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In Brooklyn, fresh Montreal bagels now for sale by the dozen

by Theo Meyer on

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Minutes after they finished watching the Canadian Olympic hockey team defeat the Slovakians last Friday, Joel Tietolman and Jon Leitner walked into St.-Viateur Bagel, paid for the 115 dozen bagels they had pre-ordered, and began loading them in Tietolman’s Volkswagen Passat.

The bagels – 90 dozen sesame, 15 dozen poppy seed, and a few dozen of assorted other varieties – were destined for Mile End Deli, a new restaurant serving Montreal-style Jewish deli food in the Boerum Hill neighbourhood of Brooklyn.

When Noah Bermanoff, an ex-Montrealer living in New York, opened Mile End two months ago, he had a bit of a problem getting Montreal bagels for the cream cheese-and-lox sandwiches he was serving at the deli. At first, he had bagels shipped overnight from Montreal by FedEx, but these didn’t arrive until 10 a.m. the next day. In addition, snowstorms further delayed delivery several times during the deli’s first weeks of business.

All of that changed when Tietolman, who had helped Bermanoff set up his deli in January, proposed importing the bagels from Montreal on the weekends. Around midnight on Friday nights, Tietolman and Leitner now leave Montreal in a car packed full of bagels, driving for six hours or so before crossing the Manhattan Bridge into Brooklyn at sunrise.

“They’re still soft when we get down to New York, which is the beauty of this operation,” said Tietolman, who attended Montreal’s Herzliah High School with Leitner and Bermanoff.

The duo made their second run to New York this weekend. When asked why they chose to export bagels from St.-Viateur over those of rival Fairmont Bagel, Tietolman and Leitner exchanged knowing glances.

“It’s our favourite bagel,” Leitner said with a laugh.

“There’s a St.-Viateur in Ville St.-Laurent, where we both grew up,” Tietolman added, “and that’s where our parents would run Sunday morning to get bagels.”

Though Bermanoff still ships bagels by FedEx during the week for cream cheese-and-lox, the deliveries have enabled him to sell fresh bagels by the dozen on the weekends. And because he is saving on shipping, Bermanoff is now actually making money.

Bermanoff serves other Montreal comfort food as well, including smoked meat sandwiches and his version of the Wilensky’s Special, the pressed bologna sandwich served at the famous Montreal deli. Mile End has also become the latest New York eatery to offer poutine, which Bermanoff makes with organic potatoes, homemade gravy, and what he calls “the most phenomenal cheese curds I’ve ever tasted” from a small farm in Maine.

Bermanoff estimated that about three-quarters of Mile End’s customers are New Yorkers, with the remainder made up of Canadian expatriates. A significant number are former McGill students, said Bermanoff – who is himself a McGill alumnus – looking for a smoked meat sandwich without making the trip to Montreal.

Business has been so good during Mile End’s first couple months that Bermanoff is looking to expand his operation, particularly his smoked meat production.

“I don’t have the space or refrigeration or smoking capacity to actually stay open for dinner, because the smoked meat sells out completely in the afternoon and I’m more or less forced to close down,” Bermanoff said.

For their part, Tietolman and Leitner don’t plan on spending their weekends running bagels forever. Tietolman is a law student at the University of Ottawa and Leitner works in the family import-export business – an experience that has come in handy when filling out forms at the border. The duo plans to hire drivers to make the runs in the coming months and is considering an eventual expansion: multiple runs per week, maybe, or deliveries to locations in Manhattan as well.

For Bermanoff, who dropped out of law school and took out loans to open Mile End, getting back to his Montreal roots is the best part of running his deli.

“It’s definitely a highlight of my day when someone comes in and we get to talk about Montreal and the good times we had at McGill,” Bermanoff said.

News

Tuition comments spark protest

by Lauren Hudak on

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In response to the Quebec Minister of Education Michelle Courchesne’s recent hint that tuition may increase in Quebec, a small group of McGill students gathered in protest at the Roddick Gates on February 18. Some carried signs reading, “Courchesne I can’t afford your lies” while others passed out flyers explaining that since the 2007 deregulation of tuition fees for Quebec and out-of-province students, tuition has increased by approximately $100 per year. Courchesne’s recent statements seemed to confirm these students’ fears that even larger tuition hikes are imminent in the near future.

In a February 11 La Presse article, Courchesne wrote, “I think that there is a consensus that is being established in Quebec. When I speak of consensus, I exclude students. But one sees that, more and more, the importance of increasing tuition fees is apparent.”

Courchesne, however, did not definitively announce that there would be tuition increases, only that “one will see what [Quebec Minister of Finance Raymond] Bachand will announce in his budget,” which will be made public in March.

According to Myriam Zaidi, Arts representative to the Students’ Society, “There was good momentum [behind the protest] because of the General Assembly that happened the week before where students voted against the self-funded tuition model and the increase of ancillary fees.”

“Does a consensus without the students’ advice really mean anything, in terms of consensus?” Arts and Science student John-Eric Hansson stated in response to Courchesne’s statements. “Even if the tuition increases didn’t affect me, I would still be here. I am in solidarity with all other students and that means that I also want to fight their tuition increases.”

McGill was one of many Quebec universities and CEGEPs to participate in the protest on the 18th against the potential tuition increases. SSMU Vice-President External Sebastian Ronderos-Morgan called the event a “symbolic action in solidarity.”

“The event was intended to encourage more awareness amongst the student body as to this announcement, primarily because there was very little coverage in the English papers,” he said.

Talks of tuition increases and a lack of student input has been a growing trend in Quebec. In particular, Ronderos-Morgan pointed to a “pre-advisory budget” Quebec economic forum last January.

“The business community and various other important people were invited by the government to discuss the budget, but nobody from the union sector or the student sector was invited. In fact, they were not even allowed inside,” he said. Because of these events, Ronderos-Morgan labeled Courchesne “out of touch with students.”

Regardless of tuition increases in the short-term, the protest helped to shed light on the broader issue of financing education in Quebec. Many students fear that the recent self-funded tuition model of McGill’s Master of Business Administration program sets a negative precedent for other Quebec universities. Referencing the higher tuition fees in both public and private American universities, JoÃl Pedneault, Arts representative to SSMU, explained, “People do not want to see American inequalities in Quebec.”

“A study commissioned by SSMU in 2007 proved that as tuition fees increase, the level of government contribution to university decreases, which is to say that [tuition increases] don’t necessarily, in the long run, improve the funding of the university,” added Ronderos-Morgan.

Approximately 52 per cent of McGill’s budget is subsidized by the government whereas less than 20 per cent comes from student tuition fees.

“At what point would it actually become more profitable for universities to have tuition hikes at the point where they would be earning more from tuition than from government subsidies, which would essentially be a private model?” asked Ronderos-Morgan.

“At any rate, I hope that we can strike a balance in Quebec between accessible education and not having an elite system,” Pedneault said. “Education should be a leveling factor in society, one that does not entrench inequalities and create a hyper-educated elite. I would hope that universities, like CEGEPs are supposed to create a cohesion within society,”

Ronderos-Morgan added that there will be “more plans of attack” over the course of March with regards to the allegations of tuition increases.

Science & Technology

Grants fund phthalate research

by Anne Haldane on

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Researchers at McGill and affiliated institutions have received $5 million to study the effects of common synthetic substances on reproductive health.

Awarded by the Canadian Institute for Health Research (CIHR), the five-year grants will fund two multidisciplinary teams of researchers from McGill University, the Research Institute of McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC), and several other universities in Quebec and Ontario.

Dr. Cindy Goodyer, of the RI-MUHC, and Dr. Barbara Hales, a professor of pharmacology and therapeutics at McGill, are set to lead one of the teams. They will study the physiological effects of brominated flame retardants (BFRs), which exist in many household products and accumulate in dust.

Goodyer has previously found that BFRs can become concentrated in human fetal tissues, but the role of BFRs in reproductive development remains unclear. The team will investigate how chronic BFR exposure affects humans, and will use analogous animal experiments to manipulate levels of BFR exposure at various stages of development.

“We are especially interested in the development of baby boys after in utero exposures,” Hales said. “In adults, we want to see what happens to male and female fertility.”

