News

The Waterloo iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machine) team has been recognized with a number of awards this year at the annual competition. In addition to receiving Gold standing, their project also received the award for best Manufacturing Project at the undergraduate level, it was also nominated for the iGEM Inclusivity Award and the Best Wiki Award!

Waterloo Biology is one of the top ten biology programs in Canada for 2021, according to the influential annual Maclean’s magazine ranking program.

In results released last week, Waterloo’s Biology program was placed 10^th for 2021, rising in the rankings from 13^th in 2020 and 15^th in 2019.

Antarctica is a cold, mostly barren continent, defined by its isolation and snow. It is also a place that has been set aside for peace and science. The challenges of this desolate and harsh environment provide the necessary surroundings to foster teamwork and collaboration for those living and researching there.

Each year since 2005, a group of students from the University of Waterloo has been embracing the challenging, but rewarding world of synthetic biology, problem solving and researching for the iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machine) competition. This competition brings together teams from countries around the world to showcase projects, and learn from each other at an annual conference.

Leaving family, friends and Wi-Fi might not be most people’s idea of a dream experience. However, for biology Professor Kirsten Müller, these things are necessary for her upcoming once-in-a-lifetime trip to Antarctica. In this trip, she will travel alongside 99 other women in STEMM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, and Medicine) fields as the fourth cohort of Homeward Bound.

Professor Brian Dixon hosts Sajeev Kohli in his University of Waterloo lab, guiding him on experiments and helping to promote his work to the outside world.

Last week, Sajeev Kohli, a local Waterloo teen from Sir John A. MacDonald Secondary School, won the International BioGENEius Challenge, held in Boston, Massachusetts.

University of Waterloo researcher Heidi Swanson is set to receive $1.2 million, over five years, from the Federal government’s $75 million Coastal Restoration Fund to perform community-partnered research. The aim of the project is to restore fish in the Coppermine River and other river systems near Kugluktuk, Nunavut.

A new source of the botulinum neurotoxin was discovered by Canadian and American scientists in a strain of animal gut bacteria known as Enterococcus faecium. The neurotoxic protein is known for its paradoxical ability to remove wrinkles yet cause botulism, a potentially fatal illness associated with food poisoning.