In 2021, members of the UWindsor community published nearly 1,200 peer-reviewed research articles — a record one-year total for the institution.

UWindsor president Robert Gordon expressed admiration for that accomplishment in a video of congratulatory remarks from him and K.W. Michael Siu, outgoing vice-president of research and innovation, as a virtual Celebration of Excellence in Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity.

“In many ways, the pandemic challenged how we conduct research, scholarship, and even creative activity,” Dr. Gordon said. “The perseverance and flexibility that researchers and research teams across campus and beyond have shown is truly inspiring.”

The virtual celebration saw the conferral of Outstanding Faculty Research Awards to scholars at the established and emerging stages of their careers: Carol Davison, Aaron Fisk, Laverne Jacobs, Randy Lippert, and Nicole Markotić among the former; and Catherine Febria, Ofelia Jianu, Drew Marquardt, and Shanthi Senthe, the latter.

Outstanding Student Research Awards were made to graduate and undergraduate students and their faculty supervisors, including Ze Li (Narayan Kar), Haleh Nazemi (Arezoo Emadi), and Eman El-Masri (Arezoo Emadi).

The occasion also noted grants and funding, special honours, and patents awarded to faculty, staff, and students in 2021.

Through their research, scholarship, and creative activities, faculty award recipients and honourees enrich the campus research community and provide exciting and impactful opportunities for student researchers, said Gordon.

“The spirit of these awards is a welcome reminder of what’s to come as we return to campus life and community,” he said. “Please continue to be inspired and meet your research goals.”

Find details of the achievements and contributions of all the 2021 honourees on the event website.

UWindsor researchers are studying two enzymes to determine their role in Parkinson’s disease and whether they hold the key to neuronal health.

“As occurrences of Parkinson’s are predicted to double in the next 20 years, there is a critical need for the development of prophylactic and therapeutic interventions,” says Yufeng Tong, chemistry and biochemistry professor.

Parkinson’s disease is a movement disorder characterized by progressive neurodegeneration and a breakdown of communication between the brain and body.

It affects one in every 500 people in Canada and poses a major socioeconomic burden to society, families, and caregivers. It is the world’s fastest-growing neurological disease, and the incidence rate increases significantly with age; individuals over 85 years old are almost 200 times more likely to be impacted by Parkinson’s disease than those 40 to 44 years of age.

“We have recently identified two enzymes, USP8 and AMPK, that interact and may be involved in mechanisms that lead to the onset and progression of Parkinson’s,” says Dr. Tong.

Determining whether these enzymes or proteins are truly involved could help pharmaceutical companies find treatments by developing drugs targeting them.

“What we are characterizing right now is the novel interaction between USP8 and AMPK, something that has not been seen previously,” says Cody Caba, PhD student in Tong’s research lab.

“The main takeaway is that the interaction between these proteins bridges the activity of USP8 with cellular metabolism — because AMPK is a big player in general metabolism — and there’s a building idea as to its role in pathways that can lead to Parkinson’s disease, should they become dysregulated.”

The project is part of a $25,000 Mitacs Accelerate grant, in collaboration with the Parkinson's Society Southwestern Ontario, for a project called, “Regulation of ubiquitin specific protease 8 by AMPK-mediated phosphorylation.”

“Our goal is to characterize how these enzymes function in normal and disease conditions,” Caba says.

What is currently known is AMPK modifies USP8 through a process called phosphorylation. Should this interaction be confirmed, it may pose a novel avenue for treatment of Parkinson’s disease and others, including cancer and a rare disorder known as Cushing’s disease.

“When AMPK phosphorylates USP8, we find that it reduces the level of activity of USP8… this is likely important for cellular homeostasis,” says Caba.

“But when that interaction is disrupted and the activity of USP8 is too high, we believe that activity might be related to some pathophysiological pathways that contribute to Parkinson’s disease.”

The team will explore the interaction of USP8 and AMPK to determine if they are directly involved in Parkinson’s or associated cellular mechanisms.

“The research proposed will add to the growing list of potential therapeutic targets for the fight against this debilitating disease,” says Tong.

