergen after repeatedly ingesting only a portion of the protein known to trigger the allergic reaction. His research findings were recently published in the journal Clinical and Experimental Allergy and have also been featured in media across the country.