Another team, led by Dr. Bernard Robaire of the RI-MUHC, plans to look at the impact of phthalates on male fertility. Phthalates, which are found in most plastics, have been suggested as potential environmental pollutants that may contribute to reduced sperm count.

In addition to using tissue cultures to study biochemical effects of phthalates, the team will run correlational studies of phthalate exposure, human sperm count, and testosterone levels. As a second part of the project, chemical engineers will synthesize and test new plasticizers to create benign alternatives to phthalates.

A group of ethicists are collaborating in both grants and will look at the social and legal aspects of the teams’ findings.

“Because phthalates are so widely used,” said Dr. Peter Chan, another RI-MUHC researcher, “if we do find any kind of effect we can pass information on that will be useful for policymakers.”

News

Funding cuts may shut First Nations University’s doors for good

by Sean Wood on

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The First Nations University of Canada, North America’s only fully accredited Aboriginal university, has had a rough year.

The school’s future is up in the air after losing over $12 million dollars in provincial and federal funding cuts in late January and early February. The cuts were in response to a long, complicated series of administrative problems.

The university – which was founded in 1976 as the Saskatchewan Federated Indian College and has three campuses, all in Saskatchewan – has been in full crisis mode since Saskatchewan Advanced Education Minister Rob Norris’s February 3 announcement that the province would stop funding the school in September. Students have held multiple rallies to try and save the institution, and faculty members have started a “Fund First Nations University Now!” blog.

Norris’s announcement stated that the province had “lost confidence in the governance and management of the school.” Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC), which withdrew its $7.3 million annual support a few days later, cited similar reasons.

“For some time now, [we have] worked with the First Nations University of Canada to address long-standing and systemic government and management issues,” said Margot Geduld, an INAC spokesperson.

In the short term, the two cuts were direct responses to allegations of corruption by former chief financial officer Murray Westerlund. In a lawsuit filed on December 17, Westerlund claimed that he was fired in early December because he had submitted documents to an auditor that revealed questionable spending by the university’s administration. The documents allegedly revealed that top administrators had been taking big payouts for vacation leave and had filed extravagant expenses for business trips.

But these allegations are only the latest episode in the school’s troubled history. The biggest issue has involved what many claim to be an overtly political Board of Governors that has repeatedly prioritized its own political interests over the university’s academic well-being. The Board has several members appointed by the tribal leaders of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations (FSIN), the governing body of all First Nations in the province.

Aboriginal education expert and 32-year FNUC faculty member Blair Stonechild criticized the way that chiefs have stubbornly held the Board seats.

“There was a governance model here that was based on this concept of ‘Indian control of Indian education,'” he said, “but [their] interpretation of that was that it meant that chiefs were entitled to sit on the board, and they basically didn’t want to have it any other way, and they couldn’t understand any rationale for not having it that way.”

The school’s problems began in February 2005 with controversial actions by then-FSIN Vice-Chief and FNUC Board Chairman Morley Watson. Watson suspended and replaced senior university managers and ordered an audit of the school’s finances without the approval of the Board. After an FSIN Task Force’s recommended remedies were ignored, the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC) conducted its own investigation. Concluding that the Board was violating the university’s independence, the AUCC put FNUC on probation in April 2007. Although AUCC released the school from probation the following year, Stonechild filed an academic freedom suit that led the Canadian Association of University Teachers to censure it in 2008.

“The faculty believed that there had been political interference, that there had been unwarranted intrusion into the affairs of the institution,” said Stonechild, who filed the suit.

The school appeared as though it might fold after the funding cuts, and it is far from safe. However, Arizona lawyer Manley Begay released an important report last week on the school’s government, and his recommendations for a depoliticized Board will be debated at the FSIN legislative assembly from March 8 to 9. And according to a February 17 report in the Regina Leader-Post, a working group will build a proposal in the upcoming weeks that would tie FNUC closer to the University of Regina.

Geduld said that the federal government will remain in “listening mode” to negotiations between the province and the schools, but that, for now, INAC remains committed to its withdrawal. Indian and Northern Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl echoed these sentiments in a Leader-Post editorial last Tuesday.

“While I continue to remain an active participant in these discussions, I want to be clear that the Canadian government will no longer directly fund First Nations University of Canada,” Strahl wrote.

Both the province and the government have repeatedly voiced their concern for FNUC students.

