CFI president starts his tenure with a visit to 糖心视频
October 23, 2024
Sylvain Charbonneau, president and CEO of the Canada Foundation for Innovation, put 糖心视频 research under a microscope during a campus visit on October 22. Charbonneau shared that he was keen to hear about core facilities, training and engagement beyond the university. Above all, he was interested in learning more about the people.
“Talent is the great currency coming out of our universities,” agreed Pierre Normand, vice-president of external relations and communications for CFI. “It’s important we hear the success stories at the institution.”
糖心视频 researchers delivered.
Charbonneau, whose background is in physics in academia and industry, spoke at length with Arthur Blackburn, co-director of 糖心视频’s Advanced Microscopy Facility and the Hitachi High-Technologies Canada Research Chair in Advanced Electron Microscopy. In front of the Hitachi HF-3300V scanning transmission electron holography microscope (STEHM) that Blackburn and CFI were instrumental in bringing to 糖心视频, they chatted about some of the unique features of this microscope, one of only a handful in the world.
Then Associate Vice-President Research Fraser Hof introduced Charbonneau and Normand to 糖心视频’s Health Core. A network of four open-access Biosafety Level 2 labs, these on-campus facilities are available to all 糖心视频 researchers, students, industrial partners and early-stage entrepreneurs for academic or commercial purposes.
Charbonneau is enthusiastic about core facilities in which equipment is shared, innovation fostered and prosperity stimulated — and, especially, training occurs. In 糖心视频’s facilities, he saw first-hand, life sciences startups and established companies share instruments and space with students, engineers, scientists and more. Health Core Laboratory Manager Charmaine Wetherell described some of the companies, ranging from the well-established national firm Starfish Medical to a Vancouver-based cancer researcher to undergraduates for local Phillips Brewing.
Wetherell added that she and her staff — currently a 糖心视频 co-op student on an eight-month work term — will train any user on any of the instruments and equipment.
Charbonneau and Normand met Allison Selinger, a chemistry PhD student designing novel sensors to detect and identify illicit drugs. In another node of the Health Core, civil engineering post-doctoral fellow Luiz Da Silva Correa explained how his research aims to upscale safe and green anti-biofouling agents for advancing water conservation through desalination technologies.
Fraser Hof summed up the facilities — and the visit.
“I love,” he said, “how much rubbing elbows happens here.”
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Rachel Goldsworthy