to CatCh - BioLab Business Magazine · Lab business Fall 2009 3 12 10th LAB Business Salary Survey...

Fall 2009 www.labbusinessmag.com

The definitive source for lab products, news and developments

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Lab business Fall 2009 3

12 10th LAB Business Salary SurveyBack by popular demand, the Salary Survey examines salary levels, job satisfaction and pro-fessional development in labs spanning all disci-plines across the country. See how your job stacks up to those in a comparable position and learn what other lab workers expect in the future.

24 Supplier ProfileMeet newly appointed Canadawide Scientific GM Michael Frame and his vision to be an industry leader and scientific partner to labs for years to come.

27 Lab ReportsLaboratory regulations are many, with different governing bodies watching over different kinds of labs. Find out how food labs maintain quality, how medical labs stay up-to-date on practices, and who watches over them.

34 Sitting WithDr. Rafick-Pierre Sekaly’s quest for an HIV vac-cine is taking him from Montreal to Florida where, with $100 million in U.S. funding, he will design and build the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute.

FALL 2009 www.labbusinessmag.com


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Fall 2009 www.labbusinessmag.com


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Sustainability Science

Laboratory Regulations

Chromatography

CatCh a CriminalCentre of Forensic Sciences uses the

latest techniques to uncover whodunnit

to

CatCh a Criminal

Salary Survey

ON THE COVER: Robyn Thomas, a forensic technologist from the Firearms and Toolmarks division of the Centre of Forensic Sciences, fires a round into a specially designed water tank. Courtesy of Centre of Forensic Sciences.

18

5 EDITOR’S NOTE

6 NEWS

11 SAFETy ZONE

30 NEW PRODUCTS

COVER STORy Toronto’s Centre of Forensic Sciences (CFS) is one of the biggest and busiest labs in North America. The CFS deals with roughly 10,000 cases from across Ontario each year. An average of 50 new cases are logged every single day. Tony Tessarolo, the Quality Manager at the 65,000 square-foot lab, says often when a criminal investigation yields some sort of evidence in Ontario, the CFS has a hand in examining it.

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he case made headlines around the country and was even briefly featured on America’s Most Wanted. The disappearance of Victoria (Tori)

stafford from her hometown of Woodstock, ontario in april plunged fear into the hearts of parents everywhere.

after three months of searching and waiting and following leads, remains thought to be those of Tori were found in a farmer’s field near Mount Forest, ont., about 130 km away. Confirmation came one day later from Toronto’s Centre of Forensic sciences (CFs), through dental records (read our profile on page 18).

The CFs deals with roughly 10,000 cases from across ontario each year. an aver-age of 50 new cases are logged every single day. so great is the demand for the lab’s services that the CFs has grown to 240 staff. an additional 22 staff operate the CFs satellite lab located in sault ste. Marie.

Fifty years ago, forensic scientists would be experts in multiple areas but Tony Tessarolo, Quality Manager at the CFs, says the expectation of the justice system now is that scientists specialize and demonstrate training and competency in any of the areas where they perform casework. it’s not recommended or easy to be a jack-of-all-trades.

For more on HR, be sure to read the results of our 10th salary survey (page 12) to see how you compare in terms of salary, overall compensation and job satisfaction.

The survey shows researchers aren’t immune to the effects of the recession. Though the average salary has remained the same since the last survey in 2007, with the average worker making in the $74,000 to $84,000 range, only half of respondents are certain they will receive a compensation boost in the coming year, while 31.5 per cent believe they will not and 17.6 per cent are uncertain. This is down from the last survey, where 82 per cent of respondents expected salaries to increase.

With that in mind, companies looking to keep employees happy must ensure their pay scales are competitive to begin with. Communicate with staff regularly and offer sincere thanks for a job well done. Look for ways to manage work/life balance. offer work that is challenging.

at the CFs, the work is sometimes heart-wrenchingly tough but always rewarding.

“it has some very real and obvious and profound social value,” says Tessarolo. “We see the value in the work that we do every day whether it’s in the exoneration of someone who is falsely accused, or whether that involves examining evidence that somehow helps a criminal investigation that leads to identifying a perpetrator.”

What more could you ask for?

Theresa [email protected]

Life (and Death) in a Forensics Lab

T

editor’s note

6 Fall 2009 Lab business

news beat

U of T Supercomputer Among the World’s Best

The university of Toronto’s scinet Consortium, Compute Canada and ibM recently announced the completion of a new supercom-

puter facility at scinet with a peak processing power of more than 300 trillion calculations per second, making it Canada’s most powerful supercomputer and one of the most powerful and energy-efficient supercomputers in the world.

The supercomputer will be used for groundbreaking research in aerospace, astrophysics, bioinformatics, chemical physics, climate change prediction, medical imaging and the global aTLas project, which is investigating the forces that govern the universe.

The ibM x iDataPlex system currently sits among the top 15 of the world’s most powerful supercomputers, according to the latest ToP500 list. it uses a total of 30,240 intel 5500 series 2.53 GHz processor cores and is entirely water-cooled. it is also a space-saver, offering five times the component density of comparable systems.

“The university of Toronto’s scinet installation is the largest intel processor-based ibM deployment in the world,” says Richard Dracott, intel’s General Manager of High Performance Computing. “We are honoured to have platforms based on the intel Xeon processor 5500 series driving the largest supercomputer in Canada tasked with solving some of the most complex challenges facing our planet.”www.ibm.com/deepcomputing

Leona Aglukkaq, Minister of Health, recently announced

the federal government is sup-porting research to find alter-natives to nuclear-produced Technetium-99m, the princi-pal medical isotope affected by the shutdown at the Chalk River nuclear reactor.

Health professionals use medical isotopes in combina-tion with imaging technolo-gies to diagnose and treat conditions such as cancer and heart disease.

The initiative is a partner-ship between the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

“Our government is taking

several measures to address the medical needs of Canadians during this medi-cal isotope shortage,” says Aglukkaq. “One course of action we are actively pursu-ing is funding research that would provide alternatives to the principal medical isotope produced at Chalk River.”

