It happens to all of us at least once each winter in Montreal. You’re walking on the sidewalk and before you know it you are slipping on a patch of ice hidden under a dusting of snow. Sometimes you fall. Surprisingly often, you manage to recover your balance and walk away unscathed. McGill University researchers now understand what’s going on in the brain when you manage to recover your balance in these situations. And it is not just a matter of good luck.

Classified as: physiology, balance
Category:
Published on: 29 Jul 2013

Only 11% of drugs that enter clinical trials in humans are ultimately found safe and effective enough to receive regulatory approval.

Classified as: medicine, animal research
Category:
Published on: 24 Jul 2013

The Economist issued its first-ever global EMBA rankings, placing the McGill-HEC Montreal EMBA program 29th in the world.

Classified as: Desautels, management, HEC Montreal
Category:
Published on: 22 Jul 2013

Consuming cranberry products has been anecdotally associated with prevention of urinary tract infections (UTIs) for over 100 years. But is this popular belief a myth, or scientific fact? 

Classified as: bacteria, chemical engineering
Category:
Published on: 15 Jul 2013

Cystic fibrosis is caused by a mutation in the gene that encodes a particular protein, known as the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (or CFTR). Although this discovery was made 25 years ago and the lives of those with the disease have been extended, there is still no effective cure for the disease. Now new information about the nature of the most common form of mutation in the CFTR gene, gathered by a research team led by Dr. Gergely Lukacs of the Department of Physiology at McGill University, offers exciting new avenues for improving the treatment of the disease.

Classified as: genetics, cystic fibrosis
Category:
Published on: 8 Jul 2013

What allows certain plants to survive freezing and thrive in the Canadian climate, while others are sensitive to the slightest drop in temperature? Those that flourish activate specific genes at just the right time -- but the way gene activation is controlled remains poorly understood.

Classified as: genetics, DNA, Blanchette, Bureau, canola, crop, crucifer, Genome, genomic, plant
Category:
Published on: 2 Jul 2013

The very system that is meant to protect the body from invasion may be a traitor. These new findings of a study, led by investigators at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC), reveal that infection-fighting white blood cells play a role in activating cancer cells and facilitating their spread to secondary tumours. This research, published today in the Journal of Clinical Investigatiohas significant implications for both the diagnosis and treatment of cancer.

Category:
Published on: 2 Jul 2013

News released yesterday about how using iron could make hydrogenation cheaper and greener is only one of many examples of collaborative research being conducted by teams that include researchers from McGill University and RIKEN, Japan’s largest comprehensive research institution.

Classified as: Research, international partnerships
Category:
Published on: 28 Jun 2013

Researchers from McGill University, RIKEN (The Institute of Physical and Chemical Research, Wako, Japan) and the Institute for Molecular Science (Okazaki, Japan) have discovered a way to make the widely used chemical process of hydrogenation more environmentally friendly – and less expensive.

Classified as: Green Chemistry, catalyst, Chao-Jun Li, hydrogenation, Institute for Molecular Science, iron, Moores, nanoparticles, RIKEN
Category:
Published on: 27 Jun 2013

Almost 70,000 Canadians die each year from heart disease and stroke – that’s one person every seven minutes. And despite impressive gains in research and treatment, cardiovascular disease still accounts for almost 30 per cent of all deaths every year in Canada.

Classified as: Research, heart disease, stroke
Category:
Published on: 25 Jun 2013
Category:
Published on: 18 Jun 2013

Arthritis is a debilitating disorder affecting one in 10 Canadians, with pain caused by inflammation and damage to joints.

Classified as: neuroscience, pain, nervous system, arthritis, Longo, Osikowicz, Ribeiro-da-Silva
Category:
Published on: 13 Jun 2013

The ocean the Titanic sailed through just over 100 years ago was very different from the one we swim in today. Global warming is increasing ocean temperatures and harming marine food webs. Nitrogen run-off from fertilizers is causing coastal dead zones. A McGill-led international research team has now completed the first global study of changes that occurred in a crucial component of ocean chemistry, the nitrogen cycle, at the end of the last ice age. The results of their study confirm that oceans are good at balancing the nitrogen cycle on a global scale. But the data also shows that it is a slow process that may take many centuries, or even millennia, raising worries about the effects of the scale and speed of current changes in the ocean.

Classified as: ice age, nitrogen cycle, ocean chemistry, oceans
Category:
Published on: 13 Jun 2013

Professor Heather Munroe-Blum, Principal and Vice-Chancellor of McGill University, received today an honorary degree from the University of Glasgow, McGill founder James McGill’s alma mater. Principal Munroe-Blum was made a Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.) at the University’s Commemoration Day ceremony, which celebrates the founding of the University of Glasgow in 1451.

Category:
Published on: 12 Jun 2013

Pages

Back to top