The Manitoba competition was held April 17′th at the beautiful St Boniface General Hospital Research Centre, (SBRC) which generously hosted this year’s event. Many thanks to the SBRC and in particular Bill Peters; Manager of Communications and Media Services and his collegue Rob Blaich who snapped great photos of each contestant.
The competition judging was in the afternoon from 1:00 to 3:30. It was a pretty big event with 53 projects to be judged. Of the projects, there were 25 Senior, or Open projects; 17 Intermediate(Gr 9&10); and 11 Junior projects from Grades 5 to 8.
To judge all these projects we needed a lot of Judges! Fifty researchers and educators volunteered to do the judging and did a great job of it. In each of our three catagories the judging was super difficult because the quality of the projects was so high. It was tough to decide on who should be the top projects. Nonetheless, our judges did come up with “best of the best” projects for each catagory.
Our 2008 Awards Dinner was held at the Canad Inns hotel in Fort Garry in the evening after the competition. About 175 attended including students, teachers, mentors, parents and dignitarys. There were speeches; informative, funny, thoughtful,and in my case just plain goofy! Many thanks to our keynote speacker Dr.Geoff Hicks who scored a “TKO” with his “Knockout Mice” which he is famous for.
Twenty five great projects were awarded prizes, with the Senior winner eligible to travel all expenses paid to Ottawa May 5 to 7 to compete at the SABC National competition. These winning Senior projects included:
1st Place: Beth Ferreira, Fort Richmond Collegiate, Phoca hispida: Feeding Ecology and Contaminant Uptake: Insights from Elemental Analyses of Claws; Mentor: Steve Ferguson
2nd Place Yujin Kang, Leslie Quintos, St. Mary’s Academy “Should Statins be Used in Treatment of Asthma?”; Mentor: Andrew Halayko
3rd Place Yale Michaels, “A Novel Smart shRNA System for Disease Diagnosis and Therapy” Mentor: Geoff Hicks
4th Place Juliet Daet,, St Mary’s Academy “Role of Non-Receptor Tyrosine Kinase c-Src in Estrogen Receptor-Alpha Regulation in Breast Cancer”, Mentor: Leigh Murphy
5th Place Victor Li, St John’s Ravenscourt, “Anti-Cancerous Effects of Hypericin and Hyperforin”, Mentor:Yanbo Zhang
Beth’s winning project was on Ringed Seals in the Canadian Arctic (and she didn’t have to travel to the Arctic to do it, although she would have liked to!) Working with the Dept of Fisheries and Oceans, she analysed seal claws sent to Fisheries by Inuit seal hunters. She looked in the claws for accumulations of toxic substances such as mercury, which reflect their accumulations in the rest of the seal. Her work could have important implications for research into the ecology of the seal, and by extension, the ecology of the arctic. Her abstract is below.
Abstract: Phoca hispida (ringed seal) claws contain up to seven visible annular growth rings (annuli) that reflect a longer timeline of contaminant exposure compared to visceral tissue. This study assessed the potential of analyzing sections of Phoca hispida claws (n=12) to determine total mercury body burden in relation to muscle tissue. Mercury concentrations in the claws and muscle tissue were analyzed using cold vapor atomic absorption spectrometry (CVAAS). Stable isotopes of nitrogen (15N/14N) were determined using continuous flow ion mass spectroscopy (CFIR-MS). Positive linear relationships were detected between log10[Hg] in the base of the claws versus ?15N values in muscle tissue; and ?15N values in the base of the claws versus log10[Hg] in the muscle tissue. This study confirmed the use of claws as a tool in communicating overall mercury body burden in Phoca hispida
1st Place: Beth Ferreira, Fort Richmond Collegiate, Phoca hispida: Feeding Ecology and Contaminant Uptake: Insights from Elemental Analyses of Claws; Mentor: Steve Ferguson
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I’m looking forward to seeing many of the SABC08 students back next fall with all the enthusiasm for science which they always show. We’ll miss those of you who have graduated from High School (and the SABC) but hope you keep in touch. Bob Brown Science Advisor / Coordinator; SABC Manitoba
We are trying to develop an SABC alumni club so that we can keep communication lines open among former SABC competitors and to help us to all keep in touch. There is also a National SABC Facebook sight which we hope many will join.
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