The government is provid-ing $6 million for this research initiative, which will advance research into alternative, non-nuclear, medical isotopes that could replace Technetium-99m in certain medical imag-ing procedures and support the production and clinical testing of these alternatives.www.nserc-crsng.gc.cawww.cihr-irsc.gc.ca

Searching for Non-nuclear Alternatives


Amgen recently announced this year’s four recipients of the amgen award

for science Teaching excellence (aasTe).The award recognizes teachers in

grades K-12 whose dedication to students has had a significant impact on the learning and interest of the future generation of scientists.

along with recognition of his or her efforts, each recipient is awarded $10,000.

This year’s recipients are: David Riendl, York House school in Vancouver; Jane Diner, old scona academic school in

edmonton; Glenn Wagner, Centre Wellington District High school in Fergus, ontario; and Chantale Maheaux, École secondaire de l’Horizon in saint-Jean Chrysostome, Quebec.

each teacher will receive an unre- stricted $5,000 grant, while their schools will receive a restricted $5,000 grant which can be used for the expansion or enhance-ment of a school science program, science resources, or the professional development of the school’s science teachers.www.amgen.ca

Teaching the Scientists of Tomorrow

The Canadian integrated ocean Drilling Program (ioDP) welcomes the JoiDes Resolution, a newly equipped and modernized scientific ocean drilling vessel, which

will embark upon a marine research expedition involving scientists from 15 countries. The research team plans to investigate the role of the bering sea in climate change.

Taoufik Radi, a Canadian paleontologist and researcher at the university of Quebec in Montreal, is part of the scientific team led by co-chief scientists Christina Ravelo of university of California, santa Cruz, and Kozo Takahashi of Kyushu university, Japan. During the upcoming investigation, Radi will analyze microfossils to establish a prelimi-nary history of the environmental conditions in the bering sea region.

During the port call, approximately 100 undergraduate oceanography students from both the university of Victoria and Royal Roads university will come aboard to inspect the new laboratories, see how scientists work in the field, and learn about the inner wor-kings of a research drillship.www.iodp.org

From left to right - Manon Jobin (Amgen Canada), Chantale Maheaux (2009 Quebec AASTE recipient), France Lévesque (Principal École secondaire de l’Horizon). National Science and

Technology Week Returns!

This year, National Science and Technology Week (NSTW) will be

celebrated across Canada from October 16-25.

This year marks more than 18 years of NTSW events, promoting science across Canada through education and events.

Dr. Robert Thirsk, an accomplished Canadian astronaut, will serve as this year’s National Science Champion as he orbits above the Earth on the International Space Station.

People of all ages, especially chil-dren and young adults, may engage in science and technology-related activi-ties and interact with science profes-sionals through events hosted by gov-ernment and partners.www.science.gc.ca/nstw All Engines Ahead

Photo Credit: IODP


Government of Canada Invests in Research Infrastructure

In June, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI) and Tony Clement,

Minister of Industry, announced more than $655 million for state-of-the-art infrastructure at 41 Canadian research insti-tutions.

In all, 133 projects will be supported through the CFI’s Leading Edge Fund and New Initiatives Fund.

“By investing in leading-edge research infrastructure, we are ensuring that our country continues to prosper as a nation of innovation,” says Dr. Eliot Phillipson, President and CEO of the CFI. “This new investment will substantially increase Canada’s capacity to carry out important world-class scientific research and technology development that will benefit all Canadians.”

Almost $248 million was awarded to 64 projects under the Leading Edge Fund, which enables institutions to build on already successful and productive initiatives supported by past CFI investments, while approximately $265 million was awarded to 69 projects under the New Initiatives Fund, aiming to enhance Canada’s capacity in promising new areas of research and technology development.

An additional $154 million was awarded under the Infrastructure Operating Fund, a mechanism that assists institutions with the incremental operating and maintenance costs associated with the new infrastructure.

A few of the projects that will receive funding are:• Professor Michael Jenkin and collaborators from York’s

Centre for Vision Research, have been awarded $711,696 in funding to create a Canadian Centre for Field Robotics (CCFR) at York University. It is expected that the Ontario government will match this award.

• The Ontario Institute for Cancer Research will receive $12.5 million to support the Pancreatic Cancer Genome Project and the Data Coordination Centre for the International Cancer Genome Consortium. The funds will be used to purchase next-generation sequencers and other technology platforms that will help find the genetic origins of pancreatic cancer.

• The University of British Columbia will receive $38 mil-lion in support of 12 research projects ranging from geochemical research to studies on infectious disease.

www.innovation.ca.

news beat

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Agilent Technologies to Acquire Varian for $1.5 Billion

Agilent Technologies Inc. and Varian Inc. have signed a definitive agreement for the acquisition by Agilent of Varian, a leading

worldwide supplier of scientific instrumentation and associated con-sumables for life science and applied market applications.

The acquisition broadens Agilent’s applications and solutions offerings in life sciences, environmental, and energy and materials. It also expands Agilent’s product portfolio into atomic and molecular spectroscopy; establishes a leading position in NMR, imaging and vacuum technologies; and strengthens its consumables portfolio.

“This acquisition is a major step in Agilent’s transformation into a leading bio-analytical measurement company,” says Bill Sullivan, Agilent’s President and CEO. “While we continue to be a world leader in electronic measurement, our biggest opportunities for future growth are in bio-analytical measurement.”

Once the acquisition has been completed, Adrian Dillon, Agilent’s Executive Vice-president and CFO, will assume responsibility for com-bining Varian with Agilent’s Bio-Analytical Measurement segment consistent with Agilent’s operating model. The transaction is expected to generate $75 million in annual cost synergies and achieve Agilent’s 20 per cent return on invested capital target within four to five years.

Tony Clement


Web-based Repository of Health Research Launched

An important new initiative will provide researchers and knowledge users free

access to a vast digital archive of published health research at their desktop and con-nect them to an emerging international network of digital archives anchored in the united states.

The Canadian institutes of Health Research (CiHR), the national Research Council’s Canada institute for scientific and Technical information (nRC-CisTi), and the u.s. national Library of Medicine (nLM) announced a three-way partnership to establish PubMed Central Canada (PMC Canada), a national digital repository of peer-reviewed health and life sciences literature, including research resulting from CiHR funding. This searchable Web-based repository will be permanent, stable and freely accessible.