Susan Blight will discuss her work as a visual artist, examining visual and spatial formations of Anishinaabeg geographies of resistance in the School of Creative Arts’ first artist talk of the fall, in the Performance Hall at 1 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 6.

Blight is a member of the Anishinaabe, Couchiching First Nation, a UWindsor alumna (MFA 2007), and co-founder of the Ogimaa Mikana artist collective. She holds the Delaney Chair in Indigenous Visual Culture in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at OCAD University.

Her solo and collaborative practices incorporate public art, site-specific intervention, photography, film, and social practice to question personal and cultural identity and its ongoing relationship to space.

Thursday’s event is free and open to the public; find more details on the SoCA website.

The fun of September is over and now it is time for students to roll up their sleeves and get to work.

The Leddy Library is offering tours of its facilities, resources, and services on Wednesday, Oct. 5.

Library staff and librarians will conduct tours of the building, guiding both new and returning students through some key features and resources that the library has to offer.

The tours are free; register online: https://uwindsor.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_8kt2tQi4zYwcnsO

All tours will take place Wednesday, Oct. 5. Meet in the main lobby five minutes prior to the tour start time: 10:30 a.m., 2:30 p.m., 5:30 p.m., or 7:30 p.m.

Hundreds of people gathered Friday afternoon on the David Wilson Commons for a drum social teach-in for Orange Shirt Day.

The event took place after the Orange Shirt Day community walk from Art Windsor-Essex.

The campus observance on Turtle Island Walk, hosted by the Truth & Reconciliation Reading Circle of the Paul Martin Law Library, featured addresses reflecting on the legacy of residential schools and their impact on Indigenous individuals, families, and communities.

Elder and residential school survivor, Mona Stonefish, shared her experiences along with Beverly Jacobs, senior advisor to the president on Indigenous relations and outreach.

Attendees were treated to drumming by the Brown Bear Singers for Aamjiwnaang First Nation and were encouraged to take part in communal dancing.

Find more information on the UWindsor Orange Shirt Day webpage.

Lancers reflect on eye-opening trip of truth and reconciliation

Members of the Lancer men’s hockey team had an eye-opening experience when they visited First Nations communities in British Columbia’s Nicola Valley.

Players helped with several projects rebuilding after 2021 wildfires and floods, including a shed, a corral, and insulating a basement. Their journey included visiting the site of a former residential school in Kamloops, where 215 unmarked graves were discovered.

The team was moved to hear from those with first-hand experience, said captain  Mason Kohn.

“Listening to the stories of the survivors as they spoke was something really powerful,” he said. “It ensured that we all could come back to Windsor and discuss what had happened and to move forward, somehow, to find a way to rebuild the trust.”

Read the full story, “Lancers reflect on eye-opening trip of truth and reconciliation,” at goLancers.ca

The Entrepreneurship Practice and Innovation Centre (EPICentre) invites students from the University of Windsor and St. Clair College to engage in some solutions-based thinking for cash prizes.

The Blue Sky Competition challenges teams of two to four members to present their ideas for a product or service with the potential to satisfy a need in the marketplace.

The competition takes the form of two-minute videos, with entries selected by online voting for an in-person judged final round.

Cash prizes sponsored by the University of Windsor Alumni Association are $1,000 for first place and $500 for runner-up.

Submissions are due by Oct. 17 — get the details on the competition website.

Necessary upgrades to power lines will require Facility Services to shut down several campus utilities on Sunday, Oct. 23.

To comply with Electrical Safety Authority requirements, the University must upgrade its existing high voltage power line. The work necessitates an outage of campus electrical, compressed air and vacuum, and heating and cooling services.

The electrical outage will disable card access, elevators, lighting, air conditioning, and all power supply and is scheduled for nine hours, 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. It will affect campus buildings with the exceptions of downtown properties, the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research, the Centre for English Language Development, the Centre for Automotive Research and Education, 2629 Riverside Dr., and the maintenance and grounds building on Union St.

The compressed air and vacuum outage will affect labs throughout the campus.

The steam outage will disable hot water and heating and cooling systems. The shutdown will disrupt most campus buildings, with the exceptions of downtown properties, the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research, the Centre for English Language Development, and the Centre for Automotive Research and Education.

Incorrect dates appeared in Monday’s DailyNews.