LFS Today Jun 15, 2022

 News  

MacMillan Nespresso machine will be unavailable on Thurs. June 16

Please note that the Nespresso coffee machine in MacMillan will not be available tomorrow, Thursday, June 16 as it will be used for the Faculty Advisory Board meeting. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Sean Smukler joins Ministry’s Advisory Group

The BC Ministry of Agriculture and Food has formed a new advisory group to support building more resilient food systems in the province. Sean Smukler joins their new 17-person Advisory Group on Regenerative Agriculture and Agritech, sharing his research expertise in soil science and climate change adaptation to strengthen B.C. food production. The ministry’s advisory group will support farmers in adopting the latest technology, creating more resilient farms and increasing sustainability. View the announcement on the ministry’s website.

🥎 LFS Softball is back! 🥎

LFS’s softball team (the Killer Bees?) is getting back together and will be taking on our cross-Main Mall rivals in the Faculty of Forestry in early July! And this time…we’ll have matching team T-shirts. To prepare, we’re having practices on Wednesdays at 1pm throughout June (meet in the McMillan courtyard).

Want to join the team? Great! Let Duncan from the LFS Learning Centre know: duncan.mchugh@ubc.ca

No skills or experience necessary, all welcome. If you have a glove, please bring it with you when you play, though we’ll have a couple on hand. Hope to see you on the diamond!

 Events  

June 17 – Dekaban Senior Scholar Talk: EU’s Farm2Fork Strategy

Friday, June 17, 2022
Time:  2-3:30 pm

Hybrd:  McML Room 160 (in person) or Zoom (link to be sent on June 16)

Title: The European Union’s Farm2Fork Strategy as an accelerator of the bioeconomy under path dependence

Speaker: Dr. Mariusz Maciejczak, PhD, Associate Professor and Director of the Institute of Economics and Finance, Warsaw University of Life Sciences

Description: In this presentation, Dr. Maciejczak will discuss the development of the EU’s Farm2Fork strategy as a new an element of its Green Deal policy through perspectives of its historically changing priorities and recent crises (i.e., the war in Ukraine and the synergies with the EU’s Bioeconomy strategy). Dr. Maciejczak will also examine, as a cases study, the results of the EU’s recent PotatoMetaBiome project.

RSVP by Thursday, June 16 (noon): https://ubc.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_25dJ8Qx87UCBPi6

Questions: Contact Matias Margulis (matias.margulis@ubc.ca) or Karen Lee (karen.lee98@ubc.ca).

June 27 – IBPOC STEM Network: Summer Socials

STEM fields have few faculty and staff who are IBPOC women or IBPOC gender-diverse people. As a result, those belonging to these groups have limited options for empathic mentoring and support. In recognition of this, and in alignment with UBC’s commitment to build an inclusive environment, IBPOC women and IBPOC gender-diverse faculty, staff, postdoctoral scholars and graduate students are invited to attend the IBPOC STEM Network’s monthly Summer Socials.

For IBPOC women and IBPOC gender-diverse faculty, staff, postdoctoral scholars and graduate students in STEM: Check out the monthly summer socials, part of the IBPOC STEM Network. An opportunity to get connected and build community. First social June 27.

RSVP Now

 Deadlines  

July 31 – Partnership Opportunities with PepsiCo, Takeda, Bayer and more

PepsiCo

• Materials and technologies for greenhouse gas reduction in packaging
  Reduce GHG emissions during packaging production or over the lifecycle of PET bottles, aluminum cans, and glass packaging
  Funding: $25,000 USD is available for a proof-of-concept in 2022, with an additional $50,000-100,000 available for further development.
• Technologies to minimize the salty taste of electrolytes
  Minimize the perception of a salty taste in beverages containing electrolytes
  Funding is proposal-dependent and typically ranges from $25,000 to $100,000 for a 6-month proof-of-concept.

Takeda

• Small molecule binders of lysosomal proteins and glycosaminoglycans for eventual use as PET ligands
  Identify small molecule binders or binding motifs that can bind glycosaminoglycans, sphingolipids, or lysosomal proteins
  Funding: $150,000 – $300,000 over 1-2 years for further evaluation of potential leads along with possible license of the researcher’s patented materials.

Bayer Crop Science

• Grants4Ag: Space biology exploration at Biosphere 2
  Conduct fundamental plant science research in a space-simulating environment
  Funding: Funding is proposal-dependent and typically ranges from $5,000 to $15,000. Prior recipients have used the funding for contract research, personnel, equipment and other purchases. Indirect costs are not included.
• Grants4Ag: Climate solutions through plant modifications
  Enable carbon sequestration or removal in cereals, legumes and pulses relying on the use of gene editing or transgenes
  Funding: $5,000-$10,000. Funds will be in the form of a credit towards transformation work at the Wisconsin Crop Innovation Center. The final amount and scope of work will be based on discussions between the selected project teams, WCIC and the Bayer team.
• Grants4Ag: Enabling technologies for plant transformation
  Develop new plant transformation technologies for row crops, particularly monocots
  Funding: $5,000 to $15,000. Prior recipients have used the funding for contract research, personnel, equipment and other purchases. Indirect costs are not included.

Confidential F500 Company

• Technology to remove chemicals, odors, VOCs and pathogens in air
  Remove, destroy, or eliminate chemicals and odors in air
  Funding: $25,000 to $100,000 for a 6-month proof-of-concept project with the potential for follow-on funding for 1-3 years.

The submission deadline for all calls is July 31. One-page proposals can be submitted online via the Halo application form which should take less than an hour to complete. If you have any questions, please reach out to James Wang at j.wang@ubc.ca.