Alberta Innovates Health Solutions awards fellowships to 22 researchers

Alberta Innovates Health Solutions (AIHS) has announced the results of its 2014 Postgraduate Fellowship Competition and awarded 22 of the 37 fellowships to researchers at the University of Calgary. The fellowship is part of the AIHS Training and Early Career Development Program, which focuses on the development of individual trainees through experience in health research and innovation.

“An increase in recipients of this magnitude is a significant achievement,” says Ed McCauley, vice-president (research). “It speaks to the abilities of these scholars and the promise of their research. We congratulate them, as well as the supervisors who have mentored them on their path to this high level of academic recognition.”

AIHS Postgraduate Fellowship recipients are pictured above; front row, from left: Xavier Waltz, Toni Sterley, Basant Abdulrahman, and Matthew Spencer. Back row, from left: Charlie Hsu, Darren Clark, Emilie Magaud, Lauren Drogos, Jennifer Semrau, Ying Zhu, Kun Shao, and Jillian Beveridge. 

Fellowship will fund recipients’ research and help develop skills

Recipient Mohsen Maleki Karyak is honoured to have been selected for the fellowship. Maleki Karyak’s project explores theoretical and experimental models for elasticity and permeability of articular cartilage, supervised by Dr. Walter Herzog in the Faculty of Kinesiology and Salvatore Federico in the Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Schulich School of Engineering. The fellowship will provide funding for research as well as expanded training opportunities. 

“At this stage I’m focused on answering fundamental questions about the elasticity and permeability of the tissue itself. We can use the outcome of this research to understand the risk factors and the mechanisms leading to joint diseases such as osteoarthritis," he says. “We can also provide advancements in tissue engineering techniques, which can be used to create engineered materials for repairing or replacing the damaged or diseased tissues in joints.”

Applicants were selected based on their relevant work and/or research experience, career development plans, their training and mentorship environment, and their research proposal. “The fellowship is a great opportunity for me to develop my experience and expose myself to other aspects of biomechanics,” he says. “I hope that at the end I can represent myself as a well-rounded researcher in biomechanics, particularly in soft tissue mechanics.” Maleki Karyak’s research involves the Human Performance Lab in the Faculty of Kinesiology, as well as the Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering at the Schulich School of Engineering. 

Fellowships awarded to scholars across campus

The AIHS supports highly competitive and internationally recognized training awards in the area of health and translational research. The 22 fellowships awarded to scholars from the University of Calgary — twice the number awarded the previous year — are 59 per cent of the total fellowships awarded. The recipients work in the Cumming School of Medicine, the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, the Faculty of Kinesiology, the Faculty of Science, and Schulich School of Engineering. 

“The diversity of disciplines represented speaks to the breadth of expertise in health-care research at our institution,” says McCauley. “Their research discoveries and innovations have the potential to be translated into applications that benefit both local and global communities.”

Fellows receive a stipend of $50,000 per year plus a research allowance of $5,000 annually for a maximum of three years. The net result for the University of Calgary is approximately $3.6 million over three years in support of its postdoctoral fellows.

Following are the recipients of the 2014 competition, together with their sponsoring supervisors (in brackets) and project title:

2014 AIHS Postgraduate Fellows

• Basant Abdulrahman (Hermann Schaetzl): Dual role of autophagy in prion diseases and its potential as a novel anti-prion target
• Jillian E. Beveridge (Janet L. Ronsky): Influence of abnormal joint contact mechanics and neuromuscular function on artilage damage following ligament injury
• Darren Clark (Rajamannar Ramasubbu): Optimization of subcallosal deep brain stimulation for treatment-resistant depression
• Lauren L. Drogos (Marc J. Poulin): Cortisol awakening response in older adults across a six-month aerobic exercise intervention
• Ruo-Xu Gu (D. Peter Tieleman): The mechanism of ATP binding cassette transporters
• Charlie Y.M. Hsu (Derrick E. Rancourt): The effects of fluid shear and hypoxia on the dynamics of self-renewal and differentiation properties of pluripotent stem cells cultured in a stirred-suspension bioreactor
• Alexander W. Lohman (Roget J. Thompson): Pannexin-1 channels as therapeutic targets in post-stroke neuroinflammation
• Emilie Magaud (Anne Duffy): Psychobiological pathways to mood disorders in high-risk offspring
• Mohsen Maleki Karyak (Walter Herzog): Theoretical and experimental models for elasticity and permeability of articular cartilage
• Carly A. McMorris (Deborah M. Dewey): Children at risk for a neurodevelopmental disorder: Environmental determinants and developmental trajectories
• Jean-Paul Motta (Andre G. Buret): Correction of dysbiotic gut microbiota niofilms: A new therapy for inflammatory bowel disease?
• Van A. Ngo (Sergei Y. Noskov): Drug and pH regulations of ion permeability in sodium and potassium channels: Molecular basis of cardiac dysrhythmias
• Angkoon Phinyomark (Reed Ferber): Machine learning methods to determine successful changes in running gait biomechanics following rehabilitation
• Jason Plemel (Peter K. Stys): Mechanisms of LPC demyelination: A guide to understanding early lesions in multiple sclerosis
• Jennifer Semrau (Sean P. Dukelow): Determining the flexibility of stroke recovery using robotics and neuroimaging: A multimethod approach
• Kun Shao (Pere Santamaria): Engineering peptide-MHC/co-stimulator-based nanoparticle vaccines for the treatment of metastatic cancer
• Ian Smith (Walter Herzog): Muscle mechanics and morphology following sustained partial activation: Implications for occupational myalgia
• Matthew D. Spencer (Marc J. Poulin): Aerobic exercise and the aging brain: A neuroimaging study of cerebrovascular reserve
• Toni-Lee Sterley (Jaideep S. Bains): Effects of antidepressants on the paraventricular nucleus-mediated stress response
• Xavier Waltz (Marc J. Poulin): Effects of continuous positive airway pressure on blood rheological properties and cerebral blood flow reactivity in obstructive sleep apnea: Role of oxidative stress
• Ying Zhu (Steven Boyd): Osteoarthritis: Advancing X-ray imaging for knee cartilage
• Agnieszka A. Zurek (Jaideep S. Bains): Substrates of plasticity at GABA synapses and their implications for stress behaviour