“Our priority at this moment is the students of the First Nations University of Canada,” Geldud said, “We’re working with our partners to provide students with the support needed to successfully complete their academic year.”

FNUC’s Students’ Association has organized a rally and spoken before the FSIN Assembly, but declined to comment in any detail on the crisis.

“We’re going to let the politics work themselves out,” said Vice President Cadmus Delorme.

News

Dentistry grad criticizes Quebec’s language exam

by Matt Essert on

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Jennifer Plotnick, a recent graduate from the McGill Faculty of Dentistry, has found herself with an unenviable commute due to Quebec’s language requirements. After failing to meet the French language requirements for out-of-province professionals, Plotnick now drives nearly two hours every morning to practice dentistry in Plattsburgh, New York.

As an out-of-province student who studied at an English-language university, Plotnick was required to pass an exam administered by the Quebec Board of the French Language to prove her proficiency in French. This test prevents new professionals who lack French proficiency from obtaining permits to work in the province.

Dr. Paul Allison, dean of the Faculty of Dentistry, said that students are encouraged to study for this test during their university years.

“We make it very clear to all of our students,” Allison said. “If they want to practice in this province and they’re from out of the province, then they have to learn French and they have to [pass] the exams to be able to practice in the province.”

Plotnick, an American citizen, transferred to McGill with two years left in her degree and found it somewhat difficult to learn French on the McGill campus, where English is primarily spoken. She maintained, however, that she felt confident in her ability to speak French and deal with French-speaking patients.

“I actually learned a bunch of French,” Plotnick said. “I can actually speak French quite well, but not enough to pass an exam, which I think is really arbitrary.

“It’s known to be an exam that people don’t feel displays the kind of French that you know – it doesn’t show what you can do, in terms of speaking, in terms of writing.”

Because she was unable to pass the test while still in school and again after the required three-month waiting period, Plotnick is now in an uncomfortable situation trying to pay down her dental school debt.

“I just couldn’t take [any more time] off to learn French,” she said. “Because unfortunately when you go into dental school, you accrue a lot of debt, and with debt come monthly interest payments.”

Plotnick said she is frustrated, but recognizes the need for the requirement.

“I see what their point is,” she said. “They basically don’t want a bunch of English professionals to come here and just not work in French at all and not be able to speak French.”

The law is part of The Charter of French Language, or Bill 101, which holds that people who work in any of the 45 regulated professions in the province must speak French.

Martin Bergeron, a spokesperson for the Quebec Board of the French Language, explained that this is the law and that it is the duty of his office to uphold it.

“The law states that you need to learn French to work in a professional corporation in Quebec,” Bergeron said.

Though the law may be clear, there are numerous gaps that make it easier for some people to obtain the required permit to work in Quebec. Quebeckers from English high schools and CEGEPs are presumed be proficient in French and are not required to pass the exam. Foreign-trained professionals coming to Quebec are eligible for up to three temporary permits over four years, allowing them to learn French while working in the province.

Anglophone students who graduate from an English-language university in Quebec are required to take this exam immediately after graduation. However, there is no possibility of securing the temporary work permits enjoyed by foreign-trained professionals.

Plotnick has tried to use this experience to inform other Anglophone students studying in Quebec by starting a Facebook group titled, “English speaking McGill grads for an equal chance to work in Montreal.”

“It would be a great warning to anyone at McGill to understand that if things aren’t changed and they ever plan on staying in Montreal, take French courses now,” she said.

Arts & Entertainment, Film and TV

Far from home and close to danger in the Gaza Strip

by Joel Entwistle on

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Rachel, a new documentary from French-Israeli director Simone Bitton, tells the story of Rachel Corrie, an American activist who was killed while attempting to prevent the bulldozing of a Palestinian home in 2003. To this day Israel denies responsibility for her death, claiming the bulldozer operator’s line of sight was obstructed by the mound of dirt that crushed her. Eyewitnesses offer a contradictory account, claiming instead that she was indeed within clear view.

