Here’s a current list of Manitoba SBCC 2012 projects. (pdf)

Another year has begun well for SBCC Manitoba:

• 57 projects have been approved as of December.
• 27 Senior (Grade 11 and 12) projects, and 30 Intermediate ( Grade 9 and 10) projects.
• The project topics cover a broad range of Applied Life Science (Biotechnology) from Bioremediation to Proteinomics.

With the help of Norm Lee we’re offering Manitoba Senior SBCCers a Science writing Workshop as preparation for 2 National science writing contests, a poster presentation workshop for Intermediate and Senior in March as well as other brilliant ideas for enrichment throughout the year.

Although things are still in the early stages for many projects, we’ll be providing a list you can check out to see who’s involved and what they’re up to.

Contact me at Brownrj@mymts.net any time for more information.

Manitoba's SABC National entry for 2011, Ben Cheng, a grade 12 student at Fort Richmond Collegiate and the SABC Manitoba overall winner. Ben will be going to the National SABC Competition. Good Luck Ben!!"

The Manitoba competition was held April 12′th at the beautiful St Boniface 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 colleague 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 big event with 76 projects to be judged. Of the projects, there were 18 Senior, or Open projects; 39 Intermediate (Gr 9&10); and 18 Junior projects from Grades 5 to 8.

To judge all these projects we needed a lot of Judges! Sixty two researchers and educators volunteered to do the judging and did a great job of it. In each of our three categories the judging is always difficult because the quality of the projects is 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 category.

Our 2011 Awards Dinner was held at the Canada Inns hotel in Fort Garry in the evening after the competition. About 185 attended including students, teachers, mentors, parents and dignitaries. There were speeches; informative, funny, thoughtful, and a great Keynote speech by Brian King who entertained and inspired us all.

Twenty five great projects were awarded prizes, with the Senior winner eligible to travel all expenses paid to Ottawa May 8 to 10 to compete at the SABC National competition. The winning projects are listed below.

SABC 2011 Senior top 5 Projects (Out of 18)
1. Sam Cheng Fort Richmond Collegiate “Treatment of Cancer Using Gefitinib and Fludarabine” Teacher Advisor: Kathleen Crang, Mentor: Spencer Gibson and Liz Henson
2. Chris Kraljevik Shaftesbury High School “Wildlife virology; Ringed Seal.” Teacher Advisor: Kim Stovel, Mentor: Ole Nielsen
3. George Ng, Suraj Srinivasan, Guangzhe Weng Fort Richmond Collegiate “Investigating the biological consequences of the loss of Claudin1 type junction protein in breast cancer cells” Teacher Advisor Kathleen Crang, Mentors: Yvonne Myal, Anne Blanchard,
4. Agron Morina Gordon Bell High School “Garlic antibacterial activities” Teacher Advisor Mabini Pagtakhan, Mentor: Lindsay Aboud
5. Jerry Liu Fort Richmond Collegiate “Are molecular cavities present in the Enamelin gene of the toothless(and extinct) Steller’s sea cow, Hydrodamalis gigas?” Teacher Advisor: Kathleen Crang, Mentor: Kevin Campbell

SABC 2011 Intermediate top 5 Projects
1. Ella Thomson Balmoral Hall “Genetic Modification of Clostridium thermocellum for Enhanced Biofuel Production ” Teacher Advisor Connie Shyka. Mentor: David Levin
2. Daisy Liu Fort Richmond Collegiate “Evaluation of Snow fungus polysaccharides on Benzo(a)pyrene induced DNA Damage” Teacher Advisor Kathleen Crang, Mentor: Bill Diehl-Jones”
3. Allen Liu St John’s Ravenscourt “The Effects of Three Arabidopsis Genes: A (sense & antisense), B (sense & antisense), and C (sense & antisense) on shoot organogenesis and hormonal response of root tissue” Teacher Advisor Frederick Carsted Mentor: Claudio Stasolla
4. Sachin Vijayan Acadia Junior High “Neem;The Dream Tree–An Organic Solution for Farm Related Problems” Teacher Advisors Jared Thorlakson, Andrew Matheyson Mentor: Paul Fields
5. Andrew Lee & Hongru Ren Fort Richmond Collegiate “Effect of germination on cyanogenic glycoside content of flaxseed.” Teacher Advisor:Kathleen Crang, Mentor: Veronique Barthet

SABC 2011 Junior Gr 7&8 top 5 Projects
1. Benjamin Liu Acadia Junior High “The Effects Maleic Hydrazide on Onion Cell Division and Chromosome Morphology” Teacher Advisors: Jared Thorlakson, Andrew Mathewson, Mentor: Yaping Wang
2. Kanchini Ratnayaka Acadia Junior High “Is Organic Food as they say it is? Mentor: Dilantha Fernando
3. Yoonsik Park & Andrea Abeysekera Acadia Junior High The Effects of Bacterial Strains PA23 and DF41 on Stem Rot
4. Manjot Sing Sainbhe “Osmosis to the Rescue” Teacher Advisor: Mary-Ann Fast, Mentor: Kamaljit Kaur Sainbhi
5. Alexander Motnenko Laidlaw School “Comparative effectivness of natural disinfectants” Teacher Advisor Patrick Dunlop Mentor: Anna Motnenko, Irena Motnenko

SABC 2011 Junior Gr 5&6 top 5 Projects
1. Liam Horn Angus McKay School Teacher Advisor: Michelle Lee “Fruits With Rinds? Should They Be Washed Before Eating Them?”
2. Vanessa Petrick and Regan Schneider Angus McKay School Teacher Advisor: Michelle Lee “Measuring the Zones of Inhibition – How Effective Are Different Toothpastes At Inhibiting the Growth of Bacteria?”
3. Ally Esau and Taylor McDougal Angus McKay School. Teacher Advisor: Michelle Lee “Don’t Let Your Chickens Go Fowl . Does Garlic inhibit the Growth of Bacteria on Chicken?”
4. Soffia Fridfinnson and Kailani Pagtakhan St Edwards School Mentor Mabini Pagtakhan
5. Ashia Jurkovic and Emily Schuster Angus McKay School Teacher Advisor: Michelle Lee “Fishing Around for the Most Protein – Does the Most Expensive Fish Always Have the Most Protein In It?”

We continue to develop the SABC alumni club so that we can keep communication lines open among former SABC competitors and to help us to all keep in touch. Their is also a National SABC Facebook sight which we hope many will join.

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
bobbrown@naturalsolutions.ca

Like most Canadians, the Winnipeg family of Siyuan (Sam) Cheng has been touched by cancer. So this Grade 12 student set himself the task of researching new cancer treatments as his sanofi-aventis Biotalent Challenge.

And he successfully tested two unique treatment ideas for an incurable form of leukemia.

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is the most common adult leukemia and some patients have an aggressive form of the disease that is often resistant to standard drug treatments. Siyuan combined the standard CLL drug treatment with a lung cancer drug to greatly increase the numbers of leukemia cells being killed.

“I was also able to use low dosages of both drugs, which results in less side effects,” he says.

As if that wasn’t enough, the Fort Richmond Collegiate student went on to test three different bacterial toxins to see if they might offer low-cost and effective cancer treatments. And, in fact, the toxins did kill the cancer cells and one was particularly effective.

“Bacterial toxins are very easily produced and if this treatment method is refined, it could be a new way of treating cancer,” says the young would-be scientist.

Siyuan’s research “offers hope that effective therapies for leukaemia can be developed,” says mentor Dr Spencer Gibson, Acting Director, Manitoba Institute of Cell Biology at the University of Manitoba and Provincial Director, Research CancerCare Manitoba.

“Siyuan was a joy to have in the lab. He acted and performed at a level equal to a graduate student in my laboratory,” says Dr. Gibson.

“My dream is to work in the medical field and I have friends and family who have been affected by cancer,” he says.

“The most surprising thing I learned was that real life science is completely different than a high school science lab,” says Siyuan, who adds that being able to apply what you know if far more important than memorizing facts for a test.

