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ANNUAL REPORT Department of Physiology

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ANNUAL REPORT Department of Physiology ANNUAL REPORT Department of Physiology January 1, 2013 to December 31, 2013 Dr. John Orlowski Chair June 2014 Description of Unit The Department of Physiology is housed in the McIntyre Medical Sciences Building, but also includes faculty members in the Bellini Life Sciences Complex, the Goodman Cancer Centre and throughout the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) network and affiliated hospitals (Jewish General Hospital and Montreal Neurological Institute). The academic staff of the Department consists of 28 professors and 42 associate members and 2 adjunct professors. Several full‐time members have full cross‐appointments in other departments and all associate members have primary appointments with other departments at McGill (both basic and clinical). Adjunct professors hold full‐time appointments in other universities. These ties strengthen the teaching and supplement the expertise of the Department of Physiology and provide an important network of communication with other Departments within the university and with other universities. The expertise of our faculty currently spans not only the contemporary fields of neuroscience, immunology, endocrinology, cardiovascular, respiratory, renal, and cell physiology, but also emerging multidisciplinary areas of physiology that incorporate mathematics, computational modeling, simulation, electrical and biomechanical engineering. The overarching mission of the Department is to foster an environment that facilitates research and scholarly activities aimed at developing a comprehensive understanding of the dynamics of living systems ranging from the study of single molecules to integrated systems of the cell, organ and organism. An applied goal is to translate this knowledge into the creation of novel biomaterials, biomedical devices and artificial cells & organs for the betterment of human health. The Department offers a well‐established multidisciplinary teaching curriculum at the undergraduate and graduate levels that attract students from across Canada and internationally. The Department currently offers 30 courses in physiology and teaches over 2500 undergraduates in the Faculties of Science and Medicine. Of these, approximately 450 students are registered for the B.Sc. degree in Physiology. At the undergraduate levels, courses are organized into seven distinct programs of study that offer varying degrees of concentration in physiology (B.Sc. Liberal Physiology Core; Majors in Physiology; Honours in Physiology) as well as other disciplines (Joint Majors in Physiology and Physics; Joint Majors in Physiology and Mathematics; Interdepartmental Honours Immunology; and Interdepartmental Neuroscience). At the postgraduate level, there are ~50‐55 students registered annually for the M.Sc. (12‐18 students) and Ph.D. (36‐44 students) degrees in Physiology and ~18‐24 postdoctoral fellows who pursue more independent training. In addition to our faculty members, students and postdoctoral fellows, there are currently 7 non‐academic staff members comprised of administrative officers, program coordinators, course secretaries and laboratory technicians who are essential for the efficient operation of the Department. The Department went through an administrative reorganization in 2013 due to the government imposed cuts on University/Faculty budgets. Our Graduate Program Coordinator retired in June 2013, but the Department 1 | Page was not permitted to hire a replacement. As this position is critical to the smooth running of our graduate program and overall academic mission, the Chair decided to reassign his personal Administrative Assistant to one of the course secretarial positions so that an existing senior course secretary could be promoted into the position of Graduate Program Coordinator. Despite budget cutbacks, the Department managed to maintain a balanced budget as of fiscal year‐end April 30, 2013. Departmental Org. Chart is located in Appendix I. For a further snapshot of our Department and its offerings, please refer to our website at: http://www.mcgill.ca/physiology Research and Publications Our faculty members continue to distinguish themselves in scientific research and scholarship. Despite major cutbacks in Government‐based funding, the main source for our departmental members, the great majority of our active research members have retained funding from local, national and international funding agencies (continuing and new grants and contracts). The annual total amount of research funding for 2013 is ~$5.6 million, down only marginally from the 2012 level of ~6.0 million. See Appendix II for a list of funding of individual faculty members for 2013 (includes comparison to previous 4 years) as well as a break‐down of the individual funding budget amounts from the various granting agencies. Of worthy note: Our Department has 5 CRC funded Professors (Drs. Cook, Chacron, Haghighi, Lukacs and Martinez‐Trujillo) and recently added Dr. Ana Nyzhnyk as a CRC Tier II recipient. Dr.’s Sharif‐Naeini and Jones hold independent salary awards from FRQS and CIHR, respectively. Kathy Cullen, as lead PI, and an interdisciplinary team consisting of Antoine Adamantidis, Maurice Chacron, Erik Cook, Leslie Fellows, Ridha Joober, Julio Martinez‐Trujillo, John Orlowski, Christopher Pack and Nahum Sonenberg submitted a CFI 8 letter of intent and received the go ahead from the University to proceed with submission of the application. In 2013, our faculty members collectively published 92 articles in leading scientific journals/books that cover the disciplines of physiology, neurosciences, biochemistry, molecular biology, mathematics, computational biology and biotechnology (Appendix III). The Department continues to host the evening “Shop Talk Soirée” series. This evening takes place once each semester at the Faculty Club and 2 members of the Department present to their colleagues on their research at this relaxed informal gathering. This series has become a very important component of the Department’s cohesion and gives 2 | Page each member an understanding of the scope of research being carried out within our Department. Teaching and Learning (undergraduate and graduate) (1) Undergraduate Studies The Department of Physiology is relatively unique amongst the biomedical science departments at McGill with respect to the breath of its undergraduate programs. Led by our Program Director, Dr. Ann Wechsler, there are three main programs, Liberal, Major and Honours along with 4 Joint and Interdisciplinary Programs: Physiology and Physics, Physiology and Math, Interdepartmental Honours Immunology and the more recently introduced (September 2008) Interdepartmental B.Sc. Neuroscience program (Physiology, Biology and Psychology) which has been directed by Dr. Monroe Cohen from our Department since its inception. Specialized interdisciplinary programs allow students to explore more than one discipline in some depth, bringing different perspectives to the study of Physiology. Our Research Project courses (PHGY 396 and PHGY 461) give final‐ year undergraduate students an opportunity to explore potential career choices through a supervised experience in the laboratory. Our enrollment numbers have remained relatively stable over the past 4 years; we have seen a slight decline in enrollment (as have the other depts.) since the Department of Pharmacology introduced an undergraduate degree program. The total registration in our B.Sc Physiology programs for 2012‐13 was 462 students (still second highest total registration amongst the biomedical science departments, with Anatomy & Cell Biology being first) and for the B.Sc. Neuroscience program was 184. Our students in the various programs continue to do very well academically, with the average graduating CGPA’s for the respective programs ranging from 3.1 to 3.8. The Department recommended 113 students for graduation in May of 2013. Please see Appendix IV for our program enrollment numbers for 2012‐13, as well as registration numbers for our entry (PHGY 209,210, 212, 213) and intermediate (PHGY 311, 312, 313, 314) levels courses (out of a total of 30 course offerings). Highlights: A new upper level course, PHGY 488: Stem Cell Biology, was approved and is coordinated by one of our newest recruits, Dr. Ana Nyzhnyk. With funding accumulated over the last few years from the Undergraduate Lab Improvement Fund, the Department was able to purchase 2 more state‐of‐the art Zeiss epifluorescence microscopes to add to the equipment our new Undergraduate Microscopy Laboratory that is part of the PHGY 560 course (cost was approx. $60k). The Microscopy lab is also available to other Departmental members for training and or lab use outside course hours. With the enthusiastic support of PULS (Physiology Undergraduate League of Students), the 8th Annual Department of Physiology Undergraduate Research Day was 3 | Page held on March 22, 2013. Students registered in the year‐long ‘Experimental Physiology PHGY 461’ course presented research posters. These were visited by a large number of staff, graduate and undergraduate students. The invited speaker for the day was Dr. Lorne Mendell (Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, Stony Brook University). The title of his talk was “Enhancing Circuit Performance in the Injured Spinal Cord.” Our recently inaugurated Undergraduate Mentorship program, developed and directed by Dr. Ann Wechsler, continues to be well received. A pamphlet was created to reach out to students to partake in the program, and our faculty members have eagerly embraced
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