Mostafa presenting on Science for the People at a Biology Seminar Day.
Authors: Lina Champain and Alia Sanger
Lina Champain and Alia Sanger interviewed Mostafa Shagar as an assignment in FSCI 500: Science Communication & Outreach. The interview has been edited for length.
Hurricane Melissa, now a Category Five tropical cyclone, has made landfall in Jamaica. It is the strongest storm to hit the island country in at least 150 years and the most powerful recorded anywhere in 2025. It has caused severe flooding and mass evacuations across Jamaica and along the storm’s projected path, which includes Cuba and the Bahamas.
McGill experts are available to comment on this topic:
Federal investment boosts McGill’s research leadership with over $13 million for Canada Research Chairs
Today, the Honourable Mélanie Joly, Minister of Industry and Minister responsible for Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions, announced over $198 million in federal funding through the Canada Research Chairs (CRC) program, including more than $13 million to support 19 Chairs—nine new and ten renewed—at McGill.
A team at McGill University studying ferroptosis, a form of cell death, have discovered that the process begins deep inside the cell, a finding that could lead to new treatments for cancer and neurodegenerative diseases.
Using antioxidant probes that light up as they are consumed, the team tracked ferroptosis in real time and identified the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) as the key cellular structure where the process first takes hold. Protecting the ER and the lysosome, they found, can halt ferroptosis entirely.
Phytotron Manager Mahnaz Mansoori (pictured above, left, with Biology Department Chair Prof. Gregor Fussmann) was one of nine McGill staff members honoured with the President’s Award for Administrative and Support Staff at last week's afternoon convocation ceremony. These annual awards recognize the talent, dedication, and hard work of staff members who have made outstanding contributions to the University’s mission.
Montreal’s methane emissions are unevenly distributed across the island, with the highest concentrations in the city’s east end, McGill researchers have found. The worst polluters include the city’s largest snow dump, which emits methane at levels comparable to the city's current and former landfills, and natural gas leaks.
Thirty-two McGill research projects have received new funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation's for investments in research infrastructure to support their innovative projects, for a total federal investment of $9.7 million.
Fall is a dangerous season for pedestrians, with a rise in road accidents linked to reduced visibility and shorter daylight hours. According to the Société de l'assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ), October and November consistently see spikes in pedestrian injuries and fatalities, with a notable increase in deaths in recent years.
To draw attention to this problem, the SAAQ marks Pedestrian Safety Month each October, as do authorities in several other jurisdictions.
Eric McCalla, Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry, has received a Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer our Future (DMREF) grant, a joint program of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF).
Sea level rise could put more than 100 million buildings across the Global South at risk of regular flooding if fossil fuel emissions are not curbed quickly, according to a new McGill-led study published in npj Urban Sustainability.
Researchers in McGill’s Department of Physics have developed a new device that can trap and study DNA molecules without touching or damaging them. The device, which uses carefully tuned electric fields, offers scientists unprecedented control over how DNA behaves in real time, creating the opportunity for faster, more precise molecular analysis that could improve diagnostics, genome mapping and the study of disease-related molecules.
The 2025 Ocean State Report from the Copernicus Marine Service, a European Union ocean monitoring organization, has found that sea floor temperatures off the coast of Nova Scotia have risen at twice the rate of surface temperatures over 30 years. Researchers say the rapid warming rate is a result of changes to the climate, including more acute marine heat waves and fewer periods of colder weather.
Professor Courtney Paquette from the Department of Mathematics and Statistics is featured in SIAM News—the journal of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM). The publication showcases the state of the art in applied mathematics, computational science, and data science, while highlighting real-world applications of mathematical research. In doing so, it helps lay the groundwork for scientific advances and new discoveries, supports efforts to address pressing global challenges, and enables leaders and policymakers to make informed decisions.
As a CEGEP student, Daniel Wei captained his college robotics team to victories with a dodgeball-throwing robot and a biodegradable soil sensor for farmers.
He and a peer also earned a bronze medal at a science and technology fair for their research on biomechanical processes involved in developing artificial intestines.
The achievements are part of Wei’s impressive track record of leadership, innovation and academic success that landed him Canada’s most generous scholarship for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).