“PMC Canada is a powerful tool that will help researchers build upon one another’s work and speed up the discovery and innovation process to address impor-tant health challenges,” says Dr. ian Graham, Vice-President of Knowledge Translation at CiHR. “it will provide quick and easy access to a much broader audience, increasing the value and appli-cation of CiHR-funded research.”

“nRC is proud to be a partner in an initiative that will create a permanent archive for Canadian health research and increase access for all Canadians,” says Dr. Pierre Coulombe, President of nRC.

The initial release of PMC Canada, to be available this fall, will include a basic bilingual interface, a manuscript submis-sion system for CiHR researchers and a bilingual help desk. an advisory commit-tee of Canadian health researchers and other stakeholders will guide PMC Canada’s future development.http://cisti-icist.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/

Maplesoft, the University of Waterloo, the Natural Sciences and Engineering

Council (NSERC) and Toyota Corporation, announced a partnership that will seek to produce new methods for modeling physi-cal systems.

The Industrial Research Chair was grant-ed to Dr. John McPhee, from the Department of Systems Design Engineering at the University of Waterloo and Executive Director of the Waterloo Centre for Automotive Research (WatCAR).

Current engineering practices create computer models that are numerical in nature, to explore different design concepts and evaluate their performance. A more

natural way to model a system is to use mathematics, and the main goal of this research is to develop the theory and com-puter algorithms necessary to automatically create engineering models in a mathemati-cal form. This will speed up the model-based development approach, which is being embraced by the automotive industry.

“To be globally competitive, automotive manufacturers must design new products faster, safer and better. The proposed research will speed up the automotive design process and result in fewer costly prototypes and experimental testing,” says McPhee.www.maplesoft.com

Canada Stands Among World Leaders

Six of the world’s foremost health agencies, collectively managing an estimated 80 per cent of all public health research funding,

today announced formation of a landmark alliance to collaborate in the critical battle against chronic, non-communicable diseases: car-diovascular diseases (mainly heart disease and stroke), several can-cers, chronic respiratory conditions, and type 2 diabetes. Among them is the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).

The Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases (Alliance) is being created to support clear priorities for a co-ordinated research effort that will address this growing health crisis, now reaching world epidemic proportions. Experts estimate that unless action is stepped up, 388 million people worldwide will die of one or more such diseases within the next decade.

Work of the Alliance will focus in particular on the needs of low and middle-income countries, and on those of low-income populations of more developed countries.

“Canada is proud to collaborate with other countries in the fight against these chronic diseases. I believe that Canada can excel on the world stage by bringing our unique research talents to bear on these global health research problems that affect millions of people worldwide,” says Alain Beaudet, President of CIHR.www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca

Car-makers Look to Design Products Faster, Safer, Better Using Math

Pierre Coulombe

Alain Beaudet

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Dr. James A. Kaufman is the founder and president of The Laboratory Safety Institute (LSI) www.labsafetyinstitute.org—an interna-tional, non-profit centre for safety in science and science education. LSI provides workshops, seminars, on-site training programs, lab safety program development consultations, facilities inspections and regulatory compliance assistance. Contact LSI with all your lab safety questions: (508) 647-1900 or [email protected].

While having no accidents isn’t nec-essarily a good indication that

everything’s oK, having them go unre-ported makes the matter worse. The reporting of all accidents is extremely important. every accident is an opportu-nity to improve your safety program, to learn how to do a better job, and to pro-tect your workers and facilities.

since accidents happen relatively infrequently in smaller organizations, keep track of the incidents and close calls as well. These are the events where mat-ters of inches or seconds were the differ-ence between nothing happening, a minor mishap, and a major disaster. The rule of thumb is that there are 300 minor incidents for each major one. Think of all you could learn from having a chance to review the close calls.

The safety committee should get cop-ies of each accident or incident report and review it carefully. They should conduct an investigation of the event so that it can be correctly evaluated and the proper cor-rective action taken to prevent a reoccur-rence. Don’t go around looking for some-one to blame. Looking to place blame is the quickest way to convince people that they shouldn’t talk about what happened, to avoid telling the truth, or to have a loss of memory.

Then, the event should be brought to the attention of the rest of the people in your organization at a departmental safe-ty meeting or by other means so that they too can learn from the experience.

Photographs of injuries and property damage are graphic reminders of the con-sequences of carelessness, unsafe work conditions and unsafe work practices.

Consider having an accident/incident report form for your employees and stu-dents to fill out. it will help them to develop an appreciation for this recordkeeping aspect of safety.

Extend the safety program beyond the lab

The effectiveness of safety programs depends on their ability to motivate people to care about their health and safety. When people view this caring process as part of their whole life and not just part of their job, it becomes all the more effective. in fact, the same haz-ards exist outside of work and school as do within.

Help your students/employees to understand the importance of safety throughout all of their lives. Most of the accidental deaths and disabling injuries that occur each year do not happen in the workplace. The injury is just as severe and the loss of resources and produc-tivity is nevertheless just as great.

By Dr. James A. Kaufman

safety zone

Require Reporting, Evaluation of All Accidents

LB


salary survey

Welcome to the 10th LAB Business salary survey, an in-depth survey examining salary levels, job satisfaction, additional compensation and professional development in labs spanning all disci-plines across the country. Read on to see how your job stacks up to those in a comparable

position and learn what other lab workers expect in the future.spanning the breadth of respondents, the average salary has remained the same since the last survey,

in 2007, with the average worker making in the $74,000 to $84,000 range. in 2009 the majority of respondents earn $65,000 to $75,000, with 16.7 per cent identifying salary levels in this range. additionally, the vast majority of respondents, 63 per cent, earn between $55,000 and $125,000. expectedly, very few lab workers are on the extreme end of the spectrum, with less than one per cent earning under $25,000 per year, and the same number earning more than $155,000 annually.

salary levels continue to rise, as they have in the majority of past Lab surveys. in 2005, only nine per cent of respondents earned more than $95,000 annually. This percentage doubled in 2006 to 18 per cent, and again grew in 2007 to 27 per cent. This year, a total of 31.5 per cent of respondents earn more than $95,000 annually. These numbers are in line with further indicators from our survey, where more than half of respondents identified having received a pay raise in the last year. The majority of this year’s pay raises were in the range of three to four per cent (26.9 per cent respondents), followed by one to two per cent (19.4 per cent respondents). a few respondents received pay raises of more than six per cent (3.7 per cent respondents) and five to six per cent (1.7 per cent respondents). almost half of respondents (48.1 per cent) did not receive a pay raise.

