Summer Issue
August 2005

The next time you cut yourself, spare a thought for Steffany Bennett and her team of investigators in the Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology and Immunology. They are delving into one of the body’s most fundamental biochemical mechanisms, the agent that makes it possible to repair that cut by clotting blood around the injury. And if this group succeeds in understanding how this agent works, they could point the way to a new means of preventing or minimizing the massive brain damage that often accompanies Alzheimer’s disease or the onset of a stroke.

Six years ago, Dr. Syed Sattar, now director of the Centre for Research on Environmental Microbiology (CREM) and adjunct professor in the Faculty of Medicine, was under pressure to jettison equipment used to investigate air-borne pathogens. It took up too much room, it was expensive to maintain, and there seemed to be no pressing use for it.

If there is a way for educators to ease a troubled child’s transition from pre-school into first year of formal learning, psychologist Barry Schneider wants to find out how it can be introduced into Canadian schools.

Drawn by the distinctive literary heritage of a people whose Irish ancestors flocked to Canada’s easternmost shore centuries ago to earn their livelihood from the sea, a University of Ottawa education professor is travelling Newfoundland’s book club circuit.

More than 60 experts on tsunami disaster research, relief and reconstruction met on April 22, 2005 for a unique forum organized by the University of Ottawa, together with the Ocean Management Research Network and the Canadian Society for International Health. The National Tsunami Forum brought together experts from a broad cross-section of fields, including health, engineering, government and aid agencies, to discuss how research can help tsunami-affected countries with long-term recovery.