The first ever 2nd Floor Health Sciences Research Day

The 2^nd Floor Research clusters are a group of basic scientists and clinicians conducting a wide range of research at the University of Saskatchewan, including the Core Mass Spectrometry Facility and the laboratories for the Canadian Centre for Health and Safety in Agriculture (CCHSA). The clusters contain 23 faculty members, together with their students and research staff, from the Departments of Anatomy and Cell Biology, Agriculture and Bioresources, Biochemistry, Medicine, Microbiology and Immunology, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Pharmacology, Physiology, the College of Pharmacy and Nutrition, and the School of Public Health.

The one-day research event started with two keynote speakers: Dr. Monique Haakensen, Contango Strategies, Saskatoon, SK, U of S Alumni & Dr. Michael Kelly, Clinical Stroke Research Chair, University of Saskatchewan. The first talk were from Dr. Haakensen, a former PhD student from Health Sciences, who has gone on to build a biotechnology company here in Saskatoon. She was speaking on Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Science. In the second talk Dr. Michael Kelly spoke about his work building collaborative research program with multi-disciplinary approaches including histology, neuroscience, and synchrotron imaging here at the University.

Next, a poster competition was held in the D-Wing Atrium for the researchers of the Biomedical and Environmental Research Cluster and the Cardiopulmonary Research Cluster. In total, 70 researchers/scientists participated and 32 posters were presented in separate categories: undergraduate students, graduate students, and Post-doctoral fellows/research staff. Prizes given to top posters in each category. There was a wide variety of research presented, with a focus on building teamwork in research and innovative collaboration in science. There were some CCHSA graduate students and post-doctoral fellows/research staff with their poster presentation namely Drs. David Schneberger, Amanda Nascimento, Paulos Chumala; PhD Candidates: Mr. Oluwafemi Oluwole, Mr. Upkardeep Pandher, and Mr. Luan Manh Chu; and Research staff: Ms. Brooke Thompson.

In the future, this exciting research event will be expanded to create a more interactive and collaborative forum for researchers/scientists from different research background to attend, contribute, and expand the network.