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Keeping Our Members Informed and Connected

August 2024

Member Highlights and Successes

Letting us know about the accomplishments of you and your colleagues let’s us celebrate the great work being done in our region, build further collaborations, and ignite excitement about research in Windsor-Essex! Here are just a few of your latest successes.

New Projects


Hossein Fani, Ziad Kobti, Alioune Ngom, University of Windsor ($150,000) CFI-JELF. Computing Infrastructure for Deep Learning on Graph-Structured Data.


Hossein Fani, Ziad Kobti, Alioune Ngom, University of Windsor ($51,000) University of Windsor School of Computer Science. Computing Infrastructure for Deep Learning on Graph-Structured Data.


Alioune Ngom, University of Windsor ($175,000) NSERC. Graph Representation Learning Approaches for Computational Drug Repurposing and Bio-Molecular Association Prediction.


Vijendra Sharma, University of Windsor ($195,000) NSERC. Identification of Cell-Type-Specific mRNA Translational Control Mechanisms in Synaptic Plasticity and Memory Formation.


Vijendra Sharma, University of Windsor ($125,000) NSERC Discovery Launch Supplement. Identification of Cell-Type-Specific mRNA Translational Control Mechanisms in Synaptic Plasticity and Memory Formation.


Paul Sudhir, University of Windsor ($105,000) NSERC. Analysis of Discrete Data (Counts-Proportions-Regression Models), Survival Data, and Longitudinal Data with Over Dispersion, Zero Inflation, missing Responses, Missing Covariate Information, Covariate Measurement Error, and Bias Correction.


Andrew Swan, University of Windsor ($200,000) NSERC. Spatial and Temporal Control of Meiosis.


John Trant, University of Windsor ($145,000) NSERC. Cavitands for Molecular Recognition.


Publications / Articles / Presentations


Corchis-Scott R, Beach M, Geng Q, Podadera A, Corchis-Scott O, Norton J, Busch A, Faust R A, McFarlane S, Withington S, Irwin B, Aloosh M, Ng K K S, McKay R M (2024). Wastewater Surveillance to Confirm Differences in Influenza A Infection between Michigan, USA, and Ontario, Canada, September 2022 - March 2023. Emerging Infectious Diseases.


Fernández-Codina A, Nevskaya T, Baron M, Appleton C T, Cecchini M J, Philip A, El-Shimy M, Vanderhoek L, Pinal-Fernández L, Pope J E (2024). Brentuximab vedotin for skin involvement in refractory diffuse cutaneous systemic sclerosis, an open-label trial. Rheumatology (Oxford).


Fifield B-A (2024). Research assistants are vital - so why is their funding so precarious? Times Higher Education.


Fifield B-A, Vusich J, Haberfellner E, Andrechek E R, Porter L A (2024). Atypical cell cycle regulation promotes mammary stem cell expansion during mammary development and tumourigenesis. Breast Cancer Research.


Fontyn S, Bai Y, Bolger S, Greco K, Wang T-F, Hamm C, Cervi A (2024). Inferior vena cava filter use at a large community hospital: a retrospective cohort study. Scientific Reports.


Grafinger O R, Hayward J J, Meng Y, Geddes-McAlister J, Li Y, Mar S, Sheng M, Su B, Thillainadesan G, Lipsman N, Coppolino M G, Trant J F, Jerzak K J, Leong H S (2024). Cancer cell extravasation requires iplectin-mediated delivery of MT1-MMP at invadopodia. British Journal of Cancer.


Hashemi M, Duan L, Rueda L (2024). Probing the Significance of Heterophily on Cell Type Prediction from scRNA-Seq Data by Leveraging Graph Neural Network Models, presented at The Great Lakes Bioinformatics Conference (GLBIO 2024).


Hashemi M, Mustafa S, Ngom A, Rueda L (2024). HeteroGraphNet: Advancing Cell Type Prediction in scRNA-seq with Enhanced Graph Neural Network for Heterophilic Structures, presented at the 32nd Conference on Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB 2024).


