Funding opens doors to research
The $80 million in funding Concordia received through the Knowledge Infrastructure Program (KIP) is most evident on Loyola Campus, where two new research centres were inaugurated on Friday, November 4: the Centre for Structural and Functional Genomics and the PERFORM Centre (Prevention, Evaluation, Rehabilitation and FORMation/training).
“These new facilities are the culmination of a dream to house top researchers in innovative laboratory settings and to give them access to the best equipment and personnel,” said Concordia’s Vice-President Research and Graduate Studies Louise Dandurand during the opening ceremonies. “They also exemplify a new approach to fostering interdisciplinary scientific collaboration and to bringing that expertise from the laboratory into the wider community.”
Centre for Structural and Functional Genomics
Concordia’s new Centre for Structural and Functional Genomics offers researchers 5,400 sq. m of new research space. The structure was designed by the consortium of Marosi+Troy, Cardinal Hardy and Jodoin Lamarre Pratte, and built with $29 million from KIP. The architects designed the space as an additional wing that connects to the Richard J. Renaud Science Complex.
PERFORM Centre
After the speeches, PERFORM’s Athletic Therapy Clinic Manager Deborah Cross is more than happy to show off the new facility to visitors. Cross begins the tour in Le Centre, a unique conditioning and rehabilitation facility that includes scores of exercise machines.
“Every piece comes with the ability to capture, save and integrate data,” she explains. A memory key records performances of an individual’s given program, so improvements can be monitored and the program can be adjusted as necessary.
Next door to Le Centre is a full clinical analysis suite, where researchers can undertake all sorts of procedures, including DNA testing, muscle biopsies, and blood analyses before and after a research workout program.
Downstairs in PERFORM is the athletic therapy clinic, staffed by internship students from the Department of Exercise Science. “Here at our facility, the students deliver all of the care, from the preparation, the evaluation of the patient, right through to discharge,” Cross says. “They are always under the auspices of a certified athletic therapist.”
The clinic opened on September 13, and over 200 patients have already benefited from its services and facilities, which include a resistance pool for aquatic therapy. And the clinic’s services are not just for elite athletes; anyone can book an appointment, which lasts an hour and costs $25.
Down the hall from the clinic are training labs, and what’s known as a metabolic kitchen, where specific foods can be prepared to help researchers find out how fats and proteins break down, and ultimately how our diets affect our health. “This equipment measures the composition of food to the nth degree.” Cross says.
Further down the hall is a room containing what’s called a perturbation table. The table is made up of plates that move in different ways on a track. Eight cameras take 1,500 frames per second. “If you had a stroke victim that was on this particular table, and you moved it, you could take frame-by-frame to see how their muscles react to the movement of the table, with the idea being to retrain those muscles.”
The basement level also houses PERFORM’s cardiopulmonary evaluation suite, functional assessment laboratories, and a full imaging suite that contains an array of state-of-the-art machines dedicated solely to research.
“This centre focuses on prevention from every single angle, and the research that comes out of that may in the end benefit our healthcare partners because there is less strain on the system,” adds Cross.
Solar Simulator and Environmental Chamber
The new genomics centre and PERFORM may be the big ticket news items, but major improvements and additions were made on Sir George Williams Campus, as well, thanks to funding from KIP. One such addition is the brand new Solar Simulator —Environmental Chamber, located in the basement of the Henry F. Hall Building on De Maisonneuve Boulevard.
This state-of-the-art facility is the only one of its kind in the world. It allows researchers to investigate solar energy applications and advanced structural envelopes with the goal of developing cost-effective, net-zero energy buildings that produce as much energy as they use.
"The new solar simulator and environmental chamber will enable our teams to rapidly perform experiments in a matter of days — as compared to months outdoors,” says Andreas Athienitis, associate professor in the Department of Building, Civil and Environmental Engineering.
Within the new chamber, researchers and graduate students can conduct experiments in a whole range of conditions without having to wait for Mother Nature to produce them.
Paul Fazio is the other professor from the Department of Building, Civil and Environmental Engineering who is behind the project. He has worked closely with Athienitis for over two decades. “We started in the 1970s making buildings more energy efficient,” says Fazio. “We were ahead of the curve.” Now, due to mounting energy costs, and sustainability initiatives, the world has caught up, and interest in the work being undertaken by these Concordia researchers is at a fever pitch.
Performing Arts and the D.B. Clarke Theatre
Concordia’s Departments of Music, Theatre and Contemporary Dance have also benefited from funding received through KIP. All three departments have been consolidated in spacious modern facilities within the John Molson School of Business (MB) Building. The only exceptions are theatre design classrooms and workshops, which are held in the Guy-Metro (GM) Building.
Performing arts staff and faculty members are ecstatic about the upgrades. “Just the quality of the sprung floor, technically these are the best dance floors in Montreal,” says Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Contemporary Dance Michael Montanaro, “You’re not in the basement like a lot of dance departments. You’re on the seventh floor and two of the sides of the studio are glass, so you’re looking out over the city. How much more inspirational can you get?”
A further $11 million investment allowed Concordia to significantly upgrade the D.B. Clarke theatre in the Henry F. Hall (HB) Building. With new seats, a new curtain, new carpeting, a beautifully refurbished teak interior, and a new fly system (the complex set of ropes, counterweights and pulleys used to move curtains, backdrops and lighting) the theatre is looking better than it has in 40 years.
“We hand out invitations and exchanges with pride now, in a way we just couldn’t before,” says Ana Cappelluto, associate dean, planning and academic facilities in the Faculty of Fine Arts. Cappelluto says the upgrades are allowing Performing Arts students to express themselves, and explore their chosen areas like never before. “It’s hard to imagine what we can’t do right now with the facilities we have.”
Related links
• Knowledge Infrastructure Program Facilities
• PERFORM Centre
• Building, Civil, and Environmental Engineering
• Fine Arts
• “Concordia Inaugurates Health and Genomics Research Centres” - NOW, November 3, 2011