The Government of Canada is launching a task force to measure the scope of coronavirus infection in Canada and rapidly provide information needed to manage the COVID-19 pandemic and safely get Canadians back to work.
The COVID-19 Immunity Task Force will generate this vital information, drawing on experts from universities and hospitals across Canada and working closely with provincial and territorial public health officials.
McGill faculty with relevant expertise are encouraged to join the CanCOVID initiative, an expert community of Canadian COVID-19 researchers, clinical collaborators, and healthcare stakeholders.
Mandated by the Office of the Chief Science Advisor of Canada, CanCOVID seeks to connect national research efforts in order to support collaboration, coordination, and communication between those working on projects related to COVID-19. The goal is to optimize our collective response to this public health crisis.
March 30, 2020
Good day everyone,
The staff at Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) would like to take this opportunity to send everyone well wishes during this unprecedented global crisis. We would like to thank you for the sacrifices you have made to help to “flatten the curve” so that everyone can resume their normal activities, including the very important research that happens at McGill, as soon as possible.
There has been a lot of recent interest in the use of psychedelic drugs to treat depression. A new study from McGill suggests that, in the right context, some people may experience psychedelic-like effects from placebos alone. The researchers reported some of the strongest placebo effects (these are effects from “fake” medication) on consciousness in the literature relating to psychedelic drugs. Indeed, 61% of the participants in the experiment reported some effect after consuming the placebo.
The Fonds de recherche du Québec (FRQ) and Genome Québec today announced the launch of the Québec COVID-19 Biobank, a Province-wide initiative to enable the collection, storage and sharing of samples and data related to the COVID-19 crisis. The task force that has been mobilized to take on this role is led by McGill University’s Dr. Vincent Mooser, with additional medical and scientific expertise from McGill and several other Quebec institutions. The Biobank will begin operations on April 1, 2020.
This message is sent on behalf of Martha Crago, Vice-Principal (Research and Innovation).
Dear members of the McGill research community,
As part of a pan-Canadian effort to quickly mobilize research in response to COVID-19, McGill’s Office of the Vice-Principal Research and Innovation (OVPRI) is coordinating information about relevant McGill research. This includes, but is not limited to, clinical or medical research, testing, devices, diagnosis, treatment, modeling, and social implications of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The McGill Interdisciplinary Initiative in Infection and Immunity (MI4) is pleased to announce the launch of an emergency coronavirus research fund to support nimble and effective interventions and studies in this crisis. This fund will be used to accelerate COVID-19 biomedical and social sciences research across the entire MI4 community through strategic support of key platforms and research projects that can provide solutions for the current pandemic.
The Public Health Agency of Canada has an urgent need for reagents for use in COVID-19 testing. The National Microbiology Lab (NML) is specifically looking for items on the list in the table below, as well as any other RNA extraction reagents.
Please connect directly with Mette Cornelisse, Office of Chief Science Officer (mette.cornelisse [at] canada.ca) and Rita Finley, Office of Chief Science Officer (rita.finley [at] canada.ca).
The Department of Health and Social Services (MSSS) is looking for personal protective equipment for employees of the health and social services network in connection with COVID-19.
In this sense, the MSSS is collecting information on the following equipment currently available in University and Cégep laboratories:
The McGill Sustainability Systems Initiative has just funded six new projects through the 2020 Innovation Fund. These one-year projects from Law, Science and Engineering were selected for their potential-for-impact on sustainability challenges. The recipients of this year’s funding, our third Innovation Fund to date, are below. You can see projects funded through previous calls here.
Study suggests humans have developed complementary neural systems in each hemisphere for auditory stimuli
Speech and music are two fundamentally human activities that are decoded in different brain hemispheres. A new study used a unique approach to reveal why this specialization exists.
In the run-up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election, an unusual experiment suggested that it might be possible to influence American voters to adopt less polarized positions.
Posing as political researchers, a research team from McGill and Lund Universities approached 136 voters at the first Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton presidential debate in New York. Participants were asked to compare Trump and Clinton on various leadership traits (such as courage, vision, and analytic skills) by putting an X on a sliding scale.
Award funding gives students lab time, research experience and the chance to discover the right path
...Supported by a Schulich Graduate Fellowship, doctoral student Bikram Poudel is working to improve one of the world’s most important food crops.
Using a new microscopic "fishing" technique, scientists from the Montreal Clinical Research Institute (IRCM), Université de Montréal and McGill University have successfully snagged thousands of proteins that play a key role in the formation of the cell skeletons or cytoskeletons. Cell skeletons, whose primary function is to give the cells their shapes, are also involved in things like muscle contraction. They are made up of an interlocking network of protein filaments that connect the cell nucleus to the cell membrane.
CIFAR today announced its newest cohort of Canada CIFAR AI Chairs, which includes nine researchers from McGill, bringing the total number of McGill researchers named to the program to 17. These top academic researchers are part of the $125 million Pan-Canadian AI Strategy, the world’s first national strategy of its kind. The Canada CIFAR AI Chair Program represents an investment of $30 million at nine universities, and mobilizes over 150 researchers across the country.
The latest group of McGill professors to join Mila as Canada CIFAR AI Chairs in the Arts are:
