{"id":56087,"date":"2019-05-06T17:03:58","date_gmt":"2019-05-06T21:03:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsroom.carleton.ca\/?post_type=cu_story&p=56087"},"modified":"2025-09-30T10:58:59","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T14:58:59","slug":"life-sciences-day-3","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/story\/life-sciences-day-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Carleton Life Sciences Day Celebrates Top Research"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Carleton Life Sciences Day Celebrates Top Research\n <\/h1>\n \n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/path>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

Human health doesn\u2019t begin at birth \u2013 or even at conception.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe origins for health, development and disease trajectories occur even earlier than that,\u201d says Kristin Connor, assistant professor in the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease in Carleton University\u2019s Department of Health Sciences<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s because parental health before and at conception, and during the early stages of pregnancy, can influence the health and development of a fetus and then the lifelong health of that individual after birth.<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Kristin<\/figure>\n\n\n

Life Sciences Day Highlights Groundbreaking New Research<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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Connor shared her research at the Human-Microbe Interactions session of Life Sciences Day 3.0<\/a>, an all-day event that brought together academia, government and entrepreneurs to share their work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe want to make sure that people are situated on the right track long before they start families of their own,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cEven though nutritional requirements are extremely small in the early stages of pregnancy, nutrients are still very important to the developmental trajectory of that individual.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

And the microbes that are present at the time of conception and during pregnancy can have health impacts too. For example, there are distinct microbial communities along the female reproductive tract.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These microbial niches can be associated with adverse reproductive health outcomes. Specific bacteria in these niches are associated with reproductive tract diseases that are linked with rates of implantation, pregnancy and live birth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMicrobial factors can circulate in the blood and target maternal tissues, which means they could potentially target the placenta and fetus,\u201d Connor said.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cWe have to consider the microbiome as a third genome that actively participates in maternal adaptation to pregnancy and possibly programming fetal development. And because the infant microbiome is seeded from the mother through the mode of delivery, breastfeeding and early exposure to antibiotics, microbes present in an infant have the potential to shape their lifelong immune and metabolic systems.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Connor was one of the life sciences researchers who shared their work at the third annual edition of Life Sciences Day. The diversity of research in the field at Carleton was showcased through presentations on subjects that ranged from Shelley Hepworth\u2019s work in cannabis polyploidization (genome duplication) to Jenny Bruin\u2019s research on insulin-secreting beta cells in the pancreas to Chris Polowick\u2019s use of drones and Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) to create precision maps of agricultural land with his company RME Geomatics.<\/p>\n\n\n

\"An<\/figure>\n\n\n

Examining the Impact of Advanced Technologies<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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Life Sciences Day 3.0 also staged a student poster competition and, throughout the day, the impact of advanced technologies like neural networks on the field was a prominent theme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTechnology is enabling smart health care,\u201d said keynote speaker Ken Lawless, president of Epitope Capital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBoth inside the hospital, and outside its walls. There’s a shift in the conventional model of health-care provision towards what we call value-based care. It’s about creating value for the patient and value for the system. We’re really now much more reliant on real world evidence — not just a clinical trial but actually what happens when we bring it into the actual system. We’re starting to see the impact of some of these disruptive technologies that we have out here and this is everything from genomics to sensors to you name and all of these things now are really pushing on trying to improve outcomes and lowering the cost and making these systems more efficient.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It was a great pleasure to help kick off Life Sciences Day 3.0 @Carleton_U<\/a> today. Great way to showcase our many research strengths in neuroscience, chemistry, biology, food security, data science and more. Ottawa is a major Life Sciences Hub set for further growth in this area! https:\/\/t.co\/xM22wbXEYd<\/a><\/p>

\u2014 Benoit-Antoine Bacon (@CU_President) May 1, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Carleton President Benoit-Antoine Bacon is optimistic about the future of Ottawa\u2019s life sciences ecosystem \u2013 and Carleton\u2019s place in it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Ottawa region has so many resources,\u201d said Bacon, noting the university\u2019s investment in a new Health Sciences Building.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGreat universities, great hospitals, growing businesses and so many outstanding researchers, Ottawa\u2019s life sciences sector is poised for many further successes. We need to catalyze that and work together to make it happen. The tech sector has done it, and I think life sciences is next.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Human health doesn\u2019t begin at birth \u2013 or even at conception. \u201cThe origins for health, development and disease trajectories occur even earlier than that,\u201d says Kristin Connor, assistant professor in the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease in Carleton University\u2019s Department of Health Sciences. That\u2019s because parental health before and at conception, and during the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":410,"featured_media":56168,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_story_type":[13],"cu_story_tag":[1919],"class_list":["post-56087","cu_story","type-cu_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cu_story_type-research-discovery","cu_story_tag-faculty-of-science"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":"blueprint"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/56087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/410"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/56087\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97407,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/56087\/revisions\/97407"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_story_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_type?post=56087"},{"taxonomy":"cu_story_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_tag?post=56087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}