Jennifer van Wijngaarden, professor of chemistry at żě˛ĄĘÓƵ’s Faculty of Science, has been named a fellow of the Chemical Institute of Canada (CIC), a prestigious recognition awarded to members who have made outstanding contributions to the field of chemical sciences. 

This distinction acknowledges her impact across multiple areas, including scientific research, mentorship and public outreach.

The CIC fellowship is a senior class of membership reserved for individuals who have demonstrated excellence in scientific and technical contributions, service to the CIC and its affiliated societies, leadership in science and engineering management and efforts in education and public awareness. Fellows are selected through a rigorous nomination and peer-review process before being approved by the CIC Board. 

Van Wijngaarden’s internationally recognized research employs cutting-edge spectroscopic techniques in the microwave and infrared regions to explore molecular structures and dynamics. Her work has advanced the understanding of short-lived molecular species relevant to astrochemistry, combustion and chemical vapour deposition. 

Her research directly supports global sustainability efforts by contributing to advancements of two key United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): SDG 7 – Affordable and Clean Energy; and SDG 13 – Climate Action. 

Beyond her research, van Wijngaarden has made significant contributions to the chemical sciences community. She has played a pivotal role in the Canadian Society for Chemistry (CSC) through positions on the accreditation committee, including as a Physical, Theoretical and Computational Division executive and as director of conferences on the board. She has also provided leadership on scientific grant evaluation panels and governance roles with Canada’s largest national science facility, the Canadian Light Source. 

“I am deeply honoured to be recognized as a CIC fellow,” says van Wijngaarden, who also serves as the Chair of York's Department of Chemistry. “Scientific progress is driven not only by research but also by collaboration, mentorship, and knowledge-sharing. I am grateful for the opportunities to contribute to the CIC community and to help inspire the next generation of scientists.”

Courtesy of YFile

The post Chemistry professor earns prestigious fellowship appeared first on Faculty of Science.

For decades, scientists knew there was a huge swath of undetected and unaccounted for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in the atmosphere, often referred to as PFAS dark matter, but no one knew how much was missing or how to measure them. Now, a żě˛ĄĘÓƵ atmospheric chemistry research team has devised a way to test for one of the most ubiquitous elements of these potent greenhouse gases.

By measuring for gaseous fluorine, one of the most prevalent and overlooked contaminants, scientists can better understand the extent of previously unaccounted for PFAS, comprised of thousands of organofluorine compounds. These compounds, used in a wide range of products from food, paint, paper packaging and dental floss to cosmetics and agrochemicals, can off gas fluorine.

The researchers measured how much fluorine was released into the air both in the lab and outside using chemicals, such as fluorosurfactant liquids, and found 65 to 99 per cent of the fluorine in the air inside the lab was not normally unaccounted for, while outside that number was about 50 per cent.

“I expected missing fluorine, but I didn’t expect it to be so much. This new technique can measure all fluorinated things in the atmosphere, which has never been done before and shows the majority cannot be accounted for using our usual measurements,” says senior author of the study Professor , an atmospheric chemist and Guy Warwick Rogers Chair in York’s Faculty of Science.

“It’s important as missing gaseous fluorine accounts for a huge part of airborne PFAS compared to what we actually measure at the moment, which means a lot of the PFAS aren’t being detected.”

Most PFAS, known as forever chemicals, include fluorine bonded with carbon, a bond that doesn’t naturally break down in the environment. Testing for fluorine is an easier way to assess how many PFAS are present in the air rather than measuring all 4,700 or so PFAS contaminants individually.

The high quantities of previously unknown PFAS points to a gap, not only in measuring them, but also in understanding their sources and the impact on the environment. Gaseous fluorine is a byproduct of chemicals used in a wide range of products from food, paint, paper packaging and dental floss to cosmetics and agrichemicals.

“Our lack of focus on this has been mostly because we didn’t have the techniques to look at it properly. It’s not that people hadn’t thought that this might be important, it’s that we didn’t know how to do it, but now we do,” says lead author RenXi Ye, a PhD student in .

While there are techniques to measure total fluorine in soil and water, there wasn’t one to capture it in its gas state in the atmosphere. The researchers used a method that they previously developed to test for total gaseous chlorine and adapted it to measure gaseous fluorine.