The number of workers who did receive raises remains below the 72 per cent who said their com-pensation had increased over the year in 2007.

By Jason Hagerman

10th

LaB Business salary survey


More than half of respondents are certain they will receive a compensation boost in the coming year, while 31.5 per cent believe they will not and 17.6 per cent are uncertain. This is again down from the last survey, where 82 per cent of lab workers who answered our survey expected salaries to increase. of those expecting salary increases this year, workers earning $95,000 to $105,000 are the most confident they will receive a boost, with 75 per cent of respondents indicating so. Those earning more than $155,000 and less than $25,000 are the most pessimistic about salary increases, indicating 100 per cent of the time that they expect no salary increase.

according to our survey, the majority of workers find that their salary is reflective of the work they do, with 73.1 per cent believ-ing their salary is adequate. about a quarter of respondents are unhappy with their monetary compensation. These results are in line with 2007 numbers where three-quarters of respondents were satisfied with their salaries and 23 per cent were unhappy. in fact, these numbers remain fairly consistent years into the past. in 2004, for example, 76 per cent of respondents thought they were adequately compensated.

Q&A with staffing expert Greg Pocherewny, Vice-President of Permanent Placement Operations for global staffing firm Robert Half International.

A growing number of labs across the country are experi-encing difficulties hiring appropriate staff to fill their technical positions as well as in retaining those workers in highly competitive scientific fields. LAB Business sat down with Greg Pocherewny, VP, Permanent Placement Operations for Robert Half International a global staffing firm, to see what the problem is.

Are there currently staffing issues in the science world?This is split into two answers, relating to hiring and retention. The economy is very uncertain right now. We find that a lot of companies have downsized. As a result, a lot of employees are now faced with a higher work-load. They’re bearing a lot of stress because of this workload, and there is overall lower morale throughout entire companies.

With that, retention has become a concern because while some companies have downsized, they’ve found that as morale has shifted, employees they’ve hoped to retain have decided to leave on their own. Even in this economy, retention is in the front of the mind of many companies now.

Job satisfaction in any company that is going through a round of layoffs or is struggling financially is in decline, so people start looking elsewhere.

Companies, right now, are struggling to retain top performers. You can imagine that if you’re struggling to survive and you lose a top performer, it can be devastat-ing to your business. Retention is probably in the forefront of many companies’ minds, keeping the top performers.

Hiring, on the other hand, is also challenging. It’s like a double-edged sword. You would think given that unemployment numbers are slightly higher in this econ-omy, people would be happy to find a job. Yes, there are a lot of people looking for work; there are many candi-dates that are responding to job ads. That can be overwhelming for hiring managers. They’re getting too many resumes and it’s time consuming trying to identify the top talents based on an overwhelming resume response. Compounding that, employers are very selective. They want a very specific skill set when hiring. They don’t want just a body to fill the job, they want a productive employee.

How can companies attract the right people?There’s a variety of ways. Every industry has a variety of recruiting firms. That’s somewhere you get access to a huge network of people that will bring those specialized skill sets. That’s one way of bringing the right people in.

The other big one always has been and continues to

Q&a

How much money are respondents earning?

More than $155,000

$125,000 to 155,000

$105,000 to $125,000

$95,001 to $105,000

$85,001 to $95,000

$75,001 to $85,000

$65,001 to $75,000

$55,001 to $65,000

$45,001 to $55,000

$35,001 to $45,000

Less than $25,000

Refuse

0 5 10 15 20Continued on page 14...

Percentage of respondents


salary survey

Compensation still occasionally includes a cash bonus, accord-ing to 24.1 per cent of lab workers who participated in the survey. These bonuses are most often in the region of $5,000 to $10,000, which was awarded to 8.3 per cent of respondents. Fewer workers (6.5 per cent) received a bonus of more than $10,000, 2.8 per cent brought home an extra zero to $500, 3.7 per cent brought an additional $1,000 or $2,000 and 1.9 per cent were given an extra $2,000 to $5,000.

age, gender and dollars Females represented 31 per cent of respondents, 68 per cent were male and a few opted to remain anonymous. Female workers are generally more visible in low to mid-range salary positions, oust-ing males 66.7 per cent to 33.3 per cent in positions paying $35,000 to $45,000 and again showing more heavily in the $45,000 to $55,000 range. Males, however, have a much larger presence in the $75,000 to $85,000, $85,000 to $95,000, $105,000 to $125,000 and $125,000 to $155,000 ranges, with 82.4 per cent, 57.1 per cent, 93.8 per cent and 88.9 per cent respectively.

The laboratory sciences field is predominated by workers in the age range of 46 to 55 years, where 38.9 per cent of workers who responded fall into this grouping. This is similar to results

be referrals and networking. That’s a huge way of bring-ing solid employees into any company. Utilizing and leveraging your business contacts, targeting your efforts. Look at industry publications, professional associations, anything that’s going to narrow the audience to which you’re advertising.

The other thing is that, as a company trying to hire somebody in any market, you’ve got to have a compelling story. Know what you have to offer. Whether it’s a com-petitive salary or benefits package, know where you sit on the work-life scale. Any appeal that you would have for a candidate, make sure you understand what it is.

What are some things companies can do to keep employees happy once they have them?There are a variety of things, some of which involve money. Make sure that you’re paying competitively. While everybody says, “I love my work,” really, most people work for money. You want to be competitive in your compensation and benefits package. Beyond that, if you’re looking for low-cost things, one of the most impor-tant things is communication. Communicate with staff regularly and be honest with them. You want to let your staff know that they are valued. Simple things like offer-ing a sincere thank-you for jobs well done. Other low-cost alternatives are looking at programs that might help out with work/life balance, provide more flexibility like work-ing from home, days off. Anything that will boost morale and accommodate for a company’s inability to boost compensation if they’re unable to do that, is good.

