INSTITUTE FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASE RESEARCH
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Research Plenary celebrates excellence
Several students who work in the labs of members of the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research were present at the recent Faculty of Health Sciences Research Plenary, including Robert Gale, a master's student in Eric Brown's lab. Winners of the awards will be announced at the awards ceremony on Wednesday.
Google's search for scholars nets master's student $5,000
Google has identified a McMaster student as one of the most promising young women in Canada's technology field.
The world's most popular search engine and web technology company has awarded master's student Fiona Whelan its $5,000 Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship.
The award includes a three-day trip to Mountain View, California, for the Google Scholars Retreat in June. The retreat offers an opportunity for scholars to attend technology talks on Google products and to network.
Whelan, who studies medical science in IIDR member Dawn Bowdish's lab, is one of only 70 women around the globe and just five in Canada to be awarded the scholarship.
Zinc may shorten colds for adults, but not for kids
An analysis of 17 patient trials comparing oral zinc preparations to placebo found that sucking on the lozenges appeared to shorten the duration of the common cold by about two days. But lead author Dr. Michelle Science, an infectious disease specialist at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children, and graduate student of Mark Loeb, coauthor and member of the Institute for Infectious Disease Research, said the review of the trials involving more than 2,100 patients did not show that using zinc alleviated the severity of symptoms. IIDR member Jennie Johnston was also a coathor of the study.
Click here to read the paper published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
Antibiotic resistance flourishes in freshwater systems
The author Dr. Seuss may have been on to something when he imagined that microscopic communities could live and flourish on small specs of dust, barely visible to the naked eye. In fact, such vibrant communities exist – in a material with a Seussical sounding, yet scientific name called 'floc'.
McMaster University researchers have now discovered that floc – "goo-like" substances that occur suspended in water and that host large communities of bacteria – also contain high levels of antibiotic resistance.
The research was led by Lesley Warren, professor of Earth Sciences and Gerry Wright, scientific director of the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research, both of McMaster, along with Ian Droppo, a research scientist at Environment Canada.
Award supports chair in HIV research
Charu Kaushic, an associate professor in Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine, has been awarded an Applied HIV Research Chair from the Ontario HIV Treatment Network (OHTN), to study heterosexual transmission of HIV in women and the impact of hormonal contraceptives use on HIV susceptibility.
Key to new antibiotics
McMaster University and University of Akron researchers are leading the way in understanding the origins of antibiotic resistance, a global challenge that is creating a serious threat to the treatment of infectious diseases.
Gerry Wright, scientific director of the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research (IIDR) at McMaster University, and Hazel Barton, assistant professor of biology at the University of Akron, discovered a remarkable prevalence of antibiotic resistance bacteria isolated from Lechuguilla Cave in New Mexico one of the deepest and largest caves in the world and a place isolated from human contact for more than four million years.
The research was published today (April 11, 2012) in the Journal PLoS ONE.
Infectious disease expert to present Perey Lecture
Adrian Hill, an internationally recognized infectious disease expert from the University of Oxford, will present the 27th D.Y.E. Perey Lecture, the Faculty of Health Science’s oldest, fully-endowed premier lecture.
Titled, “Tropical infectious diseases: from innate immunity to candidate vaccines,” Dr. Hill’s talk will take place on Wednesday, April 25 from 9-10 a.m. in the Health Sciences Centre Rm. 1A1.
Game changes how scientists study outbreaks
An international team of scientists have created an innovative tool for teaching the fundamentals of epidemiology—the science of how infectious diseases move through a population.
The team teaches a workshop annually in South Africa that helps epidemiologists improve the mathematical models they use to study outbreaks of diseases like cholera, AIDS and malaria. The team created a new game as a teaching aid for the workshop and which has proven effective in demonstrating concepts of epidemiology. The game was conceived by Steve Bellan of UC Berkeley and Juliet Pulliam of U. Florida, and implemented by a team of researchers, including Jonathan Dushoff, an associate professor of biology at McMaster and member of the M.G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research, and James Scott of Colby College; all four co-authored the paper.
IIDR recognizes promising young scientists
The Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research (IIDR) recognized young scientists with an eye for the innovative during the recent Bay Area Science and Engineering Fair.
Jason Fan, a Grade 11 student from Westdale Secondary School in Hamilton, was the first place winner of the IIDR prize that recognized the best senior project in infectious disease, drug discovery or human health. Fan’s project involved testing ligustrazine, a drug derived from traditional Chinese medicine. He examined if ligustrazine would be a valuable therapeutic for Alzheimer's disease by protecting neurons from cell death caused by oxidative stress. He performed his research under the guidance of Dr. Margaret Fahnestock, Professor, Psychiatry & Behavioural Neurosciences at McMaster University.
Federal Budget supports university research
The federal government committed to provide additional resources to support advanced research at universities in Thursday's Budget, including ongoing and stable support for the work of the granting councils and $500 million in additional money over the next five years for the Canada Foundation for Innovation.
Click here to view the full Budget.
Researchers lead fight on TB
Tuberculosis (TB) infects one-third of the world’s population, making it one of the most devastating infectious diseases.
On World TB Day March 24, McMaster’s infectious disease experts will join the world in emphasizing the urgent need for international TB vaccine development. Established by the World Health Organization, the day commemorates when Robert Koch announced 1882 that he had discovered the cause of tuberculosis, the TB bacillus. At the time of Koch's announcement in Berlin, TB was raging through Europe and the Americas, causing the death of one out of every seven people. Koch's discovery opened the way towards diagnosing and curing TB.
Canada Research Chairs boosts members
Two 
members of the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research are among the latest round of Canada Research Chairs announced by Gary Goodyear, Minister of State for Science and Technology.
John Brennan, formerly a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Bioanalytical Chemistry, was promoted to a Tier 1 CRC in Bioanalytical Chemistry and Biointerfaces, while anthropologist Hendrik Poinar, Canada Research Chair in Paleogenetics 
had his Chair renewed for a second five-year term.
To read more about their Chairs and research programs, click here.
School closures stop spread of H1N1
Closing elementary and secondary schools can help slow the spread of infectious disease and should be considered as a control measure during pandemic outbreaks, according to a McMaster University led study.
Using high-quality data about the incidence of influenza infections in Alberta during the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic, the researchers show that when schools closed for the summer, the transmission of infection from person to person was sharply reduced.
“Our study demonstrates that school-age children were important drivers of pH1N1 transmission in 2009,” says David Earn, lead author of the study published in Annals of Internal Medicine. Earn is professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics and member of McMaster’s Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research (IIDR).
A peek at antibiotic development strategies
Microbial genomics as a strategy for developing antimicrobial drugs "failed to deliver" in part because "we don't understand the biology," says Eric Brown, Professor and Chair of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences and member of McMaster's Michael G. DeGroote Insitute for Infectious Disease Research. His strategy to overcome that impasse involves using antibiotics to "probe biology" and thus learn more about "essential functions" of microbes en route, perhaps, to novel or improved antimicrobials. He spoke during the symposium, "A New World of Academic Antimicrobial Discovery," part of the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, held in Chicago, Ill., last September.
Cancer drugs help combat antibiotic resistance
Drugs used to overcome cancer can also combat antibiotic resistance, finds a new study led by Gerry Wright, scientific director of the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research.
“Our study found that certain proteins, called kinases, that confer antibiotic resistance are structurally related to proteins important in cancer,” says Wright about the study published in Chemistry & Biology.
Semen plays a role in HIV transmission, study finds
More than two decades after its onset, the HIV/AIDS pandemic remains an enormous worldwide challenge; yet understanding how sexual transmission of HIV occurs in men and women remains one of the least understood areas of HIV research, claims Charu Kaushic, an associate professor in Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine and member of the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research.
What’s in a flu shot?