Rachel was one of several American and British volunteers with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), an organization committed to non-violent deterrence of Israeli military operations in Palestine. One of their objectives was preventing the Israeli army’s demolition of Gaza homes near the Israeli-Egyptian border. Donning reflective jackets, the volunteers would create a human barrier between Palestinian residences and 65-ton DW-9 bulldozers intent on demolishing the homes in an effort to clear the area of suspected hidden explosives. Internationals such as Rachel were in a unique position to protect the homes; any Palestinians attempting to do likewise had a better chance of being shot. The amateur video footage of the volunteers blockading the bulldozers is breathtaking. We witness an exasperated Israeli soldier, having advanced his DW-9 perilously close to the volunteers and finding them unmoved, attempting to explain, “This is not your land, go away.”

Bitton patiently interviews eyewitnesses, Israeli soldiers, and military officials, in addition to examining key documents and surveillance footage in an attempt to determine how such a standoff went tragically wrong. However, the film unnecessarily indulges in an interlude set in America, featuring interviews with Rachel’s college professors and hometown friends who inform the audience that she really was a good person, as though we somehow suspected her of being a thrill-seeker unworthy of our sympathy.

So many contradictions go unresolved and so many questions remain unanswered that Rachel becomes the story of a failed endeavour to ascertain the truth. In the process, it also reveals the futility of resistance; the home that Rachel died trying to protect, and hundreds more, have since been demolished. However, the film’s message is not altogether cynical. Jonathon Polack, the Israeli peace activist who housed ISM volunteers in Tel-Aviv, maintains that it is possible for one to resist without hope. “In revolt,” he contends, “there is great truth, whether it succeeds or not.”

On December 27, 2008, Israel launched a major military offensive upon the Gaza Strip. The invasion lasted 22 days, resulted in the deaths of 773 Palestinian civilians according to B’tselem, and displaced over 50,000 Gaza residents. Humanrights watchdogs lambasted the assault, claiming that it constituted collective punishment of the Gaza citizenry for the rocket attacks carried out by Hamas militants. The Israeli air strikes, which were claimed to target Hamas facilities, destroyed Palestinian mosques and schools.

One year later, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) is presenting a photo exposition entitled “Human Drama in Gaza.” This exhibition is being showcased by Cinema du Parc as a companion to their screenings of Rachel. The exposition depicts the plight of Palestinians living in Gaza before, during, and after the invasion. The ruins of Gaza serve as the backdrop for human tragedy in the touching photos, reminding us that even today, the Gaza Strip remains under Israeli blockade, stymieing humanitarian efforts. CJPME intends the exposition, which is at once provocative and macabre, to reveal the misery and suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, as well as to expose the violation of human rights. However, images of Hamas – which has failed to revise its blood-curdling anti-Semitic charter – are notably absent from the exhibit’s portrayal of Palestine, which chooses instead to highlight the destruction wreaked by Israeli force.

Rachel opens January 29 at Cinema du Parc (French subtitles) and AMC Forum 22 (English subtitles). A sneak preview is screening at Cinema du Parc on January 21.

“Human Drama in Gaza” will be at Cinema du Parc January 15 to February 28.

Correction: The original version of this article incorrectly spelled Rachel Corrie. The article incorrectly noted the number of civilian casualties in Operation Cast Lead. Originally, the article claimed that the Cast Lead resulted in 1200 civilian casualties; but in fact, according to B’tselem, there were 773 civilian casualties. The article also incorrectly noted that Israeli air strikes destroyed Palestinian hospitals. The Tribune regrets the errors.

Letters to the Editor, Opinion

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Be careful, name calling can hurt

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I think the Financial Ethics Review Committee cares a lot about human rights, social justice, and environmental protection. I also think that the Israeli army and the Israeli government sometimes do things that are morally questionable, if not repugnant. However, I think that Wednesday’s motion is not primarily a function of anybody’s commitment to human rights, social justice, and environmental protection, but of condemning the State of Israel. I think the question of the morality of Israel’s actions is an important one which has its place in school newspapers, political discussion groups, and maybe even in politically-affiliated social action groups. It just upsets me when the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is cloaked in the guise of a fervent commitment to human rights, social justice, and environmental protection. It is inarguably very clever to sneak the Middle East conflict into a motion about wonderful causes. It frames all students who are uncomfortable with the occupied territories clause as callous human beings with no morals. However, it is also an ignoble sham. I think it’s pretty darn bad to exploit such noble pursuits as human rights, social justice, and environmental protection and use them as political pork to smuggle a contentious issue into Shatner. Hell, I might even risk name calling to vote against that.

