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Paul Kane students WISEST at science

Pelvic models and fish on cannabis tested
1708 WISESTKids 8451 km
HIP RESEARCHER – Paul Kane student Sarah McClelland spent this summer researching the human hip as part of the U of A's WISEST summer research program. Using computer models, she found that the pelvis (a model of which she was holding) was essentially symmetrical, which could aid doctors in hip reconstruction.

Two of Paul Kane’s WISEST students spent this summer studying broken hips and fish on cannabis.

Paul Kane students Hannah Veinot and Sarah McClelland were amongst the 47 Alberta youths at the University of Alberta’s Telus International Centre Thursday presenting their work as part of the Women in Scholarship, Engineering, Science and Technology (WISEST) summer research program’s showcase.

The summer research program has Grade 11 students (mostly women) do hands-on scientific research as part of a paid six-week internship to encourage women and men to get into non-traditional fields, WISEST team lead Fervone Goings explained – science and engineering for women, nutrition and nursing for men.

Today’s problems are complex, and we want to make sure we have our best minds at the table to solve them, Goings said, when asked why it was important to get more women and men into these research fields.

“When you have a diverse group around the table looking at the problem, you get better answers.”

Drugs and hips

Thursday’s research showcase saw WISEST students present research on spider-shaped flying drones, AI decision-making, and better badminton racquets, amongst other subjects.

Veinot studied the effects of cannabidiol (an active ingredient in cannabis) on zebrafish, which are a common experimental model and share many genes with humans.

Lots of people are trying cannabis for the first time now that it’s been legalized, but there’s still much we don’t know about its effects, Veinot said. She and her team wanted to see if exposing zebrafish babies to cannabidiol would affect their swimming performance as adults.

Veinot said she and her team raised zebrafish in freshwater, egg-water (the water the eggs would normally grow up in), and cannabidiol-dosed water, then had them swim against a propeller-induced current.

“Many of the fish did get up to very high speeds,” she said, with some swimming at up to 36 cm/sec (1.3 km/hr).

While she expected that the cannabzdiol fish would be worse swimmers, Veinot said there wasn’t any real difference between them and the other fish. This suggests that in this particular respect exposure to cannabis as a youth might not have negative effects as an adult. The team next hopes to see if such exposure affects oxygen consumption and brain development in the fish.

McClelland used computer models to study the symmetry of the pelvis.

A broken hip is a tough injury to treat, as the pelvis is a very complex bone to piece back together, she explained. If researchers knew the pelvis was symmetrical and a patient only broke half of it, they could use the intact half as guide to fix the other, improving treatments.

McClelland said she created computer models of pelvises based on CT scans and analyzed the position of each point on them. She found that the positions of 86 to 92 per cent of the points on one half of the pelvis were within two millimetres of those same points on the other half, suggesting that the pelvis was symmetrical.

Women in science

Goings said women now make up about half of all science students at the U of A. Engineering is about 22 per cent women, but that’s going up every year.

McClelland said WISEST helped her discover her interest in biomechanical engineering and gave her new insight into the nature of research.

“The reality is it’s a slow process,” she said – sometimes even tedious – and it can involve a lot more computers and collaboration than beakers and experiments.

WISEST is an amazing opportunity to get some hands-on experience with science, said Veinot, who plans to study biology at the U of A.

“You can have fun doing something you love.”

See bit.ly/2Zd29io for more on WISEST.


Kevin Ma

About the Author: Kevin Ma

Kevin Ma joined the St. Albert Gazette in 2006. He writes about Sturgeon County, education, the environment, agriculture, science and aboriginal affairs. He also contributes features, photographs and video.
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