Each year, the World Health Organization sets the flu vaccine content. Three influenza viruses—one influenza A (H3N2) virus, one seasonal influenza A (H1N1) virus, and one influenza B virus—are selected. This decision is made on the basis of a number of factors, explained McMaster University infectious diseases specialist Dr. Mark Loeb, “including surveillance data about circulating strains, how they spread, and whether there is a vaccine virus available that would provide protection against viruses likely to circulate.” For the vaccine to be most effective, he noted, there should be a match between the antigen in the vaccine and the circulating strains in a given season. So does this mean vaccination is a gamble?
(Source: Macleans.ca)
Go Mac Go! Watch Gerry Wright cheer on the Marauders in their quest for the Uteck Bowl against Acadia in Moncton, New Brunswick. Click here to read the McMaster Daily News article.
Public lecture The Genome of the Black Death"
Tuesday, Nov. 15 at 6:30 p.m.
Hendrik Poinar, IIDR member and evolutionary geneticist, will present a public lecture entitled "The Genome of the Black Death" on Tuesday, Nov. 15 at 6:30 p.m. The Science in the City lecture takes place at the Hamilton Spectator Auditorium. To reserve your seat call ext. 24934 or email: sciencecity@mcmaster.ca.
For more information visit Scienceinthecity.
Visiting scientist brings Cuban biodiversity to McMaster
Ricardo Medina Marrero, a professor of Microbiology from Cuba’s Chemical Bioactive Center at the Central University of Las Villas, is visiting McMaster University as a collaborator in the lab of Gerry Wright, scientific director of the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research.
Researchers reconstruct genome of the Black Death
An international team—led by researchers from McMaster University's Institute for Infectious Disease Research and the University of Tubingen in Germany—has sequenced the entire genome of the Black Death, one of the most devastating epidemics in human history.
This marks the first time scientists have been able to draft a reconstructed genome of any ancient pathogen, which will allow researchers to track changes in the pathogen’s evolution and virulence over time. This work—currently published online in the scientific journal Nature—could lead to a better understanding of modern infectious diseases.
Funding outfits innovative microbe facility
Michael Surette, a member of the Michael G. Institute for Infectious Disease Research and a Canada Research Chair Interdisciplinary Microbiome Research, has received $727,419 from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI).
His lab is one of five from across campus to receive funding under CFI’s Leader’s Opportunity Fund. The program invests in state-of-the-art facilities and equipment to attract and retain today's best research talent.
The funding is earmarked for Surette's Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Microbiome Research in Health and Disease, which will be a high capacity Biosafety Level 2 facility dedicated to culturing, characterization and rapid molecular profiling of microbial communities of the human microbiome.
Prepared for Contagion
In the movie Contagion in theatres this Friday, a lethal species-jumping virus spreads rapidly causing sickness and death worldwide.
The premise is not far from reality.
According to Karen Mossman, an associate professor of pathology and molecular medicine at McMaster, the chance of a pandemic occurring is imminent. "The world has faced pandemic outbreaks in the past, including SARS and swine flu," she says. "But with an increase in population density and more people travelling, the chance of a pathogen jumping species and spreading worldwide is more likely than ever."
Antibiotic resistance is ancient
Antibiotic resistance is as old as the mammoth, finds a new McMaster study published today in the science journal Nature.
The findings by Gerry Wright, scientific director of the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research and McMaster evolutionary geneticist Hendrik Poinar, show antibiotic resistance is a natural phenomenon that predates the modern selective pressure of clinical antibiotic use.
“Antibiotic resistance is seen as a current problem and the fact that antibiotics are becoming less effective because of resistance spreading in hospitals is a known fact,” said Wright. “The big question is where does all of this resistance come from?”
McMaster receives nearly $2.2-million for oil sands research
Researchers at McMaster have received nearly $2.2-million to examine important environmental processes in Alberta's oil sands, which could help speed up the land reclamation process for one of Canada's largest oil companies.
The project team, led by Lesley Warren, a professor in the School of Geography & Earth Sciences and member of the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research, was recruited by Syncrude Canada Ltd. to investigate bacterial sulfur reactions occurring in its composite tailings. Composite tailings are the byproduct of the oil sand extraction process. They are high in alkalinity and salinity, and extremely low in organic matter.
Researchers discover origin of the Black Death
The bacteria responsible for causing the 1348 Black Death, identified as one of the most cataclysmic events in human history, has been identified by a McMaster researcher.
Using a novel method of DNA enrichment coupled with high-throughput DNA sequencing, Hendrik Poinar, an evolutionary geneticist and member of McMaster’s Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research, his graduate student Kirsti Bos and collaborator Johannes Krause of the University of Tubingen have discovered that the now-extinct version of the Yersinia pestis bacterium initiated the bug that caused 30-50 million European deaths between 1347 and 1351.
Hand-picked for a mammoth excavation
Hendrik Poinar, an evolutionary geneticist and member of McMaster’s Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research, was among more than 50 scientists hand-picked from around the world to participate in a massive archeological dig in Snowmass, Colorado.
Cited as the biggest dig in American history, scientists raced the clock to unearth as many bones and fossils of animals as possible before a planned reservoir expansion began July 1. The $1-million project was supported by the National Geographic Society, which plans to air a segment on the dig on PBS sometime in 2012. Poinar’s group dug up mastodons, mammoths, ground sloths and horses.
Click here to read about the project in the New York Times or click here to read about the PBS series.
(Photo: Poinar cuts bone samples on site for DNA testing. Image courtesy © Denver Museum of Nature & Science).
A passion for science comes early
Cloning DNAs, running polymerase chain reactions to amplify DNA and learning how scientists are fighting antibiotic resistance at the bench is not a bad summer job for a 15-year-old interested in science.
Jessica Knight, winner of the M.G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research (IIDR) Internship Award, has spent the last six weeks in IIDR scientific director Gerry Wright’s lab, learning all she could about antimicrobial resistance.
“Working in Dr. Wright’s lab has been amazing,” says the Grade 9 student from St. Jean de Brebeuf Catholic Secondary School. “I always knew I wanted to study science but now I know why.”
Young investigator makes budding impression
In the 72 years before her death, G. Jeanette Thorbecke made a mark. At 35, Dawn Bowdish is following closely in her footsteps.
As a result, the assistant professor of Pathology and Molecular Medicine and member of the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research (IIDR) at McMaster was awarded the G. Jeanette Thorbecke Award from the Society for Leukocyte Biology (SLB).
Student discovers key to curb HIV
A 30-year-old McMaster student may hold a key to curbing HIV - a global killer considered one of the worst pandemics in human history.
Sumiti Jain, a PhD student in McMaster researcher Ken Rosenthal’s lab, has successfully identified an optimized a prime-boost vaccine against HIV. Her study presents a strategy that uses an antigen from the glycoprotein spike (or gp41) of the virus, which has proven to prevent HIV infection by blocking and preventing the passage of the disease across the urogenital tract. Importantly, this antigen is highly conserved or shared among HIV strains around the world.
Read more...
Experts weigh in on C. difficile
In the Globe and Mail, infectious disease experts say reining in the use of antibiotics is one of the most important steps in fighting C. difficile. Christine Lee, an infectious disease specialist at McMaster University, however, argues that reducing antibiotic use is not simple, as it can be difficult to determine which patients actually need them and doctors may fear withholding antibiotics could put some patients at risk. “Physicians will have to be educated,” said Lee, who is also medical director of infection prevention and control at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton. “It’s more challenging than it sounds.”
Read her comments in the Globe and Mail article "Hospitals with C. difficile remain safe".
Students recognized for research excellence
Several students that work within the labs of IIDR members were recognized recently at the McMaster Health Sciences 2011 Research Plenary. The annual event recognizes research achievements of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.
The mysterious case of the White Nose Syndrome
As they hibernate in dark, frigid caves, a mysterious fungus creeps on them, creating a white patch around their nose, wings and ears. The fungus wakes them early from hibernation, creates starvation, wing damage and a quick death.
To date more than one million bats have perished. Why remains a mystery.
McMaster’s Jianping Xu, an associate professor of biology and member of the Institute for Infectious Disease Research, is collaborating with leading microbiologists across North America to understand the Geomyces destructans fungal disease (or White Nose Syndrome, called such as infected bats have a very white patch around their nose).
Sexually transmitted co-infections increase HIV risk: study
Bacterial and viral sexually transmitted infections can exacerbate HIV replication in co-infected individuals, found a recent study conducted by a Canadian team of researchers and led by Charu Kaushic, associate professor of Pathology and Molecular Medicine and member of the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research.
“While sexually transmitted infections are associated with increased HIV-1 susceptibility and viral shedding in the genital tract, the mechanisms underlying this association are poorly understood,” said Kaushic about the study that appears online this month in the Journal of Infectious Diseases. “Our research has found that normal response to these infections by the epithelial cells (the cells that line the genital tract) can lead to increased HIV replication in the female reproductive tract.”
McMaster honours Frank Pummer
Dr. Francis (Frank) Plummer, a member of IIDR's Scientific Advisory Board, has received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from McMaster University.
Plummer is scientific director of Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, a Canada Research Chair in Resistance and Susceptibility to Infections, and a global leader in HIV/AIDS research.
Study reveals new insight into the function of amyloid proteins
She’s a biologist investigating microbial genomics. He studies protein structures using electron microscopy. Put them together - their research opens doors.
A unique collaboration between Marie Elliot and Joaquin Ortega, members of the McMaster Institute for Infectious Disease Research, is providing new insight into the assembly of ‘amyloids’ – protein aggregates that are associated with neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
Indian superbug spreads to Canada
A drug-resistant superbug that's spreading globally has been found in two Toronto-area people — a woman who went abroad for a controversial MS treatment and a man who hadn't travelled outside Ontario in more than a decade.
The latter case is believed to be the first time the organism, dubbed NDM-1, has been contracted in Canada — a finding a leading infectious disease expert called "alarming."
Julianne Kus, a former PhD graduate of IIDR member Lori Burrows, is the first author of the study published this week in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. The story also includes commentary from Gerry Wright, scientific director of the IIDR.
Read the article on Canada.com or Click here for the CMAJ study.
Love isn’t blind after all
In the prehistoric world of dating, it turns out size really does matter.
Researchers at McMaster University have discovered that female woolly mammoths preferred to be wooed by a much larger, less hairy species of mammoth instead of more diminutive male woollies.
It’s the first time scientists have discovered any interbreeding between the woolly mammoth, which lived in the Arctic tundra, and the Columbian mammoth, which lived further south and was about 25 per cent bigger.
Click here for more news from the IIDR
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IIDR Bulletin
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Blood donors needed: Healthy adults are being sought to donate a small amount of blood (35 mls) for a research study that will investigate aging and its impact on immune responses. To participate or for more information contact Dawn Bowdish at bowdish@mcmaster.ca
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IIDR Colloquium: The next IIDR colloquium will feature Justin Nodwell. His talks, entitled "How do we make it die?", will take place on Friday, May 25 at 12 p.m. inMDCL 3020. Lunch will be provided and the talk is open to all IIDR members and trainees. Click here to view the poster.
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Combating malaria: In 2010, about 3.3 billion people - almost half of the world's population - were at risk
of malaria. Every year, this leads to about 216 million malaria cases and an estimated 655,000 deaths, according to the World Health Organization, which has dedicated April 25 to World Malaria Day. IIDR member Tim Gilberger, a leader in malaria research, says: "Malaria is a major threat to public health, particularly in the world's poorest countries. Our lab is making great strides in finding new ways to combat emerging threats such as parasite resistance to a number of malaria medicines." Click here to read more about Gilberger's research. -
Read how the overuse of antibiotics are causing resistance that could undermine medical advances in the Globe and Mail.
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The annual Faculty of Health Sciences Research Plenary will be held May 8-10. Abstracts for poster and oral sessions and graduate student.faculty and postdoctoral fellow award nominations are due March 16. Click here for more information.
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Gerry Wright recently presented his work at the AAAS conference in Vancouver. Click here to read and comment on his presentation on the Canada Foundation for Innovation's blog or click here to read about his presentation on the AAAS website.
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The 201
1 IIDR Annual Report is hot off the press. Click here to read about the Institute's successes over the last year. -
The Human Microbiome Journal Club, a bi-weekly meeting where participants present a recent study related to the human microbiome, continues in 2012. Click here for more information on upcoming journal club presentations or contact Matt Workentine at workenm@mcmaster.ca.
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The Department of Biology at Lund University seeks a postdoctoral student to study intermediate filament-like cytoskeletons in bacteria.Click here for more information.
- Top 10 - 2011 was a year of scientific milestones at the IIDR, as evidenced by the Deccan Herald which listed two of the Institute's discoveries among its 10 top science news stories of the year. Click here to see what stories made the list.
Click here for photos and videos of the 2011 IIDR Holiday Party.
- United Nations' World AIDS Day is Thursday, Dec. 1. According to a new report released by UNAIDS, 2011 was a game changing year for the AIDS response with unprecedented progress in science, political leadership and results. Click here to view the report.
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Researchers who studied the fate of six species of 'megafauna' over the past 50,000 years found that climate change and habitat loss were involved in many of the extinctions. In an article in Nature, IIDR member Hendrik Poinar cautions that the plight of megafauna could be misleading when applied to modern extinctions of much smaller animals, and even plants. Read the article here.
- Jack Gauldie, IIDR member and director of the Institute for Molecular Medicine and Health and a professor at McMaster University, has been appointed to the Board of Directors of the Ontario Genomics Institute. Click here to read more.
- Hendrik Poinar's recent study on the Black Death appears on the cover of the prestigious science journal Nature. Click here to view the article.
- Listen to Hendrik Poinar discuss his research into the Black Plague on CBC's Quirks and Quarks.
- A National HIV/AIDS Summit on Sept. 22 in Washington brought together an estimated 150 scientists, clinicians, public health leaders and advocates who helped draw a roadmap for accelerating the field of "implementation science" in HIV. Read more.
- Justin Nodwell asks "What c
an we possilby hope to discover?" in the most recent IIDR blog post that examines why scientists care about the things they study. Read it here. - The IIDR received
worldwide coverage for Gerry Wright's and Hendrik Poinar's research into ancient antibiotic resistance including The Scientist, Winnipeg Free Press, Science
and CBC News; and check out Hendrik Poinar's research into the Black Death in the New York Times, The National Post and ABC News online. - A recent study shows redesigning the antibiotic vancomycin can kill some bacteria that have become resistant to it. "Synthesis of the amidinated aglycon is a highly creative and rationally targeted approach to combatting bacterial drug resistance," comments IIDR Scientific Director Gerry Wright in the article in Chemical & Engineering News.
IIDR member Christine Lee discusses C. difficile in a Jeff Allen Show segment titled "How Do You Protect Yourself From Germs?" Click here for the podcast. - Lori Burrows, professor of
Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences and IIDR member, shares her thoughts on C. difficile in the IIDR Blog. Click here to read her entry. - View the July edition of IIDR's monthly e-newsletter. Email vanraay@mcmaster.ca to subscribe.
- IIDR launches The Spark, an online forum for IIDR members on the future of the Institute.
Click here to view photos of the IIDR's Strategic Planning Day held on June 13 at the Paletta Mansion in Burlington.- Federal budget invests in students, research (McMaster Daily News)
- To subscribe to IIDR's new monthly e-newsletter email vanraay@mcmaster.ca. To view the May 2011 edition, click here.
- Research by IIDR investigators Brian Coombes and Ali Ashkar is published in this month's edition of Landes Bioscience.
