

Highly complex interactions among roots, fungi and bacteria underlie the ability of some trees to clean polluted land, according to a novel study by bioinformatics and plant-biology experts from McGill University and Université de Montréal.

The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada has awarded an E.W.R Steacie Memorial Fellowship to Prof. Tomislav Friščić, to support his work in an innovative branch of chemistry that aims to develop environmentally friendly alternatives to solvent-based chemical processes.
NSERC awards up to six of these two-year, $250,000 fellowships annually to enhance the career development of outstanding and highly promising scientists and engineers.

CREATE project to prepare graduates for high-skills work in surgical-devices industry
A team led by McGill University professor Jake Barralet will receive $1.65 million from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada to provide nearly 90 students with cross-disciplinary training to prepare them for high-skill jobs in the surgical devices industry.
By Katherine Gombay, McGill Newsroom
McGill is proud to announce that five researchers have been awarded over $2.4 million in NSERC Strategic Partnership Grants for 2016.

Yasser Gidi from the Cosa group received in February 16th the NSERC Gilles Brassard Doctoral Prize for Interdisciplinary Research. He has developed a novel single-molecule platform that makes it possible to observe and study proteins that allow life-threatening viruses such as hepatitis C and HIV to reproduce, often mutating into forms that are resistant to known drug therapies. Gidi is effectively creating "movies" of individual biological machines in action, with the goal of understanding how the viruses reproduce and how they respond to drugs.

Victoria Kaspi, a professor and Canada research chair at McGill University, is this year's winner of the $1 million Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. The award has been awarded annually since 1991 to recognize "sustained excellence and overall influence" of research conducted in Canada.
Congratulations to McGill School of Information Studies faculty member Dr. Catherine Guastavino on receiving an NSERC Engage Grant from the Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council of Canada, in partnership with Montreal-based industry partner and market leader Applied Acoustics Systems. Doctoral student David Romblom (Music Technology and Multimodal Interaction Lab) will take a leading role in this project on the development of virtual acoustics models to enhance user experience with software musical instruments.
OVERVIEW
Congratulations to McGill School of Information Studies faculty member Dr. Karyn Moffatt on receiving an NSERC Engage Grant from the Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council of Canada to further research to support technological innovation in persuasive technology and game-based physical therapy. Dr. Rita Orji, Postdoctoral Researcher in the Accessible Computing Technology Lab, will take a leading role in the project.
OVERVIEW

Sarcasm, white lies and teasing can be difficult to identify for those with certain disorders – new video inventory developed at McGill may help

Researchers have discovered how to predict some cardiac arrhythmias several steps before they even occur. It’s a finding that could lead to an improved cardiac device, with equipment designed to detect when arrhythmias are about to occur and then act to prevent them.


As scientists continue to hunt for a material that will make it possible to pack more transistors on a chip, new research from McGill University and Université de Montréal adds to evidence that black phosphorus could emerge as a strong candidate.
