Frontier Issue 2 Dec 2006

K C

Y MDocket no.: 1162Version no: 1Client : UBC Research

Date: 2006 Nov 10Item: Frontier magazineSize: 8.5x11.75 inchesLogos: repro

Photos: hiresLine Screen: 150 lineFonts: DIN, A Garamond Pro, Avant Garde, Cloister

Proofed by: ROS/KB/MR

A Journal of Research and Discovery > Issue 02 > December 2006

Office of the Vice President Research

A CURE FOR CHRONIC PAIN? The real deal on a promising painkiller

GOING GREENER Sustainability meets the real world

WEANED ON THE WEB Demystifying teen Internet use

MAN VS. MICROBE Waging war on infectious diseases

K C




Proofed by: ROS/KB/MR K C




Proofed by:ROS/KB/MR All trapping is the responsibility of the printer/pre-press company outputting final film/plates.

IN THIS ISSUE >

From Out of the Shell 03 A new era of pain management could be on the horizon. How Terry Snutch turned snail venom into a multi-million dollar painkiller

The Smaller the Particles 06 The Bigger the Questions Exploring the chasm between quantum mechanics and Newtonian physics, Josh Folk uncovers new possibilities in the murky world of subatomic particles

Seismic Shift 08 Saving lives, securing critical infrastructure and avoiding business interruptions during earthquakes: Terje Haukaas looks to shift the future towards performance-based engineering

THE MICROSCOPIC MENACE 12 The next disastrous pandemic could strike any time, anywhere. Brett Finlay is finding hope in the battle against infectious diseases

Art of Darkness 16 Jodey Castricano investigates the role of stories in structuring our social and cultural reality

Mixed Messages 18 The information technology revolution is spawning a generation of tech-savvy kids. Jennifer Shapka aims to document its influence – both positive and negative

The Green House 20 Can sustainability work in the real world? John Robinson is determined to prove it with his forthcoming “greener than green” living laboratory

Welcome to the second issue of frontier, the University of British Columbia’s journal of research and discovery.

As one of Canada’s top research institutions, we at UBC are committed to fostering an environment that promotes and facilitates first-rate research dedicated to furthering intellectual pursuits, and benefiting our society in a positive and significant way.

The fact is, research matters. University research has far-reaching implications for our society, and our lives. From the greatest, most significant medical discovery of our day – such as Brett Finlay’s important work on infectious diseases – to gaining a broader understanding of the societal impact of technology – such as Jennifer Shapka’s research in to technology’s influence on adolescents’ social, physical and cognitive development – research enriches our lives, drives our economy, and contributes to greater global understanding.

We are proud to have researchers spanning all disciplines, who are dedicated to engaging in important, meaningful and inspirational research. The examples in these pages are but a few of the many UBC researchers who impact our world.

Enjoy this second issue of frontier.

Dr. John Hepburn, Vice President Research

A MESSAGE FROM THE VICE PRESIDENT RESEARCH

Cover and page three photos> Paul Joseph

3December 2006

K C




Proofed by: ROS/KB/MRK C





Buried beneath a sea of paperwork, scientific journals and textbooks, UBC Vancouver molecular neurobiology researcher Dr. Terrance Snutch keeps a box of brightly patterned cone snail shells. These are no ordinary shells; their fragile, diminutive structures potentially hold the secret to efficiently alleviating chronic pain in humans.

“Cone snails are these beautiful shells from the South Pacific,” reveals Snutch, handling them with delicacy. “This is where the peptide Prialt comes from. It blocks pain receptors and it’s very efficacious in easing human pain.”

Just how efficacious, no one could have ever dreamed. The peptide in the snail’s venom, which even surpasses the potency

of morphine, prompted scientists to frantically investigate the potential for a new category of drugs that lack the addictive side-effects of traditional painkillers. Initial scientific efforts resulted in Prialt, a drug that blocked pain receptors. Although Prialt was effective at alleviating pain, it proved to be an invasive treatment that required injections into the spinal cord through a pump implanted under the skin.

This lack of effective application of the snail’s painkilling agent prompted Snutch to take a drastically different approach: “My idea was to develop a drug that you could take as a pill that would work like Prialt,” he explains. “NMED-160 is an orally-made available drug that targets the N-type channel.”

TERRY SNUTCH HAS TURNED A SNAIL’S VENOM INTO A $500M DEAL WITH MERCK & CO. AND IN THE PROCESS COULD ELIMINATE CHRONIC HUMAN PAIN FOR GOOD

From Out of the Shell

K C









Photo> Paul Joseph

5December 2006

K C









The new direction paid off for Snutch in a big way. Last year, his UBC spin-off biotech company – Neuromed Pharmaceuticals – struck a record partnership deal with Merck & Co. to develop and market the painkiller NMED-160. Valued at nearly $500 million USD, it is the richest collaboration for a drug in development ever in Canadian history.

“It turned out that out of the 22 pharmaceutical companies we talked to, pretty much all of them – 19 out of 22 – were interested,” says Snutch. “It came down to Merck being the best opportunity: absolutely outstanding scientists, great clinical development and a huge interest in pain.”

Human pain comes in two types: acute and chronic. While acute pain serves as a normal response to a noxious stimulus, chronic pain’s necessity is more obscure because there is no real benefit to it. For the more than 50 million people who suffer from chronic pain in North America alone, an effective, long-term treatment of this constant affliction has proved elusive. Although opioids, or derivatives of morphine, have been the most successful method of treating chronic pain, their harmful side-effects have long been documented.