“Much of the focus of research on PFAS was on what’s happening in the water in the soil, not as much on what happens in the air, despite the fact that these fluorinated compounds, by the nature of their chemical properties and that they are in so many commercial products, are more likely to go into the air,” says Young.

The question of how much gaseous fluorine is going unaccounted for piqued the interest of York researchers last year while they were working on their .

Should we worry?

Most people are highly concerned about PFAS exposure, but Young says it’s too early to know what the effects are of from the off gassing of fluorine into the environment, either human or on the environment.

“Any fluorinated gas is a potent greenhouse gas, but the impact of that depends on how long it lasts in the atmosphere, but what is the impact of breathing this? When it comes to outdoor air and human exposure, we don’t know a lot about how much we breath in,” she says, adding she doesn’t think anyone should panic, but it is an area that needs more research and could certainly have important implications.

The research – – published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters points out that unknown fluorinated chemicals emitted into the atmospherecould not only contribute to the transport of PFAS around the globe but also impact climate change.

PFAS in the Arctic in sometimes surprising quantities found in 50-year-old ice cores

PFAS is the atmosphere are even finding their way into pristine environments like the Arctic. In a recent study led by York PhD student Daniel Persaud with Young and team looked at perfluoroalkyl acids (PFAAs) in ice cores in the Arctic, from 1967 to 2016, on Ellesmere Island in Nunavut.

“The measurement covers the longest time period and so you’re seeing that it has been accumulating for a very long time,” says Young. The surprising part? “In the early part of the ice core, there was more than I thought there would be. I expected it to be accumulating since the 1990s, maybe the 1980s, but in the early part of the core, I thought there would be less”

As the longest deposition record in the Arctic for perfluoroalkylcarboxylic acids (PFCAs) and the longest record globally for perfluoroalkylsulfonic acids (PFSAs), it allowed for observations not previously possible.

Before the 1990s, the ice core showed some variable pulses of accumulation, which the researchers at first weren’t sure about, but now think it may be linked to Arctic military activities of the time. Starting in the 1990s, however, the ice core shows a steadier accumulation of the chemicals up to the present.

The study shows that most PFAAs are present in the ice at Mt. Oxford icefield on Ellesmere Island and that over 50 years, there is a steady increase of PFCA deposits, but it also highlighted how ice cores are helpful in understanding how PFAS are transported long-range.

“We were able to confirm that the PFCAs we found in the ice cores are formed primarily through long-range atmospheric transport and oxidation of volatile precursors in the atmosphere,” says Persaud.

The issue now, says Young, is that as the permafrost melts, this resource is disappearing which creates an urgent need to collect more ice cores to further illuminate temporal trends and possible sources of PFAAs.

The paper, , was published in the journal Environmental Science: Processes and Impact.

The post Faculty of Science researchers develop technique to measure previously undetected airborne PFAS appeared first on Faculty of Science.

Chemistry Professor Kim received $100,000 for the project “Methods to Create Mutations in Cells to Understand and Treat Disease.” Kim’s project will involve the creation of new technologies and special tools for protein engineering and genome editing, enabling him and his lab to alter the genetic code of cells. This type of innovation will advance Kim’s study of the genetic differences of various diseases, including cancer, diabetes and heart disease, in the hope it can also be used to help find better treatments. In addition, the researchers believe this new technology holds the potential to grow more climate-resilient plants and could be adopted by Canadian pharmaceutical companies and agriculture businesses for future applications.

Biology Professor Logan Donaldson received $155,000 for the project “An Advanced Platform for Biomolecular NMR Spectroscopy.” The funding will support an upgrade of the electronics to the high-field 700 MHz nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer in the Life Sciences Building. The Avance-Neo platform upgrade will provide a new opportunity for Donaldson and 12 other researchers affiliated with the żě˛ĄĘÓƵ YSciCore facility to obtain the most sensitive and detailed information of biomolecules linked to neurodegenerative disease, biosensor design, antibiotic resistance and vaccine development. The funding also provides support for an intensive computing platform that will enable AI design of new biomolecules with therapeutic and diagnostic potentials.

Courtesy of YFile.

The post Researchers receive new CFI funding for cutting-edge projects appeared first on Faculty of Science.

Undergraduate students from this year’s CHEM4000 and BCHM4000 Research Project Course travelled to Western University on Saturday, April 6 to present their senior thesis projects at the 52nd Southwestern Ontario Undergraduate Chemistry Conference. York’s Chemistry and Biochemistry undergraduate students Juan Valencia (Wilson Lab), Arman Parham (VandenBoer Lab), Kristina Gremi (Hili Lab), Samin Tavokoli (Johnson Lab), Hannah Le (Baumgartner Lab) and Manisha Kumari (van Wijngaarden Lab) were among 150 undergraduates from 15 universities who presented on a broad range of modern topics in chemistry and biochemistry.

Congratulations to Manisha Kumari, who received first place in the Physical, Theoretical and Computational Chemistry division, and Hannah Le, who earned second place in the Materials Chemistry division. As well, congratulations to all of our undergraduate students on their research projects and to their research mentors who have supported them all year.

The post Undergraduate Chemistry and Biochemistry students showcase their research at provincial conference appeared first on Faculty of Science.

Making chemistry courses and labs more engaging and accessing science lab spaces – regardless of physical ability – are becoming easier to accomplish, thanks to Faculty of Science initiatives sponsored by Academic Innovation Fund (AIF) grants.

In the Department of Chemistry, Tihana Mirkovic, an assistant professor, and Hovig Kouyoumdjian, an associate professor who is also the associate dean of curriculum and pedagogy, are developing modules using e-learning tool Adobe Captivate to improve students’ learning experiences. Meanwhile, biology professors Tamara Kelly and Paula Wilson and their colleagues – project manager Jessi Nelson, accessibility expert Ainsley Latour and educational development specialist Ashley Nahornick – are identifying and supporting improvements that make labs more accessible.

Kouyoumdjian first identified the potential of Adobe Captivate as a tool for the generation of an interactive learning environment in chemistry classes. Together with Mirkovic, the pair recognized that the laboratory experience through pre-laboratory activities in undergraduate classes could be substantially improved by leveraging the multimedia learning process that could be incorporated into modules generated in Adobe Captivate.

“Our goal is to allow students to integrate their conceptual and procedural understanding of their labs through active learning opportunities. We hope that the newly developed modules, featuring slides, videos, hotspots, 360-degree navigation, software simulations and knowledge check assessments, will provide a learning environment that motivates our students and maximizes their learning potential,” Mirkovic said.

“We aim for students to stay engaged, even when the material is presented virtually,” said Kouyoumdjian. “Now, we possess an e-learning tool with an interactive component that complements the static elements of the course. It is applicable for both blended and online courses.”

The pair also collaborated with an instructional designer to craft customizable templates to help with the process of repurposing and reusing the modules across various courses.”

The professors have has initiated a pilot in the courses CHEM 2020 (Introductory Organic Chemistry I) and CHEM 3001 (Experimental Chemistry II) this term. “We hope to gather valuable information from the initial student experience and feedback collected from Adobe Captivate activities and linked self-reflection surveys,” Mirkovic said. During the summer, they will reflect on the pilot’s successes and explore the reusability of the created templates.

They are optimistic that the new software will contribute to student engagement, leading to increased student motivation and greater retention.

Meanwhile, the accessibility team is moving forward with its own initiative to improve – in a different way – the accessibility of biology, chemistry and physics labs for students in the Faculty.

“Paula and I have directed labs, and something we come up against regularly is accommodation,” said Kelly, the project lead and the Pedagogical Innovation Chair, Science Education. “Student Accessibility Services typically addresses lectures, but has limited expertise to support providing clear accommodations for labs.”

Added Wilson: “Students with accessibility issues have the burden of negotiating with their professors for every lab, and it’s exhausting. Also, even if professors are eager to assist, they aren’t experts in accommodation.

“In addition, by the time faculty members get a letter about accommodating a student, it may be the second or third week of the term, which leaves no time for finding and arranging creative solutions.”

The group plans to survey Faculty of Science students and faculty to learn more about needs and accommodations that work. Latour and Nelson developed a checklist of barriers to accessibility in labs and then, with Nahornick, toured first-year science laboratories with the technicians who run the labs. They looked for barriers and what was missing to make accommodation easier.

“There were a lot of things that were quick fixes, so Ashley emailed the lab managers to suggest changes to make before the start of the term,” said Kelly. “These included the readability of signage, repairs to broken automatic doors, among other things.”

The team also brought in Pamela Millett, an audiologist from the Faculty of Education, to determine what the sound issues might be for those with hearing concerns.

“There is a lot of ambient sound in labs, from fans and other equipment, that make it hard for students to hear instructions,” said Nahornick. “Repairing or using their microphones is an easy fix.”

The next step will be to create professional development support for instructors, technicians and teaching assistants, so they understand how to best support accessibility in labs.

Wilson said they would also like to prepare a series of recommendations for the Faculty. “Some issues may require infrastructure changes that will require additional funding. We want to take away the pressure on instructors to handle this on their own by making changes where we can and sharing best practices,” she explained. “Our aim is to make it easier for all students to have valuable lab experiences that meet course outcomes.”

Kelly added, “If we have a clear understanding in advance about what is needed, that’s a big step. Some things must be personalized, but there are some general things we can implement for our students. Students with disabilities are often driven away from science in high school because of barriers, and we don’t want to be part of that cycle. We want to enable people.

“For a lot of students, their first experience in a lab turns them onto science. We’ll lose talent if they don’t feel as if they can function in this setting.”

The post Faculty of Science innovates with assist from AIF appeared first on Faculty of Science.

Congratulations to Professor Tao (Toby) Zeng, Department of Chemistry, for receiving the 2024 Tom Ziegler Award from the Chemical Institute of Canada (CIC). Sponsored by Software for Chemistry & Materials, the award recognizes scientists residing in Canada who have made an outstanding early-career contribution to theoretical and/or computational chemistry.

Zeng’s current research focuses on developing Hamiltonian formalisms for vibronic interactions and using the formalisms to simulate vibronic and relativistic effects in optoelectronic materials. His goal is to develop a unified Hamiltonian formalism for all symmetry-induced vibronic and relativistic vibronic problems. Toby has published more than 90 peer-reviewed articles. He has received numerous invitations to give seminars at universities, research institutes, and conferences. He is a member of the International Steering Committee of Jahn-Teller Effect Conferences.

The post Chemistry Professor Tao Zeng receives award from Chemical Institute of Canada appeared first on Faculty of Science.

Congratulations to Chemistry Professor Gerald Audette for being elected as vice president (and president-elect) of the (ACA). The ACA’s mission is to promote and preserve crystallography, structural science, and allied disciplines, and to support students, young scientists, and established researchers in the structural sciences. Crystallography is relevant to scientists dealing with molecules, including chemists, biologists, material scientists, bioengineers, mathematicians, mineralogists, physicists, and scientists focused on pharmaceutical drug discovery.

During his three-year term (2024-2026), Audette, who is also the vice Chair of the , which represents Canada at the , will lead the ACA and the North American Crystallographic community as it works toward the of the IUCr being held in Calgary in August 2026.

Audette’s research is focused on protein crystallography, bionanotechnology, and structural biochemistry. In particular, his research explores the correlation between protein structure and biological activity of proteins involved in lateral DNA transfer and bacterial evolution. He is the co-editor of multiple books, including volumes 1–4 of the Jenny Stanford Series on Nanomedicine, and is a subject editor of structural chemistry and crystallography for the journal FACETS.

The post Gerald Audette elected VP of American Crystallographic Association appeared first on Faculty of Science.

New faculty members further York’s scientific innovation, impact

The Faculty of Science welcomed 12 new high-calibre researchers and instructors to its five departments and one division. By recruiting talented faculty members with diverse backgrounds, world views and expertise, we are ensuring the best learning experience for our students and cultivating integrity and principles of equity, diversity and inclusion in our community.

Record growth in experiential education opportunities

Experiential education allows students to deepen their learning and apply theories learned in the classroom to hands-on, paid work experiences. Over 2022-23, the Faculty of Science’s experiential education program saw record growth, with co-op applications increasing by 180 per cent and internship applications increasing nearly 140 per cent over the previous year. As well, this past summer, 110 student opportunities were posted by 21 employers.

