Mark your calendars: #McGill24 is back on Wednesday, March 9, 2022, for its 7th edition. On this one day of the year, every single gift goes further, with gifts made by young alumni or to student-led crowdfunding projects receiving an extra boost. Find your reason to give with this sneak peek at three student campaigns on the new McGill Crowdfunding Platform.
On Wednesday, March 9, McGill University will be holding its 7th annual day of giving, McGill24. The 24-hour digital fundraiser rallies McGillians from around the world in support of students, teaching and research.
In 2021, students, faculty and staff joined forces with family, alumni and other friends of the university to raise a record-breaking over $3.8 million in just one day. At the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, 1,001 donors gave nearly $550,000.
This year, our students are poised once again to harness the power of collective giving via the new McGill Crowdfunding Platform (formerly Seeds of Change).
McGill24 gifts made to student crowdfunding initiatives on Wednesday, March 9, 2022, will be matched up to dollar for dollar.
FMHS Focus spoke with representatives from several of the participating student groups to learn what McGill24 donations can help them achieve.
iGEM: A cholesterol-lowering probiotic
Image by Owen Egan/Joni Dufour.
"Our goal is to engineer a common probiotic—such as lactobacillus acidophilus, found in yogurt—into a probiotic that can metabolize and break down LDL or 'bad' cholesterol to help people with cardiovascular disease and obesity," says PhD candidate Ansley Gnanapragasam of the McGill iGEM crowdfunding initiative.
PhD candidate Ansley Gnanapragasam is a graduate advisor and mentor to the Faculty’s student-led iGEM (Internationally Genetically Engineered Machine) team of 30. iGEM is the world’s largest synthetic biology competition, where university teams from around the world present their year-long research projects—ranging from novel disease therapies to engineering microbes to thrive on Mars—at a “giant jamboree” each fall. Some earlier iGEM projects have flourished and grown into multimillion-dollar startups.
The McGill team includes more than 20 undergrads working on an ambitious project to develop a genetically engineered probiotic that can lower cholesterol to help address the heart disease and obesity epidemic in North America. “The existing drugs for lowering cholesterol only work for certain groups of patients and have lots of side effects. Our goal is to engineer a common probiotic—such as lactobacillus acidophilus, found in yogurt—into a probiotic that can metabolize and break down LDL or 'bad' cholesterol to help people with cardiovascular disease and obesity. To do this, we want to harness the properties of a cholesterol-digesting bacteria,” explains Gnanapragasam, a former iGEM team captain, who is investigating the genetics and genomics of esophageal cancer in his PhD research.
The team’s co-leaders, biochemistry student Jesse Lee (BSc’23) and neuroscience student Albert Nitu (BSc’25) have shown initiative in raising $26,000 in funding support from Pfizer Canada and enlisting Lisa Münter, a pharmacology professor and cholesterol research expert, as principal investigator. “It’s quite a large project. We need to raise money through McGill24 to help pay a stipend for undergrads working on this in the summer, purchase reagents and materials, and support our STEM outreach initiatives,” says Gnanapragasam.
“As grad student mentors, we’re teaching students how to approach the problem from both a scientific and entrepreneurial point of view. One of the biggest benefits students get from iGEM is the entrepreneurial experience, learning how to develop a business from research.”
Undergrads from multiple disciplines are excited about the challenge of turning a promising research idea into a tangible health solution. “Students that participate in McGill iGEM are given the chance to experience a hands-on research project through its entire life cycle, starting from the ideation process to laboratory research, to finally launching their innovation as a startup. Going from the test tube to the real world is no easy task, but we’re very determined and have the brains, the ambition and the laser-like focus. All we need now is a little push, with funds that will help us turn our research into applicable health solutions for Canadians,” says bioengineering student Dan Voicu (BEng’26), who is leading the iGEM crowdfunding campaign.
Win4Science: support for women in STEM to advance their careers
Alyson Jiang (BSc’21), a grad student in the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, is raising funds for Win4Science through social media to support STEM researchers—particularly female graduate and postdoctoral trainees—who have significant caregiving responsibilities and help them overcome gender barriers to move forward in their academic careers. She is pictured with her team above.
Jiang and three other MSc students in her cohort, Sofia Paoli (BSc’21), Emma Paulus (BSC’21), and Elaine Xing, are hoping to garner support for an initiative that will provide awards ranging between $500 and $1,500. These would enable STEM students with caregiving responsibilities (caring for a child, parent or grandparent) to participate in scientific conferences and speaker engagements by covering expenses, such as childcare fees or travel costs for a support member to both accompany them to the conference site and assist with caregiving. “There is not enough supportive infrastructure to accommodate women in science who are parents or have other caregiving responsibilities. To advance your career in science, it’s important to be able to attend conferences to network, talk about your research and establish potential collaborations. I have seen the challenges faced by some female friends in our cohort who have children. Gifts from donors will enable students in STEM with caregiving roles, particularly women, to gain valuable knowledge, experience and connections at conferences,” says Jiang, who became excited about Win4Science after joining its Mentorship Program, which includes 91 mentees and 26 faculty members this year.