“The opioids are very powerful painkillers but they’re not very good for chronic treatment because there are a lot side effects – addiction, severe constipation, respiratory depression,” Snutch explains. “Even if you’re in pain, you still want to be able to do your job and opioids don’t really allow for that.”

To create a painkiller that was effective and without side-effects, Snutch began

investigating N-type calcium channels – located in the spinal cord – that act as a conduit between the sensory nerve endings that record pain. Understanding the dynamic between the N-type channels and sensory nerves brought Snutch to a remarkable discovery: “If you block the N-type channel in the spinal cord, it blocks the neurotransmitter release in those sensory nerves in the spinal cord before they even reach the brain. If the pain signal doesn’t reach the brain, by default, you don’t feel pain because pain is actually felt in the brain.”

Armed with this knowledge and the discovery of the snail venom’s ability to block the N-type channel, the idea for NMED-160 was born. Now in Phase Two clinical trials, Neuromed has passed NMED-160 to Merck for further testing, a process that generally lasts six or seven years. Because NMED-160 has been used in humans since 2004, Snutch estimates that, if effective, it could be made available to the public by 2011. For chronic pain sufferers, that day could not come sooner.

“The drugs that are out there that treat chronic pain maybe work in about a third of patients. The other 60 to 70 per cent of patients don’t get any significant relief,” Snutch suggests. “So it would be a huge benefit to patients if NMED-160 worked. There is every reason to believe it will but you never know until you do the clinical trials.”

While there are no sure bets in the world of clinical trials, Snutch is cautiously optimistic about the potential for NMED-160. Because the drug is now in the hands of Merck, Neuromed is able to refocus its efforts on developing a whole range of pain

killing drugs: “The Merck collaboration not only pays for NMED-160 to go through clinical trials, but for other new compounds to be developed and go through development. Not having to fund further clinical development of NMED-160 on its own, Neuromed can take some of its money raised from venture capital and put it towards other research so we’re able to build a pipeline in the company. It’s a win-win situation for Neuromed.”

The company’s latest research includes investigations into T-type calcium channels that are implicated in epilepsy, heart disease, certain types of cancer, and pain.

For Snutch, the development of NMED-160 is ultimately a real-world example of how research at the university level can be transformed into something of substantial benefit to the public. His passionate commitment to science continues to drive him towards new, undiscovered frontiers: “I’m intrigued by the notion that every day I wake up, I have something new to do. There’s no such thing as the end of an experiment. You can publish your data but that usually just leads to more experiments, more ideas. It’s a very good way to go through life, never having a point of finality in anything you’ve done.”

Dr. Terrance Snutch’s main research grants are provided by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). In addition to his research in molecular neurobiology at UBC, Dr. Snutch is founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Neuromed Pharmaceuticals Inc., a biopharmaceutical company focusing on drug development in treating chronic and neuropathic pain, epilepsy and cardiovascular disease.

“The drugs that treat chronic pain work in about a third of patients. The other 60 to 70 per cent of patients don’t get any significant relief.”

Photo> Paul Joseph

K C









THE SMALLER THE PARTICLES

THE BIGGER THE QUESTIONS

7December 2006

K C









Josh Folk is an assistant professor in the department of physics and astronomy at UBC Vancouver; he studies physics on the nanometer scale – a world that exists between the subatomic scale of quantum mechanics and the world that is described by classical Newtonian physics. As Folk describes it, the nanometer scale is the place where the two meet: “Quantum mechanics is a theory in physics that describes atoms and smaller. But if you go up the scale, quantum mechanics doesn’t make sense at all. That’s why the nanometer scale is a particularly interesting one, because it’s where quantum mechanics stops working so well, but at the same time Newtonian classical physics stops working also.”

Although the nanometer scale is larger than the subatomic scale, it’s still pretty darn small. The word refers to one billionth of a meter; a human hair is about 10,000 nanometers wide. The technological developments from the nanometer scale, called nanotechnology, give rise, potentially, to new devices that put quantum mechanics to work. In quantum mechanics, it’s possible for one object to have two apparently contradictory characteristics at the same time. When this concept is applied to computing, it’s referred to as “quantum computing.” This is still at a theoretical stage, but it’s the closest device application for quantum mechanics and the implications are enormous.

Folk explains: “Imagine a computer processor that works based on zeros and ones. Let’s say your input to the processor, your data going in, could be many things at the same time; instead of being either a zero or a one, it could be both a zero and a one. For example, if you were to write the binary number four, it would be ‘one one.’ If both of those bits could be either zero or one at the same time, then this input string of two bits could be four possible things at the same time. And this scales exponentially, so if you had one hundred bits it would be two to the power of one hundred things at the same time. That’s a very large number – about a one-with-thirty-zeros-after-it things that it could be at the same time. It means you could run your computer program once, yet do one-with-thirty-zeros-after-it operations at the same time.”

Quantum computing is of enormous

interest to the military – security codes are based on factoring large numbers. It’s also critically relevant to banks with similar encryption schemes.

The fundamental element is called the qubit, which stands for quantum bit: the element that can be zero and one at the same time. A qubit could be made in many different ways. For example, atoms have different energy levels, and therefore a single atom could have two of those energy levels describe zero and one. It’s possible for an atom to be at two of those energy levels at the same time. And that would be an atom functioning as a qubit.

At the nanometer scale, superconducting rings – rings with electrical resistance – could have the current running both clockwise and counterclockwise at the same time. As Folk says, it’s a very strange thing to imagine, but it’s a way in which current direction can also function as a qubit – clockwise could mean zero, counterclockwise could mean one.

Folk’s research is focused on using electron spin as zero and one. That means whether the spin is pointing up or pointing down, or doing both at the same time. Electron spin is what gives rise to magnetism. For example, a refrigerator magnet has a huge number of spins all pointing in the same direction and produces a big magnetic field. Isolate a single one of those spins and it could serve as a qubit.

By confining and controlling a single electron spin, each spin could be like a qubit and also like a normal computing bit. Folk explains that information on a computer hard drive is stored as tiny regions of magnetic field, pointing either up or down. Each element on the hard drive is also at the nanometer scale, but it contains many more than one spin. As a result it acts classically instead of quantum mechanically; it acts as a normal bit, where it’s either up

or down, and not as a quantum mechanical bit. The point at which it acts as a quantum mechanical bit is the point at which it’s doing both simultaneously: up and down at the same time.

Folk compares spin to an arrow, which classically moves in two directions: up or down. Think about that scenario in quantum mechanics and the whole sphere becomes possible – up, down, left, right, in, out. It’s got a different dimensionality.

Folk works to turn the spin information (which is hard to detect) into information that is more detectable, such as electron charge. “Charge is a very powerful, detectable force, with a lot of energy stored in it. If I can turn spin information into charge information, it becomes much easier to read out. One way of doing this would be by creating a device where an electron can move away only if its spin is up; if the spin is down, it’s trapped where it is. And so if I give the spin an option to flow away and then I measure where it is, that’s a way of turning spin info into charge info, because then I can measure the location of the charge, and that will tell me what the spin is.”

Another potential application for the enormous power of nanotechnology lies in medical science. And that’s where the spins come in. Folk explains: “One of the limitations with MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) is resolution – you can’t look at any thing much smaller than a millimeter, because you need a very large number of nuclear spins to measure something using MRI. I’m very interested in the possibility of measuring just a few nuclear spins by using the same kind of techniques – turning that spin information into something more detectable. That would make an MRI a much more powerful medical tool. It would mean that the type of measurement that could tell you now if you have a broken bone, could tell you if in a single cell or just a few cells there’s something going wrong.”

The behaviour of physical objects on the nanometer scale is slowly revealing itself. Folk’s research helps to clarify a fundamental part of the physical world. As he puts it: “This is an underlying type of behaviour that is always with us, always going on in everything around us. I’m involved in understanding that behaviour and harnessing its power.”

JOSH FOLK EXPLAINS HOW THE TRADITIONAL RULES OF PHYSICS DON’T MAKE SENSE AT THE QUANTUM-MECHANICAL LEVEL – AND HOW THOSE DISCREPANCIES CAN BE TURNED INTO OPPORTUNITIES

The word “nanometer” refers to one billionth of a meter; a human hair is about 10,000 nanometers wide

8 December 2006

K C




Proofed by:ROS/KB/MR All trapping is the responsibility of the printer/pre-press company outputting final film/plates.K C





K C





9December 2006

K C









It happened in the early morning hours of January 17, 1994. A small rumble from the depths of the earth steadily grew in strength and intensity to unleash a tremor that would crack cement, crumble brick, bend steel and reduce many “earthquake resistant” buildings and overpasses to dust. Within minutes, 51 people were dead and 9,000 more injured. From San Fernando Valley to Anaheim to Santa Monica, just one shift in the earth’s crust left a path of destruction with few structures unscathed. Although it had a moderate magnitude of 6.7, the 1994 Northridge earthquake proved to be the most costly quake in US history based on the dollar amount of damage. With most earthquake design codes, damage is implied to allow the structure to dissipate seismic energy. How much damage, no design code is capable of predicting, leaving serious questions about their efficacy. “The Northridge earthquake in 1994 was interesting because the design codes did exactly what they were supposed to, namely ensure life safety because there wasn’t a lot of loss of life,” says Dr. Terje Haukaas, assistant professor at UBC Vancouver’s Department of Civil Engineering. “But the damage

was in the billions and this was at odds with owners’ and public’s expectations.” The financial repercussions of the damage sustained in the 1994 Northridge earthquake prompted researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, to pioneer a performance-based approach to seismic-engineering design. Haukaas was among this new generation of structural engineers who abandoned a complete reliance on design codes and began investigating how computer analysis could more accurately simulate the actual behaviour of a building in an earthquake. “I don’t think people realize just how

much of an impact those analysis models

will have on our opportunity to actually

simulate the behaviour of a building,”

Haukaas explains. “I’m interested in

the performance of the building instead

of that it only conforms to code. I feel

that performance-based engineering

should complement the codes by

adding to its minimal requirements.” In

2006, Haukaas and his research partner

Dr. Ken Elwood took a giant leap towards

securing the future of performance-based

engineering by procuring a real-time

hybrid-testing model through a $0.9-

million Canada Foundation for Innovation

New Opportunities grant. As one of the

first of its kind in Canada, the hybrid -

testing system combines physical testing

and model-based simulations in the form

of 3-D numerical models that enable

large-scale testing of structural systems.

Because there is instant communication

between the computer and the real

HOW WILL YOUR BUILDING

FARE IN AN EARTHQUAKE?

TERJE HAUKAAS IS

INVESTIGATING HOW

PROBABILITY AND

COMPUTER-BASED 3-D

SIMULATIONS CAN PROVIDE

A BETTER PICTURE

10 December 2006

K C









structure in the lab, data can be calibrated from both the numerical model and the physical element for a more accurate account of a building’s global performance. Unlike the hybrid system, current earthquake-engineering experiments rely on data produced by shake tables or hydraulic actuator tests. Shake tables produce ground motion similar to an actual earthquake, but due to sheer size limitations these experiments can only consider individual structural components, like a column or a wall. Tests with hydraulic actuators are even more limited because they can only subject the structural component to varying static loads even though earthquakes subject entire structural systems to dynamic loads. The fact that traditional earthquake-engineering experiments don’t factor in uncertainty is of particular interest to Haukaas. Uncertainties in the structural properties of

“I’m interested in the performance of the building instead of that it only conforms to code.”

Photo> Getty Images

K C





11December 2006

K C









a particular building, its material properties, its non-structural content such as furniture, and the amount of force created by the tremors all affect the probability of a real-life building behaving exactly as replicated in a lab. This limits the usefulness of deterministic simulations and predictions. Instead of taking a deterministic approach to seismic design, Haukaas’ research utilizes probability to link computer-simulated numerical models with reliability (the consideration of uncertainties); sensitivity (the response to change); and optimization (the balance between cost and safety). By taking these three aspects into account, Haukaas says models calibrated by hybrid testing provide a more complete and realistic picture of the extent of damage expected to a structure: “Instead of saying the building will behave in such and such a way, there’s a

probability distribution here. It may be less satisfying to tell the owner that there is a five per cent chance of certain damage happening but in reality, you can never be sure about the actual outcome.” For those living on the West Coast where earthquake hazard is ubiquitous, building owners can benefit from more specific information about how their building will perform in the event of an earthquake, allowing them to make essential decisions about insurance coverage and the necessity for structural upgrades. Haukaas’ research into performance-based engineering also provides a prescription to revise building codes without having to wait for an earthquake to highlight the weaknesses of the current system. “Imagine if that Northridge earthquake scenario happened here in Vancouver, being the port to the massive Asian market. It’s going to have ripple effects from here to Chicago,” he suggests. “But earthquake hazard isn’t something you can touch and feel. As such, it can be a nasty animal because it can suddenly jump up and bite you. Then people realize, oh darn, we should’ve put some thought into how we design our building to make it as safe as possible and avoid business interruptions.” The terrain

treaded by Haukaas and his research team is still relatively new to the engineering community; his research has been warmly but cautiously received. Haukaas is optimistic his work will gain momentum as city planners and building owners begin to realize the advantage of understanding how structures will react in an earthquake. For now, Haukaas is content to look to a future where performance-based engineering will play a vital role in not only saving lives, but saving critical infrastructure and avoiding business interruption as well. In addition to the $0.9-million grant from the Canada Foundation for Innovation New Opportunities, Dr. Terje Haukaas also receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the British Columbia Knowledge Development Fund (BCKDF).

12 December 2006

K C









K C





13December 2006

K C









From fighting microbial infections to preparing

for pandemics, Brett Finlay is discovering how

the body’s own defenses could boost our chances

in the battle against infectious diseases

14 December 2006

K C









“We learned with SARS, if you’re going to fight something, you have to have the engine running before it hits.”

Black Death. Spanish Flu. Asian Influenza. History is littered with prominent examples of devastating pandemics. Beyond their shared ability to decimate populations on a grand scale, these infectious outbreaks have also demonstrated the capacity to resurface at a curiously consistent frequency. For scientists today, the question is not a matter of if a pandemic will strike, but when.

Most experts predict the Avian Flu – which has already killed over 140 people worldwide without mutating to a human-to-human strain – will be the next disastrous pandemic. Whatever the strain, UBC Vancouver professor of microbiology

and immunology Dr. Brett Finlay isn’t waiting around to find out.

Part of Finlay’s strategy to prepare for the next pandemic is to work on boosting the body’s innate ability to fight off disease so that we are more resilient when we encounter disease in the first place.

“We learned with SARS, if you’re going to fight something, you have to have the engine running before it hits,” Finlay explains. “That was a very valuable lesson because we realized we needed to have the capacity already built in order to address the next threat, whatever it may be.”

Instead of focusing solely on how

foreign agents infect host cells, Finlay and his colleague UBC Vancouver microbiology professor Dr. Bob Hancock quickly realized a third component of the infection process was being ignored: the body’s own defense mechanisms. Although the human body regularly comes into contact with infectious agents, infection is relatively rare because the human body possesses innate defenses in the form of healthy bacteria to deal rapidly with nearly all microbial infections. In order for an infection to occur, successful pathogen bacteria must infiltrate these barriers. By understanding the mechanisms with which the body

Photo> Getty Images News/Paula Bronstein

K C





15December 2006

K C









protects itself, Finlay hopes to translate those findings into new means to battle viral and bacterial infections.

Boosting the body’s natural immunity can help more than in pandemic situations. The human tragedy inflicted by infectious diseases is felt around the world, especially in developing nations. One third of the 50 million people who die worldwide each year are due to infectious diseases. Until recently, many of these diseases were treated successfully with antibiotics. But antibiotic resistance has dramatically reduced our ability to treat disease effectively – and is growing at an alarming rate. Many infectious agents that were once eliminated by antibiotics are now 20 to 40 per cent resistant to them, a shift that Finlay finds increasingly troubling.

“We have about a 10-year window before it becomes a horrible problem,” Finlay says. “Every year, resistance increases. Every year, there are less and less antibiotics. Pharmaceutical companies have completely pulled out of antibiotic production so we have to find alternative ways to treat and control infectious diseases.”

This desperate need for alternative ways to tackle infectious diseases has led Finlay to dedicate his career to understanding how microbial infections work. And his research has been more than promising. Last year, he and his team of scientists received an unprecedented $8.7-million USD grant over five years as part of a $450-million pledge towards world health issues made by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health in the US, a competitive process that drew more than 1,500 applications worldwide. Using salmonella and a type of E.coli as models for the way bacteria behave, Finlay and his research team have set

their sights on changing the way infectious diseases are treated worldwide.

“When we started doing this, I had no idea it would actually end up getting anything. But I think the reputation of the scientists, the idea and the preliminary data we had all added to make a very compelling proposal,” he says.

For those living in developing countries, a breakthrough in the treatment of infectious disease would bring immeasurable relief. Most lethal cases of typhoid fever, gastroenteritis, meningitis, urinary tract infection and kidney disease in these areas are a direct result of salmonella and E.coli infections. At the end of five years, Finlay hopes to produce a product that has made it through clinical trials and can be taken to the developing world for immediate treatment and prevention of these afflictions.

“As a scientist, the capacity to actually impact immediately is extremely exciting,” Finlay acknowledges. “The idea that I actually helped people is really rewarding in science. I think that’s ultimately what drives us.”

In addition to his work with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Finlay is continuing to pursue research on developing salmonella and E.coli vaccines for chickens and cows. His work with Genome BC also strives to identify the key hubs in pathogen bacteria to initiate the successful collapse of these organisms. Although his research spans multiple projects, Finlay ultimately sees an overlap that will help work towards a greater goal: “My research is twofold,” he explains, “it’s working on controlling infectious diseases in our society but I also see it as an exercise that, as an offshoot, we can apply immediately to whatever the next threat is going to be through rapid response.”

Finlay’s contributions to the field of science have not gone unrecognized in the country where his scientific ambitions began. In 2006, he was one of two UBC professors who received Canada’s highest honour – the Order of Canada. Appointed as an Officer, Finlay was recognized for “a lifetime of achievement and merit of a high degree, especially in service to Canada or to humanity at large.” This recognition is particularly special for Finlay who became the second person in his family, after his mother, to receive the title.

Finlay has come a long way since spending his childhood looking down microscopes and cleaning dinosaur bones at the University of Alberta with his parents. Aside from potentially helping millions of people around the world, Finlay sees educating the public about the power of scientific inquiry as another important mission he is more than willing to champion.

“The idea of hiding in your ivory tower where you don’t have the time to talk to anyone, I disagree with that completely,” he says. “Science impacts on every aspect of our everyday lives. The more people who appreciate science and know a bit about the process, the better the world will be.”

Dr. Brett Finlay receives funding for his projects from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Michael Smith Health Research Foundation, the Canadian Association of Gastroenterology and Genome Canada in addition to his $8.7-million USD grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health.

Photos> Panos Pictures/Dieter Telemans

16 December 2006

K C









His name has become synonymous with mental manipulation, psychological terror, the supernatural

and the undead. His persona occupies an almost hallowed ground deep within our collective psyche, making Dracula perhaps the most famous gothic villain ever produced.

Bram Stoker’s classic novel, published only one year after Sigmund Freud introduced the term psychoanalysis, is but one example of the abundance of 19th-century gothic texts that expressed the clash between the new science of the mind and the supernatural.

Even today, the fictional story of Dracula and its gothic counterparts have had the amazing ability to capture the imagination of a public struggling to understand the uncharted recesses of our minds.

“Hardly a month goes by without the release of a film or novel that explores supernatural events, encounters with aliens and characters with mysterious spiritual and psychical powers,” says Jodey Castricano, associate professor in UBC Okanagan’s Department of Critical Studies. “What this proliferation tells us in literary studies

and in the history of ideas is that the Enlightenment project of psychoanalysis is also haunted by the suppression of these ‘gothic’ issues.”

Castricano knows well the prevalence of gothic narratives and how they have permeated the very fabric of our society. After studying the convergence of philosophy, psychoanalysis and certain gothic stylistic formal and semantic motifs in the work of the philosopher Jacques Derrida, she became fascinated with the role of narrative in structuring social and cultural reality.

FOR JODEY CASTRICANO, GOTHIC TEXTS HOLD INSIGHT INTO THE WAYS WESTERN SOCIETY CREATES MEANING FOR EVENTS AND EXPERIENCES DISMISSED BY CLASSICAL SCIENCE

Illustration> Kaldor.com

K C





17December 2006

K C









Her current research, the SSHRC-funded book, Occult Subjects: Literature, Film and Psychoanalysis (forthcoming from University of Wales Press), examines the relationship between 19th-century debates regarding the validity of the paranormal and the rise and practice of psychoanalysis. Her goal is to develop an understanding of the ways we create meaning for events and experiences dismissed by classical science: “What I’m seeking to do is look at and reflect upon the value of knowledge derived from sources that are often repudiated in Western society such as various ‘occult’ narratives, myths and legends.”

Although the gothic has its roots in the 18th century, 19th-century gothic texts were ubiquitously anxiety-ridden regarding the question of the workings of the mind. Because early psychologists – such as Sigmund Freud, Sandor Fercenzi and Carl Jung – collaborated with mediums, psychoanalysis was already entrenched in debates about the supernatural. In order to establish it as an objective science, Sigmund Freud battled to keep psychoanalysis an occult-free zone because his materialist approach insisted that a physical basis for all mental phenomena could be found.

Freud’s determination to keep supernatural topics out of psychoanalysis shared a striking similarity to gothic texts, which often dramatized the struggles between the status of science as the only admissible foundation of human knowledge and situations that seemed to defy all rationality. By analyzing the prevalence of telepathy, somnambulism, hypnosis and dreaming in 19th-century gothic texts, Castricano hopes to uncover how these literary tropes are used as metaphors to articulate how even today, in post-Enlightenment culture, we resist and simultaneously invite alternative explanations of the world.

“In the last thirty years, theories of reading, writing, interpretation and subjectivity have been increasingly formulated in terms of the paranormal, resulting in what some researchers call ‘a displaced supernaturalism,’” she explains.

“I’m interested in how this ‘displacement’ currently resonates in psychoanalytic and deconstructive theories of reading, writing and interpretation as well as in the fiction, film, and television programming of this century, all of which have conjured up the ‘occult’ as a source of meaning in postmodern culture.”

Castricano is also investigating how the cultural legacy of Freudian psychoanalytical theories in literary studies actually serves as a form of neocolonialism, particularly when it is applied to indigenous writers. She claims that trying to interpret these cultures through the lens of Western thinking, specifically psychoanalysis, is another means to dismiss, revise or discount the beliefs of these cultures. Her aim is to explore similarities between the use of Freudian psychoanalytic theory in gothic studies with the colonial deployment of classical psychoanalytical theories once used to repudiate indigenous cultural narratives.

Issues such as these have prompted Castricano to search for different approaches to understanding the relationship between cultural narratives and the production of knowledge.

Part of that search has manifested in the goal of setting up a virtual technology centre at UBC Okanagan. By applying her understanding of cultural narratives and the role that perceptions play in shaping culture, Castricano is hoping to create an interdisciplinary research cluster, based on the use of virtual reality (VR) technology, that allows researchers and students from a variety of disciplines to reflect on questions of perception and reality in an

immersive environment. For example, instead of reading about a First Nations’ setting, students will be able to break down the classical subject-object dichotomy by actually immersing themselves in the described environment. Through this, Castricano believes students will be able to address questions of perception and thus learn how alternative sources of knowledge can inform modern society. The project, now in the conceptual phase, has an affinity with UBC’s Trek 2010, which calls for the development of new technologies to aid in the learning and delivery of instruction through a variety of modes and contexts: “We have already acknowledged the crucial role played by discourse studies in understanding social experience and how new digital technology promises to enhance our understanding of how meaning is constructed visually and experientially. If we take the view that cultural narratives (that is, how culture is made into narrative, including oral culture) are a form of visualization, then we can employ new media technology to explore the state of the image as narrative in a postmodern world as well as the relationship the image has to subjectivity and the production of knowledge.”

From studying psychoanalysis and gothic texts to offering new methods of ascribing meaning to situations through virtual reality technology, Castricano sees all of her research endeavours as another extension of her long-term curiousity with ideas: “Ever since I can remember, I’ve always been intrigued by alternative ways of knowing things and what constitutes asking questions about things we take for granted. Personally, I guess I am someone who has a passion for the world of ideas and how those ideas translate into real or material effects in people’s lives.”

Dr. Jodey Castricano is an associate professor at UBC Okanagan’s Department of Critical Studies. Her forthcoming book, Occult Subjects: Literature, Film and Psychoanalysis, is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).

art of darkness

“What I’m seeking to do is reflect upon the value of knowledge derived from sources that are often repudiated in Western society.”

18 December 2006

K C









frontier: Why did you establish the Development Change and Technology Lab (DCTech)?Jennifer Shapka: I created the DCTech Lab to look at the contextual factors that are influencing adolescent development, in particular, the influence of growing up in an information age. Of any demographic, adolescents are spending the most time on the Internet, and it is influencing how they socialize and how they learn. But we have no idea, from a developmental perspective, whether this is a good thing or a bad thing.f: Why do we know so little about what adolescents are doing online?

JS: To date, most of the reports we have about what kids are doing online are self-reports in the form of questionnaires or time-diaries that ask questions like: “On a weekly basis, how many minutes are you on the Internet?” Not only do these types of questionnaires get dated very quickly but we also know that people’s ability to remember how much time they spent doing something is biased, particularly for kids who are not as cognitively developed. In addition, kids are likely to report less if they are embarrassed or worried that they are spending too much time on the Internet. What my research is trying to do is monitor in real time what

adolescents are doing on the Internet by actually recording all of the different activities they engage in online.f: How do you plan to do this?JS: I have infrastructure funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) for a four-year study to set up an Internet service provider like Telus or Shaw, but on a much smaller scale. When families sign up to be involved in the study, we provide them with high-speed Internet service. We then identify when the adolescent is online and stream all uploaded and downloaded traffic into a separate database. There is no private or personal information being collected,

AS THE DANGERS OF TEENS AND THE INTERNET MAKE MEDIA HEADLINES, JENNIFER SHAPKA SIFTS THROUGH THE FACT AND FICTION OF ADOLESCENT INTERNET USE

Mixed Messages:There are no rules. There is no sense of time. You can be anything and everything you ever wanted to be. While the Internet has opened up a whole new world of powerful possibilities for a generation of tech-savvy kids, public debate currently oscillates between seeing the Internet as an unregulated arena that leaves children vulnerable to exploitation or an essential portal that gives them access to the necessary tools to learn and survive in contemporary times. Through a longitudinal study at UBC Vancouver’s Developmental Change and Technology Lab (DCTech), Dr. Jennifer Shapka is hoping to unravel some of the perceptions and misperceptions of this 21st century phenomenon, and its influence on adolescents’ social, physical and cognitive development.

K C





19December 2006

K C









only the websites they are visiting and when and if they’re instant messaging, including the number of messages they send and receive, the size of those messages and how many people they are chatting with. I actually show the adolescents a sample of the data, which hopefully ensures that they use the Internet as they normally would.f: How influential is the Internet on adolescents?JS: Again, we don’t have any real answers to this question, but it certainly has the potential to influence all aspects of a child’s development. Socially, we know that email, chatrooms, and Instant Messaging have changed the way friends are made and kept up with. I have questions about the differences in these friendships, including the quality, the longevity, the diversity, etc. I also have concerns for those who aren’t involved in online socializing and what it means for their friendship networks if they are missing out on this aspect of the social world. As well, physically, we now know that television watching is directly related to obesity in children because it encourages a sedentary lifestyle. We also know that computer time isn’t replacing television time; it’s actually in addition to it so the potential is that it may lead to increased risks of obesity for children.f: What trends are you noticing so far?JS: Because the project is in its early stages, I have only pilot data on Internet use.