Leading pharmaceutical technology innovation

Our chemists are leading a team of researchers and industrial leaders in training the next generation of technologically advanced graduates for the pharmaceutical industry. Supported by a new NSERC CREATE grant worth $1.65 million, the Technology-Enhance Pharmaceutical Discovery (TEPD) program will train Master’s and PhD students with the technical and managerial skills to capitalize on disruptive technologies that aim to impact Canada’s research and development in the pharmaceutical industry.

Strengthening community engagement

The Faculty of Science’s sense of community and its ability to tackle challenges have been bolstered by our community member’s willingness to engage with each other and with our university partners centrally, through various initiatives including our year-long Community 2022 initiative; these events were attended by hundreds of faculty and staff through to the program’s conclusion in Summer 2023. More.

Canada Research Chairs position FSc at the forefront of future-defining research

The national Canada Research Chairs (CRC) program recognizes world-leading researchers in a variety of fields. The Faculty of Science gained one new and two renewed Canada Research Chairs (CRC): Kohitij Kar received a new CRC Tier II in Visual Neuroscience; Christopher Caputo received a renewed CRC Tier II in Main-Group Catalysis and Sustainable Chemistry; and Raymond Kwong received a renewed CRC Tier II in Environmental Toxicology.

$4M in NSERC Discovery Grants support scientific innovation at York

More than 20 faculty members from the Faculty of Science were collectively awarded over $4 million in NSERC Discovery Grants to continue advancing scientific innovation. The funding is enabling our researchers to independently pursue long-term research programs, innovative research activities, diverse partnerships and interdisciplinary collaborations.

Science Explorations Summer Camp offers expanded opportunities for youth

Our Science Explorations Summer Camp for Grades 3 to 8 featured curricula with a greater emphasis on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, including a new week-long program called Sustainable Science. Overall, our summer youth programming welcomed more than 500 students who engaged in 27 unique camp themes in the areas of environmental chemistry, space adventures, forensic chemistry, structural engineering, and more.

Faculty of Science hosts science deans from across Canada

Our Faculty hosted the 2023 Annual General Meeting of the Canadian Council of Deans of Science (CCDS) to share knowledge and strengthen pan-Canadian advocacy for science education. The three-day event was attended by 30 science and associate deans from universities across Canada.

The post Best of YU 2023 appeared first on Faculty of Science.

Bill Kim, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry, has received the 2023 Petro-Canada Emerging Innovator Award to support his cutting-edge biological chemistry and genome editing research program.

While point mutations in DNA, caused by replication errors or environmental damage, are found in clinical samples from cancer patients, the role of most mutations in causing disease is unknown, impeding the development of new therapeutics. The award will enable Kim to develop new methods of creating genetic mutations in cells to better understand and treat diseases.

Leveraging a gene editing technology called clustered regular interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) and a CRISPR-derivative technology called “base editing” that he , Kim aims to target disease-associated DNA sequences in cell cultures and create various point mutations to study their impact on protein and cellular function. He will engineer a class of proteins known as DNA glycosylases, which remove the nucleotide bases within DNA; when bases are removed, the cell repairs them by introducing one of the four nucleotides in a semi-random manner. This innovative method will generate diverse mutations that can be studied further to understand their impact on disease. Kim’s approach is anticipated to be more efficient than the conventional base editing strategy he originally co-developed.

Kim is an emerging world leader in genome editing technology development. Throughout his scientific career spanning 11 years, his work on genome editing technology development has been published in world-class journals including Nature, Nature Biotechnology, Nature Communications and Science Advances, collectively accruing more than 5,400 citations. The CRISPR base editing technology that he co-invented is a revolutionary genome editing method that has gained widespread adoption in hundreds of laboratories worldwide. The technology was a finalist for Science magazine’s 2017 Breakthrough of the Year.

The Petro-Canada Emerging Innovator Award is given to outstanding new full-time faculty members beginning their academic career at żě˛ĄĘÓƵ. The awards program is a commitment by Petro-Canada (now Suncor Energy) and żě˛ĄĘÓƵ to encourage excellence in teaching and research that will enrich the learning environment and contribute to society.

The post Professor wins Petro-Canada Emerging Innovator Award appeared first on Faculty of Science.