Millions of Dollars in Research Flows Through Western ‘Irrefutable Truth of the Quality of Their Work’

The Londoner, by Mardy Bacigalupo

Cynthia Dunning is a biomechanical, biomedical engineer and assistant professor at the University of Western Ontario. She is one of many recipients of NSERC funding. Over the past few years she has been using her funding money to develop better joint replacements.

Our climate is changing. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure that out. But you do need to be some kind of scientist.

Fred Longstaffe is a professor and the dean of science at the University of Western Ontario. His research project of late has been to use stable isotopes to study earth and the environment. Specifically, he has been examining the isotopic composition of rain, which has a systemic relationship to temperature.

“I think everybody agrees our climate is getting warmer and I think what is more critical is the rate of change and our climate is getting warmer faster than it was in the past,” he says. “I am trying to reconstruct a climate history for this area that goes back 5,000 years. It would be useful because then we would know what size and condition the Great Lakes once were and might become.”

Many questions are raised by doing this kind of research. One of these involves the speed of temperature changes. If they are in fact changing faster now than they were before man, one question that needs to be asked is whether this change of climate is natural or not.

Dr. Longstaffe says his research findings could lead policy makers to be influenced to start looking at alternate energy sources.

NSERC has been supporting researchers like Dr. Longstaffe at Western for years.

“Virtually every engineering professor here has some connection with NSERC,” explains Cynthia Dunning, an assistant professor in the faculty of engineering. “As an engineering professor, NSERC plays a big role in our ability to do research.”

She is a mechanical engineer by training and is applying this knowledge in a bio-medical field.

Currently in her seventh year of NSERC funding, Dr. Dunning is working with a team to develop better replacement joints (implants) for the human body. She is researching how implant characteristics, such as shape, affect their fixation within the body. Loss of fixation is one of the main reasons for revision surgery on artificial joints.

While doing her masters, Dr. Dunning looked at fractures in the wrist. She examined five different techniques for keeping the fracture the most stable. Her PhD thesis involved creating devices capable of mimicking normal upper limb motion and loading conditions for various activities of daily living.

“Because I work in conjunction with clinical partners, some of our research findings have been implemented. For example, we have been able to devise new techniques for surgically repairing and rehabilitating torn elbow ligaments, which are now being used in patients.”

Just recently NSERC celebrated its 25^th anniversary. At these celebrations, about 80 science and engineering professors from Western were in attendance. They have been benefiting from NSERC grants and funding for 25 years.

“To receive continuous funding over a quarter of a century is irrefutable truth of the quality of their work and their productivity,” explains Francis Lionnet, NSERC Public Affairs Officer. “The Discovery Grants Program takes up the lion’s share of the funding.”

For more than 24 years Dr. Longstaffe has been a recipient of NSERC funding. Currently, he is involved with the Discovery Grants Program.

He says this program is one that most researchers and professors make a real attempt to acquire through a competition. Those who do receive it use it to get a program of research started.

“Virtually every professor in the faculties of science and engineering, they all apply to NSERC; the duration of grants can be between one and five years and this is the money they use to make their research go,” Dr. Longstaffe explains. “Professors do apply for other funding but this sort of primes the pump.”

It supplements the pay and experience for graduate students, chemistry, technicians and more.

While the university does provide some start-up funding for research, it is not enough. Dr. Longstaffe says he would not be able to continue his research without NSERC. His costs are between $300,000 and $400,000 each year and more than $95,000 of this is funded by the Discovery Grant Program.

The role of NSERC is to make investments in people, discovery and innovation for the benefit of all Canadians. They do so by supporting more than 17,000 university students and postdoctoral fellows in their advanced studies. They fund more than 9,600 university professors every year.

In 2002-2003, Western received more than $15 million from NSERC. About $9 million of this was in discovery grants. NSERC funding makes up only one small piece of the pie when it comes to London’s incoming public research funding dollars. Last year, over $142 million in various types of funding was being used by London researchers.

“People apply and a lot of people don’t receive the funding,” Mr. Lionnet says. “We fund more people (than other funding programs) but they get less. We are very keen on getting the young researchers into the system.”

“NSERC has played a significant role in my professional development,” explains Dr. Dunning. “NSERC scholarships made it possible for me to attend graduate school and complete postdoctoral training. Now, as a professor, NSERC helps me to conduct my research by funding equipment, supplies, and my own graduate students.”

“For me personally, it is really important to be doing research that I know is ultimately improving the quality of peoples’ lives,” Dr. Dunning says. “I want to see that patients who undergo joint replacements don’t have to have revision surgery as soon. This surgery is a costly and painful procedure, and it can take people a long time to recover.”

“My goal would be for people to only have joint replacement surgery once. If you think about how far implants have come in the past 30 or 40 years, maybe I could see this realized in my lifetime.”

According to Dr. Longstaffe, it is a clear expectation that the faculty members the university hires and attains will attract NSERC funding.

He also says the Canadian NSERC system is the envy of the world. It is a relatively short application – taking about a month for him to complete. He says by the standards of what these processes can be, it is concise.

“The fact that the vast majority of our faculty members that are eligible for NSERC funding is a very strong indication of their quality as researchers. And, I have to emphasize that these faculty members are supervising grad students – the next generation,” he explains. “If they don’t get NSERC funding they will have a very hard time succeeding.”