The other is, because companies in this environment are operating with lean staff levels, look to alleviate pressure by reassigning projects or bringing in temporary professionals.

Does outsourcing hurt morale around the office?I think it depends on the nature of the outfit. Depends on what’s going on in any particular company. Typically, though, no. If there’s a seasonal workload for some reason, or if for any reason there’s a burden on the existing employees, bringing in a temporary or project person to help with that workload will improve morale. You’re reducing the burden on each full-time employee.

Are smaller companies at a disadvantage when trying to attract the right people?In some aspects they might be. A smaller company may not have the brand reputation of a larger company. In many cases they may have more constraints when it comes to budgets and compensation ability. But I would go back to the comment I made earlier. If you want to attract the right talent you have to have a compelling story. If a smaller company understands the market,

Has your total cash compensation increased over the last year?

No: 47.2%Yes: 51.9%

Refuse: 0.9%

...continued from page 13

Continued on page 15...


understands the retention tools that many larger compa-nies are using, they can hire the right people provided they know their own story. They know what their weak-nesses are, but they also know what their strengths are.

They should be able to answer the question, “Why would somebody quit a job to come work here?” I’ve been in search for a long time and many of the companies that work with me can’t answer that question.

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Which of the following is most important to you, or motivates you most? (respondents checked all that applied)

0 20 40 30 80

from 2007, where 42 per cent of workers were part of this demo-graphic. This is also the age range that generally makes the most money, as 77.8 per cent of those making between $125,000 and $155,000 belong to the group.

Workforce veterans in the 36 to 45 year-old category and 56 to 65 year-old category make up a large portion of the workforce (24.1 and 23.1 per cent), and bring in mid to high-end salaries. Young workers and older workers are the least predominant, mak-ing up 9.3 per cent and 2.8 per cent of respondents. according to our survey, these workers make up most of the mid to low pay workforce, the majority of which make $35,000 to $55,000.

more on the workforceLab workers are generally university graduates, with 38 per cent possessing an undergrad degree. Workers with doctorate and masters-level education make up about a quarter of the workforce each and make the most money, bringing in between $105,000 and $155,000. Those with college certificates or technical training make up 9.3 per cent of lab workers and are dispersed evenly throughout all levels of remuneration, while some high school graduates (2.8 per cent of industry staff ) fall in the middle of the pay scale.

Cash bonus

Flex-time

Gift cards

In-house day care/gym

Peer recognition

Professional development training

Time off

Other

...continued from page 14.



Job satisfactionThe majority of workers, nearly 85 per cent, are satisfied overall with their jobs, down from 92 per cent in 2007 and the 90 to 93 per cent between 2003 and 2006.

The lowest level of satisfaction exists in workers earning between $35,000 to $45,000, as 66.7 per cent of workers in this category have indicated. as salary increases, so does job satisfac-tion. More than a third of workers in the $55,000 to $65,000 range (35.3 per cent) are dissatisfied with their jobs, 5.9 per cent of those in the $75,000 to $85,000 range are dissatisfied and no workers in the $125,000 to $155,000 are dissatisfied.

adding benefits to a remuneration package is an effective way to increase job satisfaction when salary dollars are not available.

The majority of labs, over 90 per cent in each case, offer dental and medical coverage as well as paid holidays. Pension plans are provided to 76 per cent of lab workers (down from 80 per cent in 2007), primarily in the $45,000 to $75,000 salary range.

Professional development or training is offered to 55 per cent of respondents and flex-time to 42 per cent. both numbers are down from previous years where training was offered to 61 per cent and 47 per cent were given flex-time. Down from 20 per cent in 2007, 15 per cent of lab workers who responded are given unpaid or paid sabbatical leaves.

according to the survey, these additional benefits are an inte-gral factor in job satisfaction.

Professional development or training is the most important benefit an employer can provide, as 62.6 per cent of respondents said this is a good work-motivator. Flex-time is also important

for a large portion of workers (47.7 per cent) and a cash bonus is always welcome (44.9 per cent). Peer recognition also has a positive effect on the motiva-tion of workers, as cited by 39.3 per cent of survey respondents. other things such as an in-house gym or additional vacation time are low on the scale, appealing to only 8.4 per cent and 7.5 per cent of workers, respectively.

the labs themselvesMany of the labs that responded are small, with

30.6 per cent operating on an annual budget of less than $100,000. Many have plans to purchase new equipment in the coming year, or have already purchased it, while 41.7 per cent believe some new equipment will be acquired this year.

accordingly, the equipment that is most purchased is also most used.

With money tight and equipment upgrades and maintenance a necessity, most labs will not be expanding or remodeling in the next year.

The majority of respondents believe their lab will remain in the same location and at the same size this year (67.6 per cent).

only 14.8 per cent say a space upgrade is in the works and 16.7 per cent are uncertain.

salary survey

What equipment do you use as part of your daily routine? (respondents checked all that applied)

Electrophoresis

Imaging Systems

Washer

Titrators

Freezers

Gases

Software

Microscopes

Spectrophotometers

Safety Equipment

Sample Preparation

Ovens

Chromatography

Other

Consumables

Computer/Business Software

Balance/Scale

Chemicals/Reagents

0 10 20 30 40 50

Mid-level jobs, occupied by undergrads, college graduates and high school graduates are often of lab technician, scientist or other unspecified titles, as these jobs are the most prevalent.

executive management jobs are less plentiful according to respondents, accounting for only 2.8 per cent of our responses, as are research director and administrative positions (2.8 and 3.7 per cent respectively).

Geographically, the majority of respondents (45.4 per cent) are located in ontario.

alberta makes up a growing portion of this year’s respondents, with 17.6 per cent, while b.C. hosts 11.1 per cent. LB


lab spotlight


Crime SCene Crime SCene Crime SCene Crime SCene Crime SCene Crime SCene

Paula Mickiewicz, a forensic technologist, utilizes the Kastle-Meyer test to identify the presence of blood on a shoe.