Iman K, Mirza M U, Sadia F, Froeyen M, Trant J F, Chaudhary S U (2024). Pharmacophore-Assisted Covalent Docking Identifies a Potential Covalent Inhibitor for Drug-Resistant Genotype 3 Variants of Hepatitis C Viral NS3/4A Serine Protease. Viruses.


Modak S, Abdel-Raheem E, Rueda L (2024). Harnessing the Power of Graph Propagation in Lung nodule Detection, preented at the 22nd International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Medicine (AIME 2024).


O'Neill T A, Aldana A J, Espinoza J A, Sperry M P, Brykman K M, Donia M B L (2024). Conflict management styles assessment and feedback for student self-awareness and team development. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education.


Renaud L J, Mechael S S, Carmichael T B (2024). Coordinating the pore size of paper substrates and aspects ratio. ofsilver nanowires to improve printed electronics. Flexible and Printed Electronics.


Ross L, Hansen D, Proudman S, Khanna D, Herrick A L, Stevens W, Australian Scleroderma Interest Group, Canadian Scleroderma Research Group, Baron M, Nikpour M, SCTC Activity Index Working Group (Collaborator - Fernández-Codina A) (2024). Development and Initial Validation of the Novel Scleroderma Clinical Trials Consortium Activity Index. Arthritis & Rheumatology.


Sagar S, Freer J, Ornstein T, Miller C (2024). Equal Access? Comparing Accommodation and Treatment Experiences of Racialized University Students with Attention Problems and Their White Peers. Journal of Critical Race, Indigeneity, and Decolonization.


Shaikh A, Khanna D, Rueda L (2024). Exploring Protein Structure Dynamics through Graph-Based Attention and Voronoi Tessellation Saliency Mapping, presented at the 32nd Conference on Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB 2024).


Soltani M, Rueda L (2024). Hypergraph Neural Networks Reveal Cell-cell Interactions in Spatial Domain, presented at the 32nd Conference on Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB 2024).


Vasighizaker A, Hora S, Zeng R, Rueda L (2024). SEGCECO: Subgraph Embedding of Gene expression matrix prediction of CEll-cell COmmunication, presented at the 32nd Conference on Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB 2024).


Appointments and Awards


University of Windsor, Chemistry professor, Dr. Tricia Carmichael, newly appointed as Director of equity, diversity, and inclusion for the board of the Canadian Society for Chemistry.


University of Windsor, Biomedical Sciences professor, Dr. Jeff Dason, awarded a two-year Faculty of Science Research Chair position.


Fallon Mitchell, PhD candidate in the Department of Kinesiology, is the recipient of the 2024 Student Leadership Award for EDI in Research, sponsored by the University of Windsor's Office of the Vice-President, Research and Innovation.


Two Faculty of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences students, Catherine Gronert and Allison Elizabeth Slavik, were among the Gold LEAD Medallion Recipients.

Congratulations everyone!

Submit your news items to The Spark! (Pictures/links encouraged)

Research Toolkit

WE-SPARK Health Institute offers support to our researchers. Here are a few of the tools that you may find useful.

Save the Date! WE-SPARKs annual Cheers to Hope event is happening on November 7, 2024 at the Ambassador Golf Club. To donate, buy a ticket, or learn more about this event, visit our Cheers to Hope website.

Want to make some new connections, eat great food, and converse with others involved in health research? Join us for our next WE-SPARK After Dark on September 5th @ The Bourbon on Ottawa Street.

The next Think Tank is scheduled for this Friday, October 25, 2024 from 1:00 to 3:00pm via Zoom. Register for free today! Enjoy great discussions regarding new research ideas to end your week!

Share your news with us!

We want to hear about your latest projects, grants, publications, awards, and conferences!

Send your great news to wesparknews@uwindsor.ca

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wesparkhealth@uwindsor.ca

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