“Matter Cycles, Energy flows” goes the old saying in ecology, and when all the operational definitions are in place it makes perfect sense. Yesterday I attended a Federal Government funding announcement made in the foyer of the Alastair Ross Technology Centre by Minister of State Diane Ablonczy. She made an announcement on behalf of Jim Prentice, Minister of State. In research, cash provides for the energy which really matters to move major projects forward.

What if it were possible to find, collect, discover, isolate or genetically engineer a microbe with the ability to sequester CO₂ in a reduced form (like methane) which could then be oxidized back to CO₂ generating power. It would not be a perpetual motion machine, but it would be darn close.

This is the type of ideas that get tossed around when scientists are doing a little brainstorming prior to funding announcements. Well, the funding announced today might not fund this kind of research, but as I understand, it will fund research in metabolomics, nutragenomics and oilfield metabolomics. The research funding, approximately $2.4 Million, coming through the Western Economic Diversification Canada is being divided among the three western Genomics Centres. Besides Genome Alberta, Genome BC and Genome Prairie also received funds. It is anticipated that this research money will help position Alberta as a leader in genomics research and support developing the skills and technology necessary to remain competitive moving forward. A key understanding is that research must not only lead to innovation and development of new ideas, but must also marketplace ideas.

In his short speech, Genome Alberta Chief Scientific Officer, Dr. Gijs van Rooijen spoke enthusiastically about the role Genome Alberta has already been playing in helping scientists develop as he called it, “one more tool for the toolbox”. That one tool with regard to the Mountain Pine Beetle epidemic is to give scientists a better way to predict future outbreak of MPB by having much improved genetic landscape of the trees. This will play a much larger role moving forward in the risk management of the MPB epidemic. Additionally, Dr. van Rooijen spoke of the the oilsands nutragenomics as being a key in the future by reducing the ecological footprint and improving the efficiency and profitability of oilsands development through techniques in biorefining.

I look forward to keeping you up to date on the developments in these areas of research which will make such a positive impact on all our futures.

David Bailey, President and CEO; Diane Ablonczy, Minister of State; Gijs van Rooijen, CSO; Art Froehlich, Chairman