Without a trace

Crime SCene Crime SCene Crime SCene Crime SCene Crime SCene Crime SCeneScientists at the Centre of Forensic Sciences know there is no such thing. They may not strap on their guns and survey a crime scene CSI-style, but from within the walls of their lab, they can chase you down without breaking a sweat.

it’s 4:30 a.m. and the sun is just beginning to peek over the hori-zon. Rogue beams of light stretch into the hollows of downtown

Toronto and begin to reveal the horrors of the night past. a man lays dead, blood trickling closer and closer to the sewer grate outside of a recently over-capacity bar. on his knuckles, dried blood flakes in the wind. Debris is scattered about the body—a wallet taken from the victim’s pocket, car keys. a cell phone lays broken, shattered against the red brick wall adjacent to the body, thrown in anger or self-defense. Yellow tape is unraveled by a uniformed police officer, beckoning the slowly increasing stream of passersby closer. a woman cries out and tears through the bar-rier, sobbing uncontrollably as she recognizes her 21 year-old son. she closes in on the body, as police officers make chase, vainly. suddenly, assertively but without menace, a man steps between her and the body, protecting the crime scene as well as the well-being of the mother.

“i’m sorry,” says a detective as he comforts the broken woman in his arms and discreetly returns his Glock 22, .40 calibre pistol to its holster.

For the average person, this is the beginning of an exciting episode of CSI, the show that has introduced us all to the fast-paced, dangerous and exciting world of forensic sciences. For somebody like Tony Tessarolo, the Quality Manager at Toronto’s 65,000 square-foot Centre of Forensic sciences (CFs), this is an opportunity to either laugh or change the channel in annoyance.

“The idea that forensic scientists strap their gun on, go to the scene, collect evidence, talk to suspects and put handcuffs on people, that’s just not reality,” says Tessarolo. “if they made a weekly show about our lab, it would probably get shut down

after a month.”This isn’t to say that the life of a forensic scientist is boring.

Tessarolo wouldn’t have stuck around in the CFs for more than 20 years if it was. The truth is, he says, the way it’s done on televi-sion simply isn’t the best way to do it.

efficiencyThe CFs deals with roughly 10,000 cases every year. With around 200 business days in the year, this means that an average of 50 new cases are logged every single day. if scientists in the CFs lab were to follow evidence around and interrogate suspects and perform experiments, they wouldn’t be able to meet the demands for their services.

This demand is such that since moving to its current location in 1975, the CFs has grown from an initially sizeable body of 75 staff to the exceptionally populous 240 who now inhabit the downtown Toronto facility. an additional 22 staff operate the CFs satellite lab located in sault ste. Marie, which is about 10 per cent the size of the Toronto lab and handles about 10 per cent of the workload. The annual budget for both locations is $25 mil-lion in total and comes from the ontario Ministry of Community safety and Correctional services, Public safety Division.

“The bar has been raised over the years in terms of the kind of testing we can do, the quality of testing and the scope. The expec-tation among police and courts is that some form of forensic testing needs to be done whenever evidence is found,” says Tessarolo. often when a criminal investigation yields some sort of evidence in ontario, the CFs has a hand in examining it.

“if you did a scan of the news over the last six months, there’s

By Jason Hagerman


lab spotlight

a good chance the CFs has been involved in whatever you come across,” he says, and it has been this way for over 50 years, ever since the CFs first was conceived. the way it really worksif things don’t actually go the same way as it does on TV, what is the reality? Let’s follow the possible lifecycle of the investigation outlined above.

To begin with, it is very rare to see a forensic scientist at the actual scene of a crime.

“it’s rare that we would ever attend the crime scene, unless we were brought in under the role of a consultant. Really, the task of collecting and preserving the evidence is left to the people from the police agency,” says Tessarolo.

Police forces employ specially trained identification officers; large police agencies can have entire units dedicated to the collec-tion of evidence. Fingerprinting, one of the flagship activities long associated with forensic scientists, is actually not done by forensic lab technicians in Canada, ever. There are field technicians in the forensic sciences discipline, but they are out in the field training police officers to do things such as operate breath-alcohol testing equipment.

identification officers would survey the crime scene and collect all evidence, taking pictures and making notes of locations of items and scouring the scene for anything else that might help with the investigation.

The police force would then seek out a forensic lab with the capacity to work on the case. in this instance, because it would be a death investigation with multiple factors, an obvious choice would be the multi-faceted CFs.

step-by-stepevidence would be sent via courier to the CFs where each piece would be logged under a case reference name or number, and each piece would be marked with a unique, lab-generated barcode.

“We use the barcode to track the movement of each piece of evidence throughout the lab during its lifecycle. We can tell at any point where a piece of evidence is, what progress of analysis has it undergone and what is left to do. We can tell when it’s left the door and that it’s been shipped back and the recipient has received it. in court we can demonstrate this chain of custody by simply hitting the print button for a piece of evidence,” says Tessarolo.

The ability to demonstrate chain of custody is extremely important to the credibility of any forensic lab.

“You need to be able to demonstrate that it was securely stored, stored free of any sort of loss or contamination and that it was always accounted for. The LiMs systems allows us to do that,” Tessarolo says.

When the CFs moves to its new building, currently in the design phase and with construction set to begin in 2010, Tessarolo hopes to implement a Radio Frequency identification system (RFiD). This is a two-way communication tool that emits signals from chips attached to pieces of evidence. While barcodes and

checkpoints are very effective, nothing beats knowing exactly where a piece of evidence is at an exact point in time.

once evidence is logged and has moved up through the work-load queue, it hits the floor, or more likely the work surfaces, of the many departments.

blood samples would be picked up by a forensic scientist in the biology section of the lab, which houses more employees than the entire lab did back in the 1970s. one of the 80 employ-ees in biology would generate a Dna profile for the victim, while another might generate a profile for the blood on his shirt and yet another for blood found elsewhere on the scene. if there were saliva or semen on the scene, they would identify these and

Crime SCene Crime SCene Crime SCene Crime SCene Crime SCene

Two forensic technologists utilize a handheld alternate light source toassist in the identification of possible body fluids on a jacket.


create profiles as well. in a best-case scenario, generating a Dna profile could take

as little as 24 to 48 hours. Despite advances in technology, Tessarolo explains, this still isn’t a black box process where a sample is thrown in one end and a picture of the perpetrator comes out the other. There are multiple steps and multiple checks and balances. in the last 15 years, the advent of automated fluo-rescence detection technology has sped up the process. it used to take months. in addition, the robotic sample handling system for Dna profiling which the CFs recently purchased has further increased the speed of profiling, as it can run through the night and simultaneously handle many samples.

This Dna profile could be uploaded to a national databank operated by the federal government called the national Dna Databank using software called the Combined Dna index system (CoDis) in which profiles of convicted felons are stored

and can be compared to Dna profiles generated in active cases. if it turned out that the Dna from the blood on the victim’s hands did not match that from his wounds, a scientist may sur-mise that the blood belonged to his attacker, and may be able to match it to a profile already stored in CoDis.

a scientist in the toxicology department, the largest depart-ment by volume of cases, might look at the blood to determine if any drugs, alcohol or poisons were involved. This would hap-pen in the coroner’s section of toxicology, because it is in support of a death investigation. if this were a sexual assault or an impaired driving-related case, the criminal toxicology section would handle it.

in this story, alcohol was involved and, because it thins the blood, was one of the reasons the victim bled out so quickly. The toxicologist also identified Rohypnol in the blood of the victim, a powerful sedative or date-rape drug. The other thing causing the victim to bleed was the bullet in his chest.

The bullet would be examined in the firearms and toolmarks department of CFs, which is a core part of any gun-related inves-tigation. every time a firearm is manufactured, it is imprinted with microscopic characteristics, which are imparted upon ammu-nition components fired from it. “Through microscopic tech-niques, we establish associations between a particular cartridge case or projectile—there are multiple components of each piece of ammunition—and specific firearms to the exclusion of all others,” says Tessarolo.

using three-dimensional modeling, the bullet can be mapped and a digital image created using the integrated ballistics identification system (ibis). it can then be uploaded to an elec-tronic repository operated by the RCMP called the Canadian integrated ballistics identification network (Cibin). This elec-tronic repository is very much like CoDis, allowing labs to compare gun cartridges and projectiles and identify linkages between shooting events.

“by providing that info to police, it gives them some linkages that they can use to further investigate the two events in hopes of identifying a perpetrator,” says Tessarolo.

Why would somebody become a forensic scientist?“It has some very real and obvious and profound social value. We see the value in the work that we do every day. Whether it’s in the exoneration of someone who is falsely accused, or whether that involves examining evidence that somehow helps a criminal investigation that leads to identifying a perpetrator. Those are real and tangible things that demonstrate the value this work has,” says Tony Tessarolo, Quality Manager at the Centre of Forensic Sciences.

Crime SCene Crime SCene Crime SCene Crime SCene Crime SCene

Forensic scientist Tom Van Drunen test-fires a handgun into a bullet recovery tank. The tank utilizes water to slow down the velocity of a projectile, allowing the bullet to be retrieved in an undamaged state for microscopic comparison to crime scene bullets.

What does it take to be a forensic scientist?For scientific positions—those who interpret the results and make court appearances—there is a minimum of a four-year honours bachelor degree in a science related to the discipline in which they work. Many possess higher levels of education, lending greater expertise and greater credibility. Tony Tessarolo, Quality Manager at the Centre of Forensic Sciences (CFS) in Toronto, is a biochemistry graduate of the University of Waterloo and started his tenure at the CFS in the biology section.


a break in the caseas it turns out, a ballistics match is found through Cibin. The weapon used in the death of the 21 year-old was also used in an attempted murder in the west end of Toronto, and that attempted murder happened to be outside a bar as well. The perpetrator was caught, briefly, on the low-end security camera owned by the bar and facing into the street, but police initially failed to explore this means of possible identification in the unsolved west end case.

The poor-quality videotape is brought in to the document and photoanalysis section of CFs and a lab worker begins enhancing the video footage of the attacker’s face. From the pixilated, broken images shown on the videotape, the lab produces as detailed a facial sketch (if the face is visible in any frame) and suspect profile (detailing height, weight, clothing and any notable characteristics like tattoos or piercings) as possible. in a fraud case, such as a case when somebody has altered the denomination of a cheque or forged a signature on a document, this department could analyze the handwriting of a suspect and compare it to that on the docu-ment, linking the suspect through unique handwriting traits.

any audio signal from the security tape would be handled in the electronics section of CFs. using a combination of software, equipment and skill, the scientist can filter out interfering noise patterns to get a clear signal of what they feel is important to the investigation.

“That might be a 911 call, a voicemail or some form of surveil-lance tape,” says Tessarolo. after filtering out background noise, a first name is uttered by the target on the recording. The police now have a possible name for their suspect.

The electronics experts also sift through the shattered remains of the cell phone to retrieve its memory chip, as text messages or recent phone calls may reveal further information pertinent to the investigation.

“We can go right down to the chip level of that piece of hard-ware in an effort to extract the data being stored on it. almost everybody has a cell phone these days and people are on them all the time. Those transmissions and the data that is stored on them can be very critical to an investigation,” Tessarolo says.

The scientist’s work on the cell phone yields successful results. The same name heard on the security recording is mentioned in a text message received from a friend. The deceased knew the suspect.

an anonymous tipoccasionally the police will release information generated by the forensic lab to the public. a citizen phones in and says they rec-ognize the description of the suspect as a person in their apart-ment building. Police find and detain the individual, seizing a gun and clothing that match those shown on the security tape.

The gun is sent to firearms and toolmarks, where it will be examined and either linked to the crime or eliminated through differences in microscopic characteristics.

a technologist would take a new round, place it into the gun and fire the round into a specially designed water tank. bullets

lose their momentum after traveling through less than a foot of water, so there is no danger to others in the lab, but even so, the firing area is separated from the rest of the lab and technologists wear full protective gear.

This bullet can then be compared to the one recovered from the body and it can be determined whether it’s from the same gun or not.

The clothing goes to the chemistry department, “a sort of catch-all area that conducts testing in a variety of areas,” says Tessarolo.

Primarily, this department deals with debris analysis and trace evidence, the latter of which is relevant here. Trace evidence can identify gunshot residue on clothing by locating and examining microscopic particles found in ammunition primer. if this is indeed the jacket worn by the attacker when he fired the weapon, the chemistry department will prove it. The rolled up cuff of his pants also may hold incriminating evidence, in this case miniscule shards of plastic from what could possibly be a cell phone screen. under a low-suction fume hood, which forensic labs use to eliminate any possibility of microscopic debris being whisked away, the scientist establishes that the debris did indeed come from a cell phone of the same make and model as that which was shattered against the wall at the scene of the crime.

if the crime had happened in a field or a forest, where soil samples could be taken, the chemistry department could link soil samples from a suspect’s shoes to those from the site, putting them at the location of the incident.

Throughout the entire process of evidence examination, as lab technologists are collecting raw data and conducting exams, scientists are making notes and preparing reports to clearly demonstrate the links between evidence and the accused.

“scientists interpret results that are generated and draw conclusions, write reports and testify to the findings of those reports in courts throughout the province,” says Tessarolo.

all of the lab-generated evidence that aided in the police investigation leading to the arrest of the suspect would be pre-sented in court by one or more scientists, depending on how many departments were involved.

The jack-of-all-trades forensic scientists on CSI are no more a reality than the castaways on Lost or the government agents on 24.

Through highly trained staff, a respectable budget and up-to-date equipment, the CFs is able to offer a breadth of ser-vices that most labs cannot, and serves as a reliable source for expanding on the most minute details of any crime scene or evidence examination.

“Fifty years ago, or less, individual scientists would be experts in multiple areas. The expectation of the justice system and the courts now is that you really need to specialize in key areas and you have to demonstrate that you are properly trained and com-petent in any of the areas you undertake casework. it’s really not recommended and it’s not close to easy to be a jack-of-all-trades. The ability to deliver a wide range of services is incumbent on staffing and having the resources to do it,” says Tessarolo.

lab spotlight

LB

Crime SCene Crime SCene


supplier profile

Gone are the days when basic laboratory supplies fit all needs, and when retired founders Wayne and Debbie bird shipped

supplies from their garage. indeed, Canadawide scientific (CWs) has grown from its humble beginnings. With increased require-ments from various research areas, including pharma, clinical, government and university research, and food processing, the need for specialized supplies has pushed CWs to look beyond the conventional.

The world has changed much since the company was founded in the mid-70s by the chemical engineer and his wife. acquired by aCP Chemicals in early 2008, CWs now draws on a wide range of professionals, engineers and technicians to offer services and products to a broader market.

“our association with aCP Chemicals allows us to offer an extensive line of solutions, acids and bases, solvents and drys and, more importantly, specialty custom blends,” says CWs General Manager, Michael Frame.

“The level of sophisticated research being performed in Canada today has not only required us to continue sourcing prod-uct from around the world,” Frame continues, “but it is essential that we stay on the cutting edge of R&D to make sure we offer the research community the very best solutions for their applica-tion needs.”

CWs introduces new products every year. The new 2010 catalogue is the largest to date with approximately 1,000 pages of laboratory supplies, instrumentations and chemicals for industrial, research, clinical, biotech and environmental testing, to name a few. in comparison, the first catalogue was released in black and white in 1976, and only featured 96 pages of general lab supplies.

The advent of internet and e-mail has added an increased

pressure to supply near-instantaneous communication with cus-tomers.

“The research community we serve is highly knowledgeable about the products they wish to purchase,” says Frame, “so our Web site facilitates requests for product and technical information as well as an option to purchase online. The internet has opened a whole new channel of communication for us.” all products featured in the catalogue are also posted on the CWs Web site.

Located in ottawa’s east end, Canadawide’s 15,000 square-foot warehouse and office space shelters 25 employees, ranging from product sourcing to customer service, and procurement to warehouse staff. “ ottawa is a city i have come to enjoy,” says Frame, who began his career in advertising in Toronto. “i spent

By Joanne Brouard Corbeil

Canadawide scientificThe right product mix, service culture and loyal employees fuel homegrown success story


almost seven years within the scientific community here in ottawa before the opportunity arose for the GM position here at CWs.

according to the newly appointed GM (February 2009), CWs was built on a solid foundation, due, in large part, to long-tenured employees. “We have many eight-, 12- and 14-year vet-erans here, as well as several 20-years-plus. Long-term company knowledge is, in my opinion, an overlooked asset. it also is a testa-ment to Canadawide as a company.”

as far as customer service is concerned, CWs’ policies are flex-ible, allowing it to adapt to a customer’s requirements. “i know that it is an over-used adage,” says Frame, “but here the customer really does come first. We would not, and frankly cannot allow our

internal process to guide the customer experience.”To maximize customer experience and satisfaction, the iso-

certified company employs frontline service people with science degrees to assist researchers in finding the right products and technical support for their solutions.

“Today’s laboratory world is dominated by multi-national organizations that struggle to service a global community, and sometimes the individual is lost in the mix,” says Frame. “We pride ourselves on being 100 per cent Canadian-owned and ser-vicing a marketplace we know very well. our size allows us to deliver the personalized service that our customers have come to expect and demand.”

While many science-based companies had to lay off key per-sonnel in the past few months, this stable organization has weath-ered the recession quite well and all staff remain on board. CWs’ steady growth feeds a vision of continued success and fulfilling partnerships.

“i feel that because we are a Canadian homegrown success story, we owe a debt to our community,” says Frame. “We partner in charitable endeavors whenever possible. our partnership also reaches out to employ recent science graduates as well as a sum-mer program to give a real-world experience to students just start-ing out.”

CWs’ focus is to increase the breadth of offerings, sourcing the best brands across all research areas. “our strategies evolve every day, but our vision is to reinforce and continue the great success we have had for the last 33 years. Growth will come through offering our customers unique products and providing outstand-ing customer service to the Canadian marketplace. My hope is that CWs will continue to be viewed as an industry leader and scientific partner in the years to come.”

CANAdAWIdE SCIENtIfIC At A GlANCE