Dr. Gibson has warmly welcomed Siyuan back to his lab for the summer to continue his work on understanding how cancer treatments work.

Over 50 projects have begun as of Oct 15. Of these we have 25 Gr 11 and 12 projects, and and around 20 Gr 9 and 10 projects. We have had to reduce the number of projects we can supportthis year due to a decrease in funding. The project topics cover a broad range of Applied Life Science (Biotechnology) from Bioremediation to Proteinomics.

With the help of Norm Lee we’re offering Manitoba Senior SABCers a Science writing Workshop as preparation for 2 National science writing contests, a poster presentation workshop in March,and other brilliant ideas. Although things are still in the early stages for many projects, We’ll be providing a list you can check out to see whose involved and what they’re up to.

Contact me at Brownrj@mymts.net any time for more information.
SABC Manitoba Intermediate Projects (pdf)

The Sanofi-Aventis BioTalent Challenge 2009/2010 for the Manitoba region is coordinated by MindSet, Manitoba Network for Science & Technology. For more information please call Bob Brown at (204) 235-1812 or email brownrj@mts.net

Binudith Warnakulasooriya, SABC Manitoba, takes 5th place at Nationals

2010 Manitoba Senior Project winner Binudith Warnakulasooriya, Fort Richmond Collegiate

The 2010 Manitoba SABC competition was held April 7th at the beautiful St Boniface Hospital Research Centre

SABC 2010 Manitoba-Senior Projects by Schools

Important Dates: Deadline for On-line Applications: November 27
Competition April 7 at the St Boniface Research Centre
Awards Dinner April 8 At Canad Inns Fort Garry

We hope all of the Manitoba SABCers are having the greatest holiday season ever and we extend to all our students, Teacher Advisors, Mentors, parents and everyone all the best for the New Year!

The Manitoba 2010 SABC is once again shaping up to be a great success. At this time,we have 19 schools involved and a total of 37 Senior (GR 11 & 12) projects. and 50 Intermediate (Gr 9 & 10) projects. If all these projects hang in we may have to emlarge our facilities! We have 3 junior projects Gr 5/6 & Gr 7/8 registered so far but expect lots more.

We’ll post the lists of this yera’s projects with the information we have on them so far on a link as soon as possible. All the best. Bob

SABC students at the Canada Wide Science Fair
Special congratulations to:

• Bin Warnakulasooriya of Fort Richmond Collegiate for his overall first place finish at the Canada Wide Science Fair held in Winnipeg in May. He received his $2000 award from the Doctors of Manitoba
• Dorothy Yu, Irene Xie, St. John’s-Ravenscourt School for their Canada-Wide gold medal as the best overall Group Project

(These are the very top prizes at the Fair)

Other top winners (Biological)
Best Biological Individual
Junior: Ella Thomson, Balmoral Hall
Intermediate: Brent Murphy, Arthur A. Leach
Senior: Juliet Daet, St. Mary’s Academy

Best Biological Group
Senior: Kate Gong, Aimee Bell, Fort Richmond Collegiate

Manitoba SABC students, as well as winning gold in both the overall and Biological individual and group medals, won so many other awards that we literally don’t have room to recognize you all here!

So to all of you; congratulations for a magnificent Canada-Wide effort!

To see details and all the winners contact Bob Brown at (204) 235-1812 or email brownrj@mts.net

On April 25, 26 and 27 Binudith attended the SABC National Finals in Ottawa, accompanied by his teacher and advisor, Kathleen Crang: Fort Richmond Collegiate, and the Manitoba SABC Coordinator Bob Brown.

He enjoyed 3 great days of meeting other young scientists from across Canada, federal politicians such as the Honourable James Flaherty, Minister of Finance, and the Honourable Lisa Raitt, Minister of Labour, and many high ranking researchers and executives. Breakfast at Parliament and a private tour of the Canada Museum of Science and Technology was also provided.

The competition was held April 26 at the National Research Centre on Sussex Drive. Bin was competing with other top students from 14 regions across Canada. His project is called �Association between Genetic Variations in Fatty Acid Desaturase Genes and the Ratio of Omega 6 to Omega 3 Fatty Acids in Flax�. This study, with it�s novel approach to flax genetic modification, may have great significance to human health and to Canada�s Agriculture Industry.

Bin �did Manitoba proud� again this year,finishing in the top 5 of 14 competing research projects to continue his great high school science career. Bin�s winnings of $1,000 will help him when he attends the University of Manitoba next year to continue his studies.

Congratulations Bin!

2010 Manitoba Senior Project winner Binudith Warnakulasooriya, Fort Richmond Collegiate, Project: “Genetic Variations in Fatty Acid Denaturase Genes and their Association with the Composition of Essential Omega 3 & 6 Fatty Acids in Flax”. “Bin did it again! He repeats as the SABC Manitoba Senior champ. Bin will compete April 26 & 27 at the SABC Nationals in Ottawa. He placed third at the Nationals last year so he’s a force to be reckoned with!”

Omega 3 and Omega 6 are essential fatty acids in foods that play an important role in growth and development, reproduction, vision and the immune system, including prevention of cancers and heart diseases.

However, modern diets are often too high in Omega 6, which can increase the probability of disease and depression, and too low in Omega 3, creating substantial health issues.

Binudith (Bin) Warnakulasooriya, a 17-year-old Grade 12 student at Fort Richmond Collegiate, Winnipeg, decided to tackle this widespread problem by figuring out how to unlock DNA to produce flaxseed with the healthiest ratio of the Omega fatty acids.

Although flaxseed generally has more Omega 3 than 6, Bin identified many types of flax that have too high a level of Omega 6, making them unsuitable for human consumption since they could lead to chronic diseases.

“My experiment found the right �genetic code� necessary to get a lower Omega 6 and get higher levels of Omega 3 from the flax plant,” he said.

Armed with this genetic secret, plant scientists could develop and commercialize flax types with the optimal Omega 3 / Omega 6 ratio. And it could go a long way towards correcting the dietary imbalance of many people.

It took months of 2.5 hour lab sessions daily to make this breakthrough, so the big challenge for this busy high school student, simultaneously involved in athletics and other extracurricular work, was time management.

After five years of science competition (he placed third in last year�s SABC national final), Bin says he was surprised at how “smart and complicated” projects have become. “The competition increases every year.”

Bin, who plans a career in molecular genetics or medicine, says a major lesson for him this year was �how organized you have to be to achieve anything.”

2010 Manitoba Senior Project winner Binudith Warnakulasooriya, Fort Richmond Collegiate, Project: “Genetic Variations in Fatty Acid Denaturase Genes and their Association with the Composition of Essential Omega 3 & 6 Fatty Acids in Flax”. “Bin did it again! He repeats as the SABC Manitoba Senior champ. Bin will compete April 26 & 27 at the SABC Nationals in Ottawa. He placed third at the Nationals last year so he’s a force to be reckoned with!”

The 2010 Manitoba competition was held April 7th at the beautiful St Boniface 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 colleague 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 big event with 68 projects to be judged. Of the projects, there were 20 Senior, or Open projects; 29 Intermediate(Gr 9&10); and 18 Junior projects from Grades 5 to 8.

To judge all these projects we needed a lot of Judges! Fifty eight researchers and educators volunteered to do the judging and did a great job of it. In each of our three categories the judging is always difficult because the quality of the projects is 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 category.

Our 2010 Awards Dinner was held at the Canada Inns hotel in Fort Garry in the evening after the competition. About 175 attended including students, teachers, mentors, parents and dignitaries. There were speeches; informative, funny, thoughtful, and in my case just plain goofy! Many thanks to our keynote speaker Lyle Merrell a biotech investor and executive who filled us in on the realities of the ‘business end of science’.

Twenty five great projects were awarded prizes, with the Senior winner eligible to travel all expenses paid to Ottawa April 25 to 27 to compete at the SABC National competition. These winners included:

Senior Projects
1. Binudith Warnakulasooriya, Fort Richmond Collegiate, Teacher Advisor Kathleen Crang
“Genetic Variations in Fatty Acid Denaturase Genes and their Association with the Composition of Essential Omega 3 & 6 Fatty Acids in Flax”
Mentors: Sylvie J Cloutier and Véronique J. Barthet

2. Ryan Murphy, Fort Richmond Collegiate
“Cardioprotective Effects of Manitoba Grown Purple Garlic”
Mentor: Thomas Netticadan SBRC

3. Xichie Yang, Kelvin High School: Teacher Advisor Donna Labun
“SRAP Expression in Human Breast Cancer Cells”
Mentor: Etienne Leygue

4. Alyssa Verrelli, St Maryès Academy: Teacher Advisor Michelle Klus
“Expression of NOX-2 and NOX-4″
Mentor: Paul Fernyhough SBRC

5. Uliana Kovaltchouk, Sisler High School: Teacher Advisors John Kozelko,Lorne Richards
“Molecular Insights on DNA Uptake and Transit Pathways in Saccharomyces cerevisiae”
Mentor: Dan Geitz U of M

Intermediate (Gr 9&10)
1. Ella Thomson, “Direct Fermentation of Waste Cellulosics for Biofuels Production Using Clostridium Thermocellum”
Mentor: David Levin, Balmoral Hall School, Teacher Advisor: Connie Shyka

2. Allen Liu, “The Effects of the Canola Genes, SHOOTMERISTEMLESS (STM) and CLAVATA 1 (CLV) on Arabidopsis thaliana (L.) explants during shoot organogenesis via Phytohormone usage of Auxin (2, 4-D) and Cytokinin”
Mentors: Claudio Stassola, Yaping Wang, Acadia Junior High

3. Sandy Lee, “The Claudin 1 Type Junction Protein Exhibits Different Expression in Different Breast Cancer Subtypes”
Mentor: Yvonne Myal, St Mary’s Academy, Teacher Advisor Michelle Klus

4. Rajas Tipnis & Tony Zhou, “Expression of Bnip3 After Doxorubicin Treatment”
Mentor: Lorrie Kirshenbaum, Ft. Richmond Collegiate, Teacher Advisor Kathleen Crang

5. Andrew Lee & Hongru Ren, “FAME Production in Canola and Soybean, Press Meals using In Situ Transesterification”
Mentors: Veronique Barthet, Jim Daun, Acadia Junior High School, Teacher Advisors Jared Thorlakson and Mike Sarkany

Junior Gr 7&8
1. Manjot Singh Sainbhi, “What are the Effects of C. Thermocellum Bacterial Growth on Alpha Cellulose and Cellobiose?”
Mentor:David Levin U of M

2. Matthew Levesque, “Integrin Expression by Oligodendrocytes”
Mentor: Emma Frost U od M

3. Yu Jin Lee, “Does Cooking Food Affect the Content of Omega-3 and Omega-6 Fats”
Arthur A Leach School, Mentor: Miyoung Suh

4. Alexander Motnenko, “Teeth Bones and Water”
Laidlaw School, Teacher Advisor: Patrick Dunlop, Mentor: Irena Motnenko Avalon Institute

5. Atoosa Jalayeri, “Which Oil is More Efficiently Used by the Liver?”
Arthur A Leach School, Teacher Advisor: Mary-Ann Fast, Mentor: Carla Taylor U of Man

Junior Gr 5 & 6
All top projects this year are from Angus McKay School: Teacher Advisor Michelle Lee
1. Autumn Napoakesik and Colin Schroeder, “Pathogens in Fish”
2. Tim Loewen and Jennifer Kent, “Creating a Manitoba Bio Product – Saskatoon Berries, the New Antioxidant Pill”
3. Liam Gerus and Owen Ready, “No Butts About It – Cigarettes Are the New Bacteria Stick”
4. Braeden McMullin and Christopher Hastie, “Is the taste of soda pop affected by the shape of the glass used?”
5. Zachary Fincaryl and Dylan Novicki, “Are You Sipping More Than Just Your Soda? The Truth Bacteria on Soda Can Tops”

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 website which we hope many will join.

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