– Yael GreenbergU1 Arts

News

Land Institute founder Wes Jackson discusses climate change

by Alison Bailey on

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Wes Jackson, a leading environmentalist and the founder of the Land Institute, a Kansas-based environmental research organization, kicked off his lecture last Wednesday with a harrowing comparison.

“I am going to give a talk tonight that may be rough,” said Jackson. “I have not given this talk before, and I have prepared it partly because I had to.”

In the lecture’s first five minutes, Jackson soberly compared climate change to Nazi-occupied Germany, using a quotation from a Nicole Krauss novel. He challenged the audience with the notion of being a bystander and called for citizens to question what their responsibilities are on the issue.

“There were rumours of unfathomable things, and because we couldn’t fathom them we failed to believe them, until we had no choice and it was too late,” Jackson said, quoting Krauss.

Jackson stressed the importance of using the appropriate terminology in describing environmental problems.

“To assign the language of economics to the ecosystem is to have this perverse notion that we can control it,” he said.

Jackson also emphasized that scientific research conducted in the field must be done objectively. Arguments should not shape the research – rather the research should shape the arguments.

“My question to the ecosystem service researchers is this: are you planting the flag of science into the unknown, into the realm of mystery?” he asked.

One peculiar aspect of Jackson’s lecture was his heavy use of literary references to build his argument and convince his audience of their moral responsibility. This led some listeners to criticize the lecture for being short on scientific data.

Faiz Abhuasi, a McGill alumnus with a degree in International Development Studies, said the argument was convincing but questioned the efficacy of Jackson’s approach.

“If you want to convince people to change their behaviour, the tools he uses are great,” Abhuasi said. “But if you want to convince people to change … the behaviour of people in power, you can’t use irrational, non-scientific arguments.”

However, for Eby Heller, a master’s student in geography at McGill, Jackson’s credibility as a scientist was not an issue.

“Having seen his other side, in which he is extraordinarily capable of having extremely scientific arguments, makes me less worried about him,” Heller said. “Because I know he can talk any plant-geneticist around the bush six times. He actually knows what he’s talking about.”

Science & Technology

New study suggests that for some, obesity may be genetic

by Matt Essert on

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A recent study published in Nature has revealed that a proportion of morbidly obese people are missing a certain piece of DNA. The study found that seven of every 1,000 obese people are missing a specific part of their DNA, which contains about 30 genes.

Professor Philippe Froguel and Dr. Robin Walters examined approximately 15,000 obese and non-obese people.

“We looked in nearly 12,000 non-obese people and only found [this piece of DNA] to be missing once, compared to 15 in 2,304 morbidly obese,” Walters said. “The chances of seeing that difference at random is vanishingly small – one chance in 1.6 billion – which means it is near certain that there is some causal relationship.”

Swiss researchers had found similar DNA patterns in obese and non-obese subjects, prompting Walters and his colleagues at Imperial College London to conduct the study.

“Each of us happened to notice from routine data that a small number of people were missing one of their two copies of this specific piece of DNA,” Walters said. “More careful investigation showed that all the adults missing this DNA were obese.”

Dr. Robert Sladek, an assistant professor of medicine at McGill and the Genome Quebec Innovation Centre, discussed his contributions to the study.

“We’ve got a long standing collaboration with Philippe Froguel at Imperial to look for diabetes genes,” he said. “So the work for the study was 95 per cent done at Imperial by Robin Walters … [Our] main role in this study was generating some of the first data that was used.”

“As the study was going I talked with Robin Walters,” Sladek said. “But my main role was that I was quite sceptical about the findings.”

Sladek said that this study would change the way diseases like obesity will be thought of in the scientific community.

“Up until now, we’ve been working with an idea that common diseases like obesity and diabetes would come from common genetics variances,” he said. “What this study is reporting is getting back to a genetics – rather than a genomics – approach.”

The study has demonstrated that this missing piece of DNA can have a drastic effect on a person’s health, making obesity almost inevitable.

