Separated by thousands of kilometres, researchers on two continents took a step closer to understanding Crohn’s disease on Saturday.
University of Saskatchewan President Peter MacKinnon was in Brazil’s Synchrotron Light Laboratory, located in Campinas near the mega-city of São Paolo. On the computer screens in front of him were some familiar faces – researchers back home at the University of Saskatchewan’s Canadian Light Source synchrotron.
His Excellency, the Right Hon. David Johnston, Governor General and to his left , Peter MacKinnon, president of the University of Saskatchewan, participating in a live experiment done in conjunction with the Canadian Light Source Sychrotron in Saskatoon © MCpl Dany Veillette, Rideau Hall.
I watched Prof. MacKinnon wave to his colleagues. Then I turned to see the image of a piece of intestine from a Crohn’s disease patient, on the computer screens in Campinas. It had been sent using the Saskatoon beamline, with the help of new software developed at the Canadian synchrotron. In moments, the Brazilian researchers had started experimental scans of the tissue samples and began analyzing the resulting data.
“This is an amazing example of new opportunities for research and collaboration available to scientists and graduate students,” Prof. MacKinnon commented. (He had conducted the same experiment earlier in the day, under the watchful eyes of Canada’s Governor General, His Excellency the Right Honourable David Johnston.)
The experiment was part of a tour of Brazil’s synchrotron for some 30 Canadian university presidents, who are here to build research and mobility links with colleagues in Brazil. During the mission, the Canadian presidents have signed some 75 agreements to solidify their partnerships with Brazilian colleagues.
Brazilian Synchrotron Light Laboratory in Campinas, Brazil. © MCpl Dany Veillette, Rideau Hall.
Before visiting the synchrotron, the Canadians had been to the nearby Campinas university known as UNICAMP, a high tech university that spares no effort to attract the top Brazilian and international students and faculty.
Linking the synchrotrons brings benefits to both Brazil and Canada, Prof. MacKinnon told me. “It’s tremendously efficient. A company in Saskatoon that wants to do a certain kind of research, for which we don’t have the right kind of beam lines, can now use the synchrotron in Brazil.”
So instead of Canada needing to build a whole new beamline for its synchrotron, researchers can join forces through this kind of international collaboration.
Synchrotrons are used particularly by researchers and companies working in the biosciences and nanomaterials.
While at the Brazil synchrotron, I also met up with Stefan Kycia, a professor of physics at the University of Guelph who is working with colleagues at Brazil and Canada’s synchrotrons on a project known as the Brockhouse Sector (named after Canadian Nobel prize winning physicist and McMaster University professor, the late Bertram Brockhouse). The project aims to establish a cutting-edge x-ray scattering presence that will support experiments by scientists in areas such as physics, chemistry, environmental science and geology.
“We’re not just collaborating for fun,” said Dr. Kycia. “It’s necessary for survival” in a big science world. Funding for the Brockhouse project has come from Canada’s federal government, provincial governments including Ontario and Quebec, IBM and Petrobras.
“Instead of duplicating our efforts, we are using each other’s capacities and that just makes sense,” Dr. Kycia added.
As for the Brazilians, they were impressed by the size of the Canadian university delegation, and its serious intent. The Brazilians mean business, too. They’re planning to build an even more powerful state-of-the-art synchrotron called Sirius, which they expect will be ready by 2016.
Why that date? They plan to use their new synchrotron to light the Olympic torch, which will make its way to Brazil in four years. Brazil’s scientists expect to be ready for it.
