Insects damage important crops and forests, and some insect species are responsible for the transmission of disease. If we better understand which compounds mediate the attraction of these insects, we could better control the damage. SPARK funding for this project will help Drs. Daniel Doucet and Jeremy Allison (Great Lakes Forestry Centre) develop the antenna-in-a-cell platform that aims to find physiologically active odorants and understand how they interact with the insects’ odorant receptors (OR). This research holds promise for the development of odorant molecules as operational insect lures.
The project focused the validation of the approach on two invasive insects of critical concern in forestry: the Emerald Ash Borer and the Brown Spruce Longhorned Beetle. The experiments have resulted in the identification of key ORs in both species which will, down the line, aid in the development of optimal odor blends to use against these two insect species.

All Awarded Projects

The field of tree genomics has seen unprecedented advances over the past decade. A suite of next generation genomic resources for improved tree breeding and selection will soon become available to breeders and forest managers, thanks to a project led by Drs. Ingo Ensminger (University of Toronto) and Nathalie Isabel (Forest and Environmental Genomics at Natural Resources Canada, Canadian Forest Service (CFS) – Quebec region) in partnership with PrecisionHawk.

An investment by Ontario Genomics through its Pre-Commercialization Business Development Fund (PBDF) will support rapid deployment of a software application to market. The software will allow users to determine the performance of individual trees and forest stands and to assess their phenology and water deficit at various time points in the season.

A team of scientists will use already established white spruce progeny trials in Quebec and Ontario and survey entire populations using a drone carrying optical sensors for leaf spectral measurements. Aerial sampling will be paralleled by leaf level sampling on subsets of seedlings on the ground (30-40 genotypes multiple times per site and year) looking at phenology, hydration level and spectral properties. The team will then develop algorithms for correlating plant phenology, leaf responses to hydration level and genotype information with drone-collected leaf spectral properties.

This survey data will be available to our partner company, PrecisionHawk, to create a software application that will be available to end users via the Algorithm Marketplace― the proprietary “app store” for drone data analysis.

These tools are expected to accelerate breeding cycles, through an innovative approach for large-scale phenotyping of tree responses to drought, monitor phenology, and assess differences between genotypes in large-scale field experiments.

All Awarded Projects

BTEX compounds – benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes – are natural components of crude oil and petroleum and are used in the synthesis of a wide range of useful materials and chemicals. They are also toxic, and benzene in particular is a known human carcinogen. In some mining sites, as a result of extraction, transportation and refining processes, as well as accidental spills and leaks, BTEX compounds frequently pollute groundwater in all industrialized regions of the globe.

In Canada and elsewhere, remediation of contaminated sites is difficult and costly. When possible, affected soils are dug up and treated or disposed of offsite. Dr. Elizabeth Edwards of the University of Toronto is working with SiREM, a Canadian leader in bioremediation, to scale up and commercialize anaerobic bioaugmentation cultures for in situ BTEX remediation. They were awarded $1M for this project led by Ontario Genomics.

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Canada is the world’s second largest producer of uranium, and more uranium has been mined in Canada than in any other country (as of 2014). Although current treatment methods meet regulatory requirements for inactive sites, there are opportunities to develop new treatments that achieve consistent effluent quality in a cost-effective and sustainable manner, and which should allow for recovery of uranium and other metals from tailings sites.

One of the largest barriers to treating mine waste using bioremediation has been the challenge in maintaining treatment efficacy. Ontario Genomics is investing seed funding towards the first steps to develop genomics-enabled technology that will do just that.

Drs. Susan Glasauer (University of Guelph) and Nadia Mykytczuk (Laurentian University) are partnering with Denison Environmental and US-based company, Inotec, to develop a microbial electrode technology to sequester uranium from mine tailings and remediate water to discharge standards.

The use of microbial electrodes for the remediation of some elements of concern, such as selenium and arsenic, has already been successfully implemented by Inotec using their electro-biochemical reactor (EBR) technology. With seed funding, the research team will design a system to optimize uranium removal and recovery and perform bench scale testing of the technology using water from a former Uranium mine in Ontario. It is anticipated that this will lead to an improved understanding of the microbial pathways involved in free electron use, which may be applied by the mining industry to sequester uranium for long-term sustainable and cost-effective treatment of sites.

All Awarded Projects