“For some people, particularly people that carry this genetic variant, I would say being obese is almost unavoidable,” Sladek said. “And it’s questionable to me whether they could improve their appearance by either an exercise or diet regime.”

Having established that there is causality between this missing piece of DNA and obesity, the next step will be to study the way these genes interact and hopefully develop a treatment for obese people missing this piece of DNA.

“Now that we know that this deletion causes obesity, we can start looking at the genes affected by the deletion to find out which of them is related to the effect on obesity,” Walters said. “And if we can find out exactly why this deletion leads to obesity, we might be able to develop treatments to help the affected patients lose weight or avoid weight gain. At the very least, it will tell us more about why some people become obese and others do not.”

Although this has been an important step forward in this field of genetics research, Sladek pointed out that until further development has been made towards a treatment, people battling obesity should stick to diet and exercise.

“If you’re heavy right now, I’m going to tell you to diet and exercise,” Sladek said. “In the future, I’m going to tell you diet and exercise, and by the way, you have gene X broken and we know that a particular pill works better for people who are missing this particular gene.”

Sladek added that although this statistic of seven in 1,000 may seem slim, the implications can be felt throughout Canada.

“Let’s say seven in 1,000 morbidly obese people probably carry this variant based on our study; that’s going to translate into probably a few thousand people across Canada,” he said. “So it’s relatively uncommon, but for those few thousand individual people, it is likely having a very profound effect on weight.”

News

In India, Munroe-Blum secures a new research partnership

by Nick Frid on

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McGill is hoping that a new agreement with TERI University in India will put the university at the forefront of climate research. The research memorandum focusses on three different aspects of environmental research: urban transportation, biofuels, and renewable energy.

Principal Heather Munroe-Blum and Denis Thérien, McGill’s vice-principal (research and international relations), secured a memorandum of agreement with New Delhi-based TERI University, as well as similar agreements with three other Indian universities, while accompanying Quebec Premier Jean Charest on a trade mission to the country.

The agreement was also signed in order to increase the ease of communication between universities. TERI University is already renowned for its climate research, and this agreement will help to enable better student and faculty exchanges.

“One of the goals we have been constructing is to improve student mobility, and not only students, but faculty as well, and both ways,” said Thérien. “We would like Indian students to come to McGill, and we want McGill students to go to TERI … It’s a two- way relationship.”

Dr. P.P. Bhojvaid, vice-chancellor of TERI University, who co-ordinated the agreement from TERI’s side, has lived in Montreal and knows the McGill community well. The universities had been in academic contact prior to the agreement and the research memorandum is intended to serve as a formal recognition of this partnership.

“There are already relationships between colleagues at McGill and colleagues from TERI University. You have to be aware there are two things, the institute and the academy, and we are already working with both on all three legs. The agreement that we signed was to formalize something already in place,” said Thérien.

The prospect of going to study in India is certainly exciting for some students.

“I would love the experience of studying in India because it would bring a different perspective,” said Max Luke, U1 biodiversity and conservation. “As an environment student, too, it would be great to go there because I think McGill has made a really good choice with this school and this research collaboration.”

Professor Donald Smith of the department of plant science is one of the researchers involved with the biofuel portion of the project. He explained the growing importance of this type of research given current global economic conditions.

“Global energy demand is rising steeply in both developed and developing nations and, at the same time, we are about at the point of maximum rate of extraction of crude oil, thus demand is beginning to outstrip supply,” he said.

One of the keys to Smith’s work is to lower the input and maximize output of the energy involving biofuels – achieving this is critical to future success.

“Brazil currently produces 50 per cent of its fluid fuels on only one per cent of its agricultural land,” Smith said. “Through developing the resource, [Brazil] has positioned itself extremely well for a world where fossil fuels are relied on less and less.”

Right now, both schools are looking on their respective sides for funding to help the program. In terms of the research, Thérien said, “the first concrete next step is the workshop on the theme of biofuels between colleagues of McGill and colleagues of TERI which should take place in the next few weeks.”

The two schools are also quickly working to benefit the students and exchange professors.

“We are looking at how possible it is in a short time frame to exchange courses and programs; to have some professors go there and teach our models,” Thérien said. “For example, something we discussed last week was sending our professors over there to teach a very intensive three week course.”

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