B.C.'s future forests will include super-trees that can shrug off attacks by pests like the mountain pine beetle - or are remarkably efficient at sequestering carbon, reducing CO2 in the atmosphere.
People here and elsewhere will use a simple screening test to detect diabetes waiting to happen, so it can be prevented - and another to easily pinpoint which of many underlying conditions is causing a patient's high blood pressure, so it can be treated successfully.
There's a link between these four projects: Christoph Borchers, one of the world's top proteomics researchers. Borchers' appointment as the Don and Eleanor Rix B.C. Leadership Chair in Biomedical and Environmental Proteomics at the University of Victoria was announced July 21 by Pat Bell, Minister Responsible for Jobs, Tourism and Innovation.
Proteomics is the study of the structure and functions of proteins. It can be used in every area of biochemical research. Borchers, director of the UVic Genome BC Proteomics Centre at the Vancouver Island Technology Park, is focusing on health and forestry in his LEEF chair role.
The chair comes with an endowment of $4.5 million - with $2.25 million donated by the Rix Family Foundation established by Dr. Donald Rix, a leading physician, entrepreneur and philanthropist, who passed away in 2009. The Province provided the other $2.25 million from its Leading Edge Endowment Fund.
Since arriving in B.C. five years ago, Borchers has created a spinoff company, MRM Proteomics, with a business developer who attracts industry clients from all over the world to use the Proteomics Centre's services.
This has helped Borchers create 18 jobs, more than tripling the staff at the centre. He intends to hire more top researchers, leveraging the LEEF chair funding that pays his own salary.
Borchers, who earned his three degrees at the University of Konstanz in Germany, is president of the Canadian National Proteomics Network. He is working on Canada's role in the upcoming Human Proteome Project -a far bigger task than the international Human Genome Project, which took 13 years to complete.
"Our new LEEF chair already has a great track record of creating jobs in B.C.," said Bell. "Christoph Borchers' world-class work in proteomics will continue to increase knowledge, support industry, and provide a return on our investment in innovation through commercialization."
- Submitted
