Mathematical modelling unpacks role of peer influence in teen vaping
Professor Iain Moyles and his PhD student Sarah Machado-Marques, Department of Mathematics & Statistics, created a mathematical model to understand how peer influence plays a role in vaping among teenagers. The team’s modelling was based in treating vaping as a social contagion.
“In a standard disease, you might walk past someone and infect them with an actual virus or bacteria,” said Moyles. “In vaping or similar behaviours, an adolescent can pressure someone and you change your behaviour because you were ‘infected’ by the influence of your peer.”
The research suggested that while teenagers can be influenced to vape because their friends are doing it, equally so, they may be influenced by their friends to quit. And, the long-term trajectory of vaping is a cyclical pattern of starting and quitting depending on their peers. The findings can apply to any adolescent trend where friends have influence on each other. The modelling can be used by parents, teachers and public health authorities to identify cycles of undesirable adolescent behaviours influenced by peers and look for opportunities to intervene. The research was published in the journal Mathematical Biosciences.
Addressing measurement errors to enhance drug discovery
Distinguished Research Professor Sergey Krylov, Department of Chemistry, and his team have uncovered a critical flaw during the drug development process that, if addressed, could make drug discovery faster, more reliable, less expensive, and ultimately save lives.
Their findings, published as an editorial in ACS Measurement Science Au, reveal that measurement errors in the early stages of drug discovery can lead to further errors in decisions by pharmaceutical companies.
The drug discovery process begins with identifying disease-related proteins and then searching for molecules that can bind to those proteins and change their function. Vast libraries of chemical compounds are screened and measured to see how strongly each one binds to the target protein. The molecules with the strongest interactions go to the next stage of development.
Despite advances in technology, this process remains painstakingly slow, costly, and prone to errors. Krylov’s team found that these binding measurements are often grossly inaccurate, sometimes off by as much as a factor of 1,000. The molecules with the strongest bindings are particularly susceptible to these large errors.
“These mistakes mean promising drug candidates get rejected too soon,” said Krylov.
To address this, Krylov’s team developed a practical method to verify whether specific molecules are measured accurately and to flag compounds for reassessment under more rigorous conditions. They are now working to raise awareness of their findings and to urge drug developers and academic researchers to change their practices.
Rare disease drug initiative offers hope for millions
Professor Conor Douglas, Department of Science, Technology & Society, is leading the global Social Pharmaceutical Innovation project to uncover economic, political and regulatory barriers to costly research into drugs that could treat rare diseases. He aims to advance approaches to drug development, opening a broader range of treatments for rare diseases.
Although individually they are uncommon, rare diseases as a whole are quite common, with more than 7,000 identified, and more being discovered as science progresses. It’s estimated that up to six per cent of people around the world suffer from rare diseases. Yet, the majority of patients have no pharmaceutical or biopharmaceutical treatment option. In 2023, Canada announced a National Strategy for Drugs for Rare Diseases and an investment of $1.5 billion to increase access to and affordability of drugs.
“There’s definitely a policy window right now,” said Douglas, whose project is looking at more ways to ensure drugs for rare diseases are brought to market.
Ideas include involving patients in research and development and teaming them with clinicians to collect data on how drugs are working outside of clinical trials to move them through trials more quickly. Companies and provincial healthcare systems could enter into risk-sharing agreements as a drug is tested; one such collaboration resulted in a treatment being approved in Canada for a rare genetic condition, Fabry disease.
Lake ice quality degrading as planet warms
Professor Sapna Sharma, Department of Biology, and postdoctoral fellow Joshua Culpepper explored the impact of climate change on lake ice and found that warming winters are affecting not only ice thickness and timing – when a lake freezes and thaws – but also ice quality, making it potentially unstable and unsafe.
When lakes and rivers freeze, there are two predominant layers of ice: white ice, and black ice. White ice is generally opaque and filled with more air bubbles and smaller ice crystals, diminishing its strength and stability, while black ice is clear and dense with few air pockets and larger ice crystals, making it a lot stronger.
“Ice quality is important because of its direct implications for load bearing capacity for human safety and also how much light will transmit under ice for life under frozen lakes,” said Sharma.
Their research found that the unpredictable and warmer winter weather is creating thinner layers of black ice and sometimes a corresponding thicker layer of white ice.
The two combined can make for treacherous conditions for skaters, hockey players, snowmobilers, ice anglers and ice truckers.
Diminished lake ice quality also means less light is being transmitted down to the water, compromising the health of the ecosystem. The research was published in the journal Nature Reviews Earth and Environment.
Uncovering how black holes shape surrounding galaxies
A team of researchers, including Professor Patrick Hall, Department of Physics & Astronomy, discovered that clouds of gas in a distant galaxy are being pushed faster and faster by blasts of radiation from the supermassive black hole at the galaxy’s centre.
The findings come from years of observations of a quasar — a black hole surrounded by a hot and bright disk of matter — some 30 billion light years away in the constellation Boötes. Black holes are believed to be situated at the centre of most galaxies. Quasars are supermassive black holes surrounded by disks of matter being pulled in by their enormous gravitational power. They are also very luminous, allowing astronomers to observe quasars nearly as old as the universe (and as many as 13 billion light years away when their light was emitted).
The researchers tracked winds composed of gaseous carbon by spotting light from the quasar that was missing — light that was being absorbed by the gas. They found that the shadow shifted farther from home with every new look, revealing that the gas was moving fast, and accelerating.
These winds are of interest to astronomers because they are a way in which quasars might influence the evolution of the galaxies that surround them. Depending on the circumstances, a quasar’s winds could supply pressure that squeezes gas together and speeds the birth of stars in its host galaxy. Or it could scour away that fuel and keep potential stars from forming.
The research was published in The Astrophysical Journal.
Science students receive awards at summer research conference
More than 40 students conducting summer research in the Faculties of Science, Environmental & Urban Change, and Liberal Arts & Professional Studies participated in our Summer Undergraduate Research Conference in August 2024.
Participants – including two Queen's University students working with Faculty of Science professors – received funding for their summer research positions from the Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council of Canada Undergraduate Summer Research Awards, the Earle Nestmann Undergraduate Research Awards or the York Science Scholars Awards. The students presented poster or oral presentations, which were judged and then selected for prizes.
The winners in the oral presentation category were:
- Harry Parmar (Queen’s University), first place for the project “Examining Functional Properties of Frontal Eye Field in the Macaque Monkey.”
- York Science student Vesta Tajik, second place for the project “Documenting the impacts of an inter-basin river diversion on Lake Nipigon (Ontario, Canada).”
- York Science student Alrishia Agard, third place for the project “Assessing the impact of road de-icers on the osmoregulatory physiology of Chironomus riparius larvae.”
The winners in the poster presentation category were:
- Yash Shrestha (Queen’s University), first place for the project “Probing Late-LTP following selective inhibition of TrkC-PTPσ complex in a mouse model.”
- York Science student Michael Petosa, second place for the project “A New Route to Pyridine-Substituted Piperidines.”
- Lassonde student Shahen Alexanian, third place for the project “Evaluating the Introduction of a Variational Autoencoder into a Multi-omics Workflow.”
Celebrating new and renewed Chair positions
Canada Research Chairs (CRC)
In 2024, three professors in the Faculty of Science received new or renewed CRCs, bringing the total number in the Faculty to 11.
Professor Steven Connor, Department of Biology – Tier 2 CRC in the Synaptic Basis of Neurodevelopmental Disorders (renewed)
Connor will use his CRC renewal to focus on investigating how specific brain proteins facilitate the transmission of information between brain cells. The research aims to further understand how those proteins influence neural circuit function and activity, and how they can result in autism-like behaviour when compromised. Connor and his research team will also explore the restorative effects of reversing molecular changes linked to the loss of certain brain cells.
Professor Jeffrey Schall, Department of Biology – Tier I CRC in Translating Neuroscience (new)
Schall’s research aims to further understand the complexities of the brain and how it enables decision-making processes for actions and experiences: how people decide what to do, when they do it and how they know if they did what they meant to do. Insights from Schall’s research could improve the diagnosis and treatment of neurological conditions like dementia and schizophrenia.
Professor Joel Zylberberg, Department of Physics & Astronomy – Tier II CRC in Computational Neuroscience (renewed)
Zylberberg and his research team train artificial intelligence (AI) to see and respond to images in the same way as the human brain. By teaching AI to process visual information like the brain’s visual cortex, deep learning algorithms could lead to the creation of devices that help visually impaired or blind people see again, in addition to potentially advancing technology for self-driving cars.
York Research Chairs (YRC)
The YRC program is York University's internal counterpart for the national CRC program. In 2024, one professor in the Faculty of Science was appointed as a YRC, bringing the total number in the Faculty to 11.
Professor Sandra Rehan, Department of Biology – Tier 2 YRC in Molecular Ecology and Behavioural Genetics
Rehan researches the evolution of bees and their role in biodiversity. As a YRC, Rehan will employ advanced DNA technology to investigate bee behaviour and genetics.