September 8, 2004 - 5:00pm
Malaspina faculty researchers Drs. Chris Gill and Erik Krogh (Department of Chemistry) received a three-year federal grant worth $65,000 to help support research activities in the Applied Environmental Research Laboratory (AERL).
Krogh and Gill are Malaspina University-College's first successful Discovery Grant recipients since the institution became eligible to apply for research grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) last year. The grant will help support research activities in the AERL, stipends for undergraduate and graduate student researchers and defray associated research costs.
The AERL is a highly sophisticated research facility, established three years ago on the Nanaimo campus, to support students and faculty researching the development of new methods for environmental chemical analysis. The facility has already strengthened research initiatives of Malaspina’s biology, fisheries and aquaculture, forestry and horticulture departments.
Krogh and Gill head up a unique research program aimed at the development of a powerful new technique in the identification and quantification of an important class of environmentally relevant contaminants.
"This new method, called Membrane Introduction Mass Spectrometry (MIMS), separates and simultaneously analyzes many molecules from complicated samples, providing real-time chemical information not possible with other technologies," explained Gill. "This research is developing methods that rapidly measure lower concentrations of certain compounds directly from air, water or biological samples without laborious and time consuming preparation steps."
The development of these ‘faster, better, cheaper’ analytical methods are important in their own right, but they also provide new opportunities to investigate the environmental fate and distribution of contaminants and naturally occurring substances, said Krogh.
"One of the challenges of environmental chemistry is using results obtained in a controlled lab setting to fully understand what actually happens in the real world," Gill said.
"Sensitive, direct sampling methods will allow these investigations to take place at low concentrations in complex mixtures," he added. "The fact that these studies can be carried out in real-time improves our ability to detect short term changes in either air or water quality and monitor chemical transformations as they occur."
The AERL continues to involve undergraduate students in directed research courses and as research assistants. Six Malaspina undergraduate students worked in the lab this summer. A number of these students received prestigious NSERC Undergraduate Summer Research Awards. Students Janet Nelson and Alexander Thompson returned as summer research assistants in the AERL this year.
Work conducted by the AERL team has resulted in conference presentations in London, Ontario and Nashville, Tennessee this summer and Portland, Oregon this fall.
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