Based on usage patterns though, it appears that most adolescents are using the Internet in appropriate, non-excessive ways. However, there are certain youth in our sample who are spending upwards of seven hours per day online. We want to identify what might be going on for these adolescents. We also notice that younger teens between the ages of 11 to 13 spend less time on the Internet, but that by 14 years old, online activities jump dramatically to an average of 2.5 hours per day, including sending or receiving more than 40 instant messages per day. One of the interesting things we have noticed is that 25 per cent of our sample does not use Instant Messaging. This raises questions about a lack of friendships for these adolescents. We also notice that these adolescents tend to spend more time on social networking sites, like friendster or myspace, or in chatrooms, where they are likely to be socializing with people they don’t know in real life. Theoretically, this may mean that these are the adolescents who are vulnerable to online predators.f: How do you think growing up with the Internet will impact today’s teens in the long run? JS: I think ultimately they’ll have a much more global sense of the world. Their sense of community will be different because it might not be geographically based. I think the question of what knowledge is will also

be different because they are moving away from the memorization of facts and focusing on knowing how to access knowledge instead.f: What do you hope to achieve?JS: I see this particular project as laying the foundation for understanding how adolescents are using the Internet, how it changes over time and how it links to other developmental outcomes. Then we can start to think about intervention, prevention, and education for problems that we identify.f: What do you find most rewarding about your work?JS: The potential to affect change. I love that I am working on a contemporary problem and that the results of my work may directly influence the day-to-day lives of kids.

Dr. Jennifer Shapka is an assistant professor in the area of Development, Learning and Culture, within the Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education at UBC Vancouver. She has received funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), the British Columbia Knowledge Development Fund (BCKDF), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) for her projects.

“The Internet can be a powerful tool in many positive ways but we have to make sure it’s used in appropriate ways.”

Photo> Getty Images

20 December 2006

K C









K C





21December 2006

K C









After years of dire warnings about the dangers of environmental degradation from scientists, the world suddenly opened its eyes in November 1974. More than 20 countries, including Canada, signed and gave their support to the Declaration on Environmental Policy issued by the Organization for Economic Co-operations and Development (OECD). The policy, which directly addressed the growing pressures of increases in population, urbanization and industrialization on the environment and its resources, outlined the countries’ commitment to “the promotion of non-polluting technologies, the conservation of energy and the development of substitutes for scarce or environmentally harmful substances.” Although no specific targets were implemented, action on the environmental front, it seemed, was imminent.

More than 30 years later, Canada’s record on climate change policy has not lived up to its stated intentions. Despite being one of the first countries to sign the Kyoto Protocol in 1998, which aimed to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by six per cent below 1990 levels by 2012,

the Conservative government under Stephen Harper scrapped the policy in 2006. No substantial alternatives were proposed, bringing Canada’s commitment to mitigating climate change into question.

But beside a deserted railway in east Vancouver, rumblings of change are slowly taking concrete form outside the pressures of political agendas. There, a building – unlike the world has ever seen – is scheduled to be built, where it will stand as tangible proof that sustainability can actually work in the real world.

The concept for such a building began as just a pipedream for Dr. John Robinson, professor at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES) at UBC Vancouver. Frustrated with the Canadian government’s scattered commitment to climate change policy, he began engaging the public to think about the possibilities of sustainable futures – and the consequences of continuing on its profligate ways. Because bad news alone is not a strong motivator of creative policy and behavioural response, Robinson knew he had to shift public discourse on climate change from doom and gloom facts to

solutions using tangible examples.“Sustainability is abstract – too many

syllables – so we needed to move beyond research into demonstration at the regional scale,” says Robinson. “The idea was to build a building that requires almost no external sources of energy, water, light or waste treatment. Then we can treat it as a living laboratory where we can study it over the whole life of a building, study different systems and how they interact, and how people react to them. The power of something you can walk into, play with and see is very great.”

If Robinson has his way, the $36-million Center for Interactive Research on Sustainability (CIRS) will be the “greenest” structure on the earth. Drawing 80 per cent less energy than the model National Energy Code for Vancouver, this “living laboratory” is designed to be environmentally neutral, requiring almost no off-site energy, water or wastewater systems to function. Photovoltaic (solar) cells will generate almost all of CIRS’ electricity. Rain will provide all the water, except for back-up fire suppression. Wind will supply virtually all the ventilation. A system of pipes under

AS CANADA SCRAPS ITS GREENHOUSE-GAS EMISSION TARGETS, JOHN ROBINSON IS WORKING TO PROVE SUSTAINABILITY HAS REAL-WORLD APPLICATIONS THROUGH THE CONSTRUCTION OF ONE OF THE GREENEST BUILDINGS ON EARTH

22 December 2006

K C









CIRS will cool and heat it. The waste treatment will be managed internally.

Building a structure that demonstrates sustainability to the extreme is only one part of the goal behind CIRS. In order for sustainability to work on a grand scale, Robinson recognizes the importance of public engagement to affect policy and market changes; politicians can’t act and markets can’t sell if the public doesn’t accept the policy and buy the product. A major focus of CIRS will be the development of public education using computer game-like simulation tools that can fly participants through the future landscape and show them the consequences of different policy and behavioural choices.

While individuals play an important role in supporting environmental sustainability, Robinson is quick to point out that policy change at the municipal level is how social change happens – not by individuals making individual decisions. For example, he explains it is more valuable for the City of Vancouver to exempt

CIRS from traditional building codes – as long as CIRS demonstrates performance-based equivalencies – than an individual purchasing a green house because changing building codes could allow builders to pick up and apply those alternatives in all future building endeavours.

“A building that has all these great sustainable features won’t matter if down the street there are buildings going up whose owners are not paying attention,” says Robinson. “CIRS only matters if we transfer that technology to the marketplace by creating a clustered hub of innovation on sustainability aimed at contributing to global urban development.”

If CIRS succeeds, its technologies, policies and applications will be replicated and adapted to a variety of environments all over the world. Construction is slated to begin sometime between January and April 2007, with its completion anticipated in late 2008.

Robinson knows the road to a sustainable future will be a long one but he is fully aware

that the planet doesn’t have 50 years to waste while governments get their act together. Although there are isolated examples of green buildings and green policies instituted already, he ultimately sees CIRS as the catalyst that will accelerate sustainability and make it standard practice in British Columbia: “When sustainability is business as usual, we’ll have succeeded.”

Dr. John Robinson is professor at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES) at UBC Vancouver where he directs several research programs in the areas of climate change and policy, analyzing sustainable futures in the Georgia Basin and building computer game-like simulations for public engagement. He receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), GEOIDE, the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), the British Columbia Knowledge Development Fund (BCKDF), Sustainable Development Technology Canada, Western Economic Diversification Canada and the BC Ministry of the Environment.

“A building that has all these great sustainable features won’t matter if there are buildings going up whose owners are not paying attention.”

K C





23December 2006

K C









ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA ELECTS SEVEN UBC FACULTY MEMBERSSeven UBC faculty members were recently elected to the Royal Society of Canada’s (RSC) Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada as Fellows. Founded in 1882, RSC consists of approximately 1,700 Fellows chosen by their peers for their exceptional contributions to the natural and social sciences, and the humanities. Election to the RSC is considered the highest honour attainable by scholars, artists and scientists in Canada.

Dr. Clyde Hertzman (Faculty of Graduate Studies) investigates human development through the entire life cycle.

Dr. Eva-Marie Kröller (Department of English) specializes in comparative Canadian and European literature.

Dr. Sarah P. Otto (Department of Zoology) studies population genetics and evolutionary biology.

Dr. William Rees (School of Community and Regional Planning) focuses on the public policy and planning implications of global environmental trends.

Dr. Laurence Ricou (Department of English) is a specialist on Canadian Prairie regionalism and Prairie writing.

Dr. Natalie Strynadka (Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology) explores structural characterization of bacterial membrane components.

Dr. Yu Tian Wang (Brain Research Centre) researches the molecular mechanisms responsible for regulating the function and intracellular trafficking of neurotransmitter receptors critical to brain function.

NEWS

INTERDISCIPLINARY PRIZE AWARDED TO UBC TRIOUBC’s Drs. Walter Hardy, Doug Bonn and Ruixing Liang were awarded the 2005 Brockhouse Canada Prize for Interdisciplinary Research in Science and Engineering.

Since 2000, the trio has worked on refining pure, high-temperature superconducting crystals that allow them to monitor the behaviour of electrons at extremely cold temperatures. Their research aims to create superconductors that could be conveniently used in a variety of commercial applications, such as computers that do not generate heat.

Currently, their lab is the leading source of these crystals, allowing them to collaborate with more than a dozen labs around the world. The Brockhouse Canada Prize is an interdisciplinary research award that comes with a $250,000 team research grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).

From left to right> Drs. Walter Hardy, Doug Bonn and Ruixing Liang. Photos> NSERC

A partnership between Dr. Helen Burt’s research laboratory in UBC’s Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Angiotech Pharmaceuticals Inc. has earned the 2006 NSERC Synergy Award for Innovation from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).

Their drug-eluting medical device, called Taxus, offers an innovative new way to treat coronary heart disease. Taxus is a combination of Angiotech’s water-insoluble drug Paclitaxel (which inhibits cellular mechanisms involved in angiogenesis, inflammation and scar formation) with Dr. Burt’s development of a polymer-based carrier that efficiently delivers Paclitaxel to the body. More than two million patients were successfully implanted with Taxus within the first 18 months of its launch in the U.S.

UBC’s Burt Lab has worked together with Angiotech to create two technologies with 43 patents in 26 countries. Vancouver-based Angiotech specializes in the science of adding drugs to medical devices and now has 14 facilities in six countries.

Dr. Helen Burt. Photo> Martin Dee

UBC RESEARCH COLLABORATION EARNS TOP AWARD FOR INNOVATION

K C




Proofed by: ROS/KB/MR

www.research.ubc.caA Journal of Research and Discovery

Published By Office of the Vice President Research, University of British ColumbiaFax 604.822.6295Email [email protected] and Design kaldor.comCirculation 5,000

All rights reservedPrinted in Canada

SUBSCRIBEFor your complimentary subscription to frontier, please call 604.822.1995 or email [email protected]

10% post-consumer waste

Publications mail agreement no. 41268533Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to:University of British ColumbiaOffice of the Vice President ResearchRoom 224, 6328 Memorial RoadVancouver, BC Canada V6T 1Z2

Frontier Issue 2 Dec 2006

Documents

university research

rate research

research institutions

research matters

jennifer shapkas research

issue of frontier

ubc researchdate

frontier magazinesize