UBC News Digest

The UBC News Digest is a weekly summary of news stories about UBC people, research, learning, community, and internationalization initiatives. News Digest past issues are also available on-line.

June 27, 2002

• UBC prof and students win award for MITACS Best Poster Competition
• UBC prof receives award from the U.K.'s Royal Society of Chemistry
• UBC prof to study effects of pesticide and detergent on breast cancer
• UBC Campus Tree Walk
• 2002 Order of Canada New Fellows

UBC prof and students win award for MITACS Best Poster Competition

Natalia Kouzniak, a research associate in the Mathematics Department and D.M. Maijer, an assistant professor in the Dept. of Metals and Materials, earned First Place with a poster entitled "Mathematical modelling of elastometric materials used for fuel cell seals" at the Mathematics of Information Technology and Complex Systems, Inc. (MITACS, Inc.) Third Annual General Meeting, held at UBC last month.

PhD student Adriana Dawes and her supervisor, Math Prof. Leah Keshet earned Second Place with their poster entitled "Actin Dynamics and E. Coli Infection."

Over 300 students from across Canada and the United States participated in this year's AGM. The Poster Competition drew submissions from more than 70 students and post-doctoral fellows.

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UBC prof receives award from the U.K.'s Royal Society of Chemistry

Chemistry Assoc. Prof. D. D. Y. Chen has been presented with an industrially-sponsored award by the Royal Society of Chemistry in the U.K. for his significant contributions to the development of the relatively new separation technique of capillary electrophoresis (CE).

Chen obtained his BSc from Xiamen University in China, and PhD from the University of Alberta. Through his studies in CE, he has successfully demonstrated that separation science can be unified by a single set of equations that take into consideration both field effect and equilibrium.

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UBC prof to study effects of pesticide and detergent on breast cancer

UBC Pharmaceutical Sciences Assoc. Prof. Stelvio Bandiera is leading one of eight teams of researchers across Canada in a $5.6 million-dollar study on how breast cancer starts and what women can do to decrease the risk of the disease.

The Canadian Breast Cancer Research Initiative project is the largest Canadian research competition on record which specifically targets the etiology and primary prevention of breast cancer.

Bandiera and his team will study a common pesticide and detergent product that has been shown to have estrogen-like activity in animal models -- searching for a link between breast cancer susceptibility and exposure to these agents.

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UBC Campus Tree Walk

Learn more about the rich collection of interesting trees from all over the world that have found their roots at UBC on a relaxing summer afternoon tree walk - totally free!

The walk will be guided by UBC Botany Department's Tony Griffiths and Shona Ellis. Participants are asked to meet at the Rose Garden near the flagpole at 2pm Friday July 5th. The walk will last approximately two hours and end at the Sage Bistro.

For information and booking, please call the UBC Botany Department at 604-822-2133.

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2002 Order of Canada New Fellows

Ten members of the UBC community have been recognized as Order of Canada New Fellows for 2002.

They are: Jean Barman, Dept. of Educational Studies; James Enns, Dept. of Psychology; Sneja Gunew, Dept. of English and Women's Studies; Thomas Pedersen, Dept. of Earth and Ocean Sciences; Arthur Ray, Dept. of History; Edith and Patrick McGeer, Kinsman Laboratory for Neurological Research; George Sawatzky, Dept. of Physics and Astronomy; John Scheffer, Dept. of Chemistry; Stephen Withers, Dept. of Chemistry.

Fifty-eight new Fellows were named in the recent election into the society that is considered Canada's most prestigious academic accolade. UBC now counts among its current faculty more than 160 Fellows.

For more information visit the website at http://www.rsc.ca/english/new_fellows_2002.html

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