Some mice look different

Psychology professor Elena Choleris has discovered how genes work together to enable mice to recognize each other. It’s a groundbreaking discovery that could have implications for better understanding human disorders like autism.

Choleris’s study of genetic interactions was featured in the January issue of Science magazine and was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America and the Journal of Neuroendocrinology.

“If the individuals of one species can’t recognize others, it means that can’t be a social species, so recognition is really the basis of all social life,” she says.

Although scientists have known that estrogens — through their alpha receptor and the gene for neuropeptide oxytocin — are involved in the regulation of social recognition in mice, Choleris’s studies were the first to show that the most recently discovered estrogen receptor, beta, and the gene for oxytocin’s receptor are also needed for social recognition.

She has concluded that, in the regulation of social recognition, these four genes are connected together in what she calls a “micronet.”

“Like a net, if you cut it at any one of these four points, then you will block social recognition because all the genes have to work together as a mechanism for social recognition to happen,” says Choleris, who’s the lead author of the study that she completed with Don Pfaff of Rockefeller University. “I see this as the core control of social recognition.”

Understanding the genetic basis of social behaviour in mice could also help explain the neurobiological causes of human disorders that affect sociality, she says.

“There are studies suggesting the oxytocin system may be impaired in people who suffer from autism.”

Photo by Paula Bialski
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OVC appoints new dean

Elizabeth Arnold Stone has been appointed dean of the Ontario Veterinary College. The first woman to head a veterinary school in Canada, she will join the University June 1.

Stone is currently head of the Department of Clinical Sciences at North Carolina State University. She has also been an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a visiting research assistant professor at the Sol Sherry Thrombosis Research Center at Temple University Medical School.

She received her veterinary degree from the University of California, Davis, and completed an internship, surgical residency and MS in physiology at the University of Georgia in 1980. She earned a master of public policy at the Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy at Duke University in 1993.

At North Carolina, Stone established a formal mentoring program and career workshops for faculty. She also expanded learning opportunities for veterinary students and for post-doctoral trainees, including establishing partnerships with a private specialty hospital and an emergency clinic, the county animal shelter and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.

A veterinary urologist, she is currently focusing her research on the neurophysiology of lower urinary tract syndromes.
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They are the champions!

At the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) women’s basketball championships in Guelph March 5, U of G captured its first provincial title in 25 years — before any of the team members were even born, says head coach Angela Orton. In its 16th straight win, the Gryphons upset the OUA defending champions, the Ottawa Gee-Gees, 87-68. At the national tournament in Winnipeg March 11 to 13, Guelph and Ottawa met up again in the consolation championship, but this time, the Gryphons were defeated 76-69 and placed sixth overall. For details of the 2005 season, see www.uoguelph.ca/athletics.
Photo by Kyle Rodriguez
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They’re masters in research

Custom-built diets and “rocks for crops” are the research interests of Guelph students Kim Schneider, left, and Karen Eny. Both are winners of $25,000 Science and Engineering Research Canada Research Scholarships.

Schneider, B.Sc.(Env.) ’04, is a master’s student in land resource science, where she works with Prof. Peter Van Straaten on the use of local mineral resources as fertilizers. Dubbed “rocks for crops,” the concept is intended to help smallholder farmers in developing countries improve agricultural practices and attain food self-sufficiency. She hopes to conduct fieldwork in Brazil, including the possible use of a fungus to break down phosphate rock material into nutrients available to plants.

ENE will graduate this summer with a degree in applied nutrition. This fall, she begins a combined dietetic internship-master of science program through St. Michael’s Hospital and the University of Toronto. She’s interested in learning more about interactions between genes and metabolism and nutrition, information that may eventually see one-size-fits-all diets replaced by nutrition programs tailored to individuals on the basis of their genetic make-up.
Photo by Martin Schwalbe.
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Vets Without Borders to launch this summer

Guelph will be the home of a new cross-Canada humanitarian group called Veterinarians Without Borders/Vétérinaires sans frontières-Canada (VWB/VSF-Canada), which will be inaugurated during a gathering in Victoria, B.C., in July. Modelled after such long-established agencies as Médecins sans frontières/Doctors Without Borders, the organization will co-ordinate efforts of Canadian veterinarians in responding to international crises such as the Dec. 26 tsunami and avian influenza scares. It will also address longer-term problems involving human and animal health and the environment.

The idea to establish Vets Without borders was met with enthusiasm across the country. Prof. David Waltner-Toews, Population Medicine, is serving as the group’s acting CEO until its first meeting. Guelph lawyer Brian Ausman, B.Sc.(Agr.) ’79 and DVM ’84, has provided pro bono legal work, and Erin Fraser, B.Sc. ’94, DVM ’98 and M.Sc. ’00, who works at the Centre for Coastal Health in Victoria, is organizing the group’s July kickoff. French-speaking colleagues, including OVC grads, are helping to make the organization fully bilingual.

This is the first VWB group in North America. Chapters in several European countries work on smallholder livestock issues in Africa under the umbrella of VSF-Europa.
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What is U of G’s greatest contribution?

That question has been posed by Prof. Alan Wildeman, vice-president (research), as a way for the University community to reflect on the value of research, education and humanitarian endeavours.

All three were important to the world’s most-celebrated researcher, Albert Einstein, whose work is being recognized in 2005 on the centenary of his so-called “miracle year.” Einstein made a difference in the world, says Wildeman. “What difference is the University of Guelph making.” He’s asking for input from the University community on what single U of G discovery or achievement has had the biggest impact on the world.

“U of G has a long tradition of doing work that can be translated into real-life applications,” says Wildeman. “Sharing these ‘greatest hits’ will enable us to uncover all the ways in which the creativity of Guelph’s faculty, staff and students have made a difference.”

To share your ideas about U of G’s single greatest research or scholarly contribution, e-mail Greatesthits@uoguelph.ca.
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Canada can be a place where race does not matter

During Black History Month in February, sociology professor Cecil Foster told participants in a Third Age Learning program that he’s starting to believe in the possibility of Canadian children growing up in a society where skin colour is truly irrelevant.

He said Canada laid the foundation for building towards this ideal when it became the world’s first official multicultural country in 1971. “Canada took a leading role in saying citizenship has nothing to do with ethnicity, the colour of your skin or the language you speak,” he said. “It has to do with your intellect, your accomplishments and your values. Until that time, no country in the world had ever done that.”

Foster is quick to add that Canada is not free of racism. “There are still problems; it continues to be a serious issue. But we can always have hope that we can overcome these problems.”
Foster, who joined U of G in 2002, is one of Canada’s leading intellectuals on issues of race, culture, citizenship and immigration. His latest book, Where Race Does Not Matter: The New Spirit of Modernity, explores how Canada went from wanting to be a “white man’s country,” including being largely responsible for the prototype of apartheid in South Africa, to becoming a nation that is home to people from around the world.
Photo by Martin Schwalbe
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Are senior gamblers at risk?

Since casino gambling was legalized in Ontario in 1992, the number of at-risk Canadian gamblers has grown, but in a new study, U of G researchers have found that most senior gamblers use strategies that keep their hobby under control.

Family relations professors Joseph Tindale and Joan Norris found that group bus excursions to “racinos” — racetracks with slot machines — were the most popular forms of gambling among the seniors surveyed.

“We found that many seniors see gambling excursions as positive, providing recreation, safe transportation and a way to get out of the house and do things they enjoy,” says Tindale.

Because most of the seniors surveyed set strict gambling limits of about $50 and view gambling as a way to socialize with friends, gambling doesn’t affect other activities in their lives and puts them at a very low risk for problem gambling, say the researchers.

“It’s probably an effect of being a member of this older cohort,” says Norris. “They might be more accustomed to saving money, and they didn’t grow up with the gambling venues that are now available.”The professors have received funding from the Ontario Problem Gambling Research Centre to create a detailed profile of older adult gamblers in smaller Ontario communities.
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Guelph student braves the Arctic

Only 750 kilometres from the North Pole, with the mercury in the thermometer stuck at about -50 C, U of G master’s student Frank Cobbett, B.Sc.(Eng.) ’04, is in the fifth month of a six-month study of how environmental mercury moves between the snow pack and the air in Canada’s High Arctic.

Cobbett’s groundbreaking research is expected to yield information about the origins and behaviour of mercury, which is becoming a growing health hazard for people living in northern regions.

The environmental engineering student flew to Nunavut in January, headed for an Environment Canada research station on a Cold War-era military base on the northern tip of Ellesmere Island, the world’s most northerly inhabited settlement.

He’s monitoring mercury concentrations and flux to track the movement of different forms of the element, including gaseous mercury. Although Environment Canada routinely monitors mercury levels around the country, the agency normally measures only concentrations rather than how much mercury escapes from the ground or is deposited from the air.

Cobbett was joined by his faculty supervisor, Prof. Bill Van Heyst, at the end of the winter semester. They plan to compare their Arctic results with last fall’s study of mercury flux from biosolids spread on a farmer’s field near Guelph. Working there with Environment Canada, they found that more mercury escapes from soils immediately after rainfall and after tilling. Van Heyst also hopes to study mercury flux in tropical regions.
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This lab is our lab

Here’s a peek into one of the research labs completed in Phase 1 of the University’s new science complex. This lab is shared by microbiology professors Joseph Lam, left, and Chris Whitfield and eight other researchers, including post-docs, technicians and students. There are obvious efficiencies associated with shared space and equipment, but Lam and Whitfield say they pale in comparison with the value of shared ideas and insights. Their situation is not unique. Most research labs in Phase 1 of the new building are shared by microbiologists, biochemists, molecular biologists and botanists. The research labs are interspersed throughout the 165,000-square-foot building with 26 undergraduate teaching labs designed to promote both independent and group learning.
Photo by Martin Schwalbe
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U of G sets new ethical standards for suppliers

A new code of ethical conduct for suppliers approved by the University’s Board of Governors is intended to raise awareness among purchasers within the University community and suppliers.
The new code builds on a previous administrative policy and now includes all apparel and merchandise with U of G logos or trademarks, as well as products monitored by a third-party agency that verifies policy compliance.

The new policy includes provisions about supplier practices around fair wages and benefits, child labour, working hours, workplace health and safety standards, discrimination and harassment. It also covers steps the University may take to verify that suppliers and subcontractors are in compliance.

The code can be viewed online at www.uoguelph.ca/governors/policies.html.
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Noteworthy

• University professor emeritus O.P. Dwivedi, Political Science, has been named a member of the Order of Canada. Dwivedi was recognized as a scholar and expert in public administration and the environment, as a spiritual counsellor to prisoners and students, for leading the local Hindu Cultural Society, and for founding and financing schools and a walk-in clinic in his birthplace in India.
  
  
• During convocation ceremonies Feb. 23 and 24, the University of Guelph awarded more than 800 degrees and diplomas, including honorary degrees to former U of G president Bill Winegard, feminist philosopher Lorraine Code and social scientist Gerald Helleiner.
  
  
  
• Prof. Carlton Gyles, a bacteriologist and interim dean of the Ontario Veterinary College, has received the top research award presented by the Canadian Society for Microbiologists for lifetime achievement. He was recognized for his contributions internationally to E. coli research and is credited for providing the fundamental basis for recent developments in the field.
  
  
• Kimberley Schneider, B.Sc.(Env.) ’04, a master’s student in land resource science, and Karen Eny, a 2004 graduate in family relations and applied nutrition, will receive $25,000 scholarships from Science and Engineering Research Canada. Eny has been accepted to a combined dietetic graduate program through Toronto’s St. Michael’s Hospital and the University of Toronto.
  
  
• Prof. Jack Trevors, Environmental Biology, has been invited to join the newly formed Biology, Medicine and Society Think Tank, UMR CNRS/IRD Montpellier, France. He says the think tank deals with revitalizing scientific thinking and “understanding what is only speculative and misleading by scientists and what is established, credible and useful to humanity.”
  
  
• Prof. Alan Shepard, English and Theatre Studies has been appointed associate vice-president (academic), with responsibility for the content and administration of all U of G undergraduate programs. He will also oversee the Office of Open Learning, Teaching Support Services and academic advising and counselling.
  
  
  
• Landscape architecture professor Nancy Pollock-Ellwand, BLA ’78, and her former graduate student Susan Preston, MLA ’99, have won a citation from the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects for an electronic textbook they developed. Landscape legacies: Created Space From the Prehistoric to the Present traces the history of landscape design through text, photographs and graphics.
  
  
• Robert Enright, editor of Border Crossings magazine and one of Canada’s best known cultural journalists, has joined U of G’s fine art faculty as a research professor in art criticism. He will spend winter semesters teaching in the MFA program.
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Art centre turns silver

The Macdonald Stewart Art Centre celebrates its 25th anniversary with the exhibition “Body Unbound: Works from the Collection,” which runs until July 10. It features selections from the art centre and U of G collections, which include more than 5,000 works and represent a 300-year survey of Canadian art.
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