NSERC Names Winners of Canada’s Top Science and Engineering Prizes for New Researchers
Five to receive national honours and cash awards
Ottawa, Ontario, May 20, 2004 – The Honourable Lucienne Robillard, Minister of Industry and Minister responsible for the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec, and Dr. Tom Brzustowski, President of NSERC, today announced the 2004 winner of the annual NSERC Howard Alper Postdoctoral Prize, along with the four 2004 winners of the NSERC prizes for top doctoral research in science or engineering.
The winners are:
“These awards recognize some of the rising stars in Canada,” said Minister Robillard. “Supporting young researchers will help Canada to build a 21st century economy and become one of the top countries in R&D.”
In the prime of his life, Dr. Aneil Agrawal is plagued by a question most young people never contemplate: Why have sex at all? It’s not a personal issue. It’s a biological one. Dr. Agrawal is a rising star in the field of evolutionary theory, where math, statistics and biology meet to solve evolutionary riddles. Much of his thinking focuses on why we live in a world in which Noah had to load the ark by twos. While the answers might seem obvious, his probing is overturning long-held assumptions. Contact Dr. Agrawal at (604) 822-5041 or agrawal@zoology.ubc.ca. For a full-length feature on his work, go to: http://www.nserc.gc.ca/news/2004/p040520_b1.htm.
Dr. Karim S. Karim’s new digital X-ray technology could soon help diagnose digestive tract problems, improve mammography and guide catheters through veins, all with greater accuracy and lower doses of radiation than ever before. Compared with traditional film radiographs, digital X-rays are immediate and can be easily stored and shared, reducing the need for large X-ray film archives. Digital X-rays also open the door for real-time tele-radiology. Contact Dr. Karim at (604) 268-6859 or kkarim@sfu.ca. For a full-length feature on his work, go to: http://www.nserc.gc.ca/news/2004/p040520_b2.htm.
Dr. Arindom Sen has set the groundwork for the clinical-scale production of neural stem cells. Dr. Sen has developed methods to grow large quantities of the cells in the lab, and he’s shown that these cells are a viable source for transplantation in an animal model of Parkinson’s disease, a degenerative disorder in which a specific group of neural cells die. The finding raises the hope that cultured human stem cells could one day be transplanted into human patients. This would provide a critical alternative to the human fetal tissue presently used in a promising experimental treatment for Parkinson’s disease. Contact Dr. Sen at (403) 210-9452 or asen@ucalgary.ca. For a full-length feature on his work, go to: http://www.nserc.gc.ca/news/2004/p040520_b3.htm.
Dr. Alexandre Blais calls it a “small step” on a long journey, but his research findings improve the practical aspects of quantum bit, or qubit, construction, and offer a new way to maintain quantum coherence, the key to a successful quantum processor. Dr. Blais proposed the creation of one of the first types of superconductor-based qubits. The design was based on a millionth-of-a-metre-sized junction (large by quantum mechanical standards) between two high-temperature aluminium superconductors. This approach is now being explored around the world by at least three different teams of experimenters. Contact Dr. Blais at (203) 436-4825 or alexandre.blais@yale.edu. For a full-length feature on his work, go to: http://www.nserc.gc.ca/news/2004/p040520_b4.htm.
Dr. Marie Evangelista’s first hint that something was up with a gene called Bni1 was seeing sexual impotence in yeast. This intimate insight led the recent Queen’s University Ph.D. recipient to the discovery of a protein that’s key to how cells get their shape and divide. The finding has implications for areas from understanding how bacteria hi-jack and steer human cells, to how cancer cells spread. Contact Dr. Evangelista at (650) 467-7569 or evangelm@gene.com. For a full-length feature on her work, go to: http://www.nserc.gc.ca/news/2004/p040520_b5.htm.
NSERC President Dr. Tom Brzustowski also congratulated the five prize winners. “These young people have already reached a high level of excellence at an early stage of their career. I am certain that we will continue hearing about the great things they accomplish in the years to come.”
“The prizes are an acknowledgement of outstanding accomplishments and exceptional promise for the future,” says Dr. Alper. “It tells the winners that they are important to us, that we want them to remain here because Canada will benefit from the major advances in research and development that are likely to result from their investigations. Dr. Aneil Agrawal’s interdisciplinary research on evolutionary theory is breaking new ground on a subject of interest to society.”
The NSERC Doctoral Prizes and Howard Alper Postdoctoral Prize will be presented in Ottawa at the end of the year.
NSERC, now also known as Science and Engineering Research Canada, is a key federal agency investing in people, discovery, and innovation. It supports both basic university research through research grants, and project research through partnerships among postsecondary institutions, government and the private sector, as well as the advanced training of highly qualified people.
For background information on the award winners, visit NSERC's Web site at http://www.nserc.gc.ca/about/award_e.htm.
For more information, contact:
Arnet Sheppard
NSERC Newsbureau
Tel.: (613) 995-5997
E-mail: axs@nserc.ca
The Prizes
The NSERC Howard Alper Postdoctoral Prize. Dr. Howard Alper donated $100,000 from the proceeds of the Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering that he won in 2000 to the setting up of the new award that bears his name. Every year, an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow in one of the natural sciences or engineering disciplines is awarded $20,000 on top of their Fellowship of $35,000. Candidates for the prize are judged on their academic excellence as well as on their potential for a research career. Interpersonal and communication skills, and leadership abilities are also taken into account, along with the candidates’ overall research contributions.
The NSERC Doctoral Prizes. A national jury selects the doctoral medallists (two scientists and two engineers) from the best Ph.D. graduates nominated by universities across Canada. Each winner receives a $10,000 cash prize and a silver medal from NSERC.
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