McGill’s Win4Science is an initiative to educate and raise awareness about the barriers women face in academia in science fields. Since its launch by Lisa Münter and Bobbi Bidochka, BA'11 (former research officer in Pharmacology and Therapeutics) in 2017, Win4Science has made great strides in improving opportunities for women in science.
“Generally, the period with the highest rate of attrition among women is at the post-doctoral or assistant professor level. This usually coincides with the time in their late 20s or early 30s when women are often considering family planning. We recognize that not only women have caregiving responsibilities, which is why we are also extending our awards to trainees of all genders in STEM who have caregiving roles. It resonates with me that caregiving and the workload in graduate or post-graduate studies can be hard to balance. Participating in the mentorship program was really eye-opening and it was amazing to see all these women in science overcome these issues in different ways,” says Jiang. who is doing research on the Heart-in-a-Dish project in the lab of Terry Hébert, aimed at personalizing and improving prevention and treatment strategies for cardiomyopathy. (Hébert is a professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, and Assistant Dean, Biomedical Science Education.)
“Our goal is to raise $15,000, which would allow us to offer about 15 awards and make a difference by supporting STEM trainees with caregiving roles at McGill, particularly women during a critical stage in their careers."
Nurses' Wellness Week: recharge and celebrate nursing students’ frontline and academic contributions
Image by Owen Egan/Joni Dufour.
“The vast majority of graduate nursing students at McGill have been working on the frontlines through the pandemic," says Sydney Wasserman, BSc(N)’21 (right), with Vanessa D’Aquila, BSc(N)’17, co-organizer of a McGill24 crowdfunding campaign in support of Nurses' Wellness Week at the Ingram School of Nursing.
Vanessa D’Aquila (BSc(N)’17), a student in the Nursing Service Administration (A) program (MSc’22 ), and Sydney Wasserman, BSc(N)’21, a student in the Advance Clinical Practice in Nursing (A) program (MSc’23), (pictured above) are co-leading fundraising for Nurses' Wellness Week, an initiative created by the Nursing Graduate Student Association (NGSA), Ingram School of Nursing (ISoN), to promote the mental well-being of graduate and recent postgraduate nurses at McGill and show appreciation for their effort in balancing school and frontline patient care during the pandemic.
“The vast majority of graduate nursing students at McGill have been working on the frontlines through the pandemic. Work-school balance impacts our students and, without time and support, nursing students can’t perform as well. We were inspired and motivated to create a wellness week for graduate nursing students to relieve stress and engage in mindfulness exercises and activities,” says Wasserman, NSGA Vice-President Academic (Nurse-Entry), who works as an emergency department nurse at the Montreal General Hospital and is a teaching assistant in critical care.
The Wellness Week will coincide with National Nursing Week (May 9 to May 15) and be held at the Nursing Student Building on 680 Sherbrooke St. West. McGill24 donations directed to wellness will help support multiple activities that promote relaxation, meditation, and mindfulness; it will allow for the hiring of professionals for mind-body activities such as yoga sessions, learning a new skill (e.g., sign-language classes) and creative activities like painting or art classes, as well as self-care packages for nurses.
The event is also intended to salute the accomplishments of nursing students. “The experience of balancing school and working in emergency care has taught me to be a quick learner, to be adaptable and to remain calm in the midst of chaos. It’s been an amazing opportunity for graduate students to play leadership roles within the nursing education community and learn from their extraordinary hands-on experiences on the frontlines,” says Wasserman.
For D'Aquila, the timing of Nurses' Wellness Week, just after the semester ends in April, is ideal. “This is a unique time for our graduate nursing community to spend a week together to recharge, and to reflect on and celebrate our accomplishments. It’s an opportunity for upper-year students to connect with junior-year students, and to strengthen our graduate nursing community. This initiative is also a concrete way for donors to give directly to students and show appreciation for their work as frontline healthcare workers balancing remote learning and clinical rotations,” says D’Aquila, President of the NSGA and teaching assistant for McGill nursing undergraduate students, who has been working 12-hour shifts as a critical care nurse at the Montreal Children’s Hospital during her graduate studies.
On McGill24, all contributions to a Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences (FMHS) student-led crowdfunding project that are made on March 9 will be eligible for matching gifts that amplify donor impact. The generosity of our Faculty Advancement Board also helps McGill24 gifts go further, by providing some matching funds towards priority projects for each participating FMHS unit.
Student-led causes and teams you can support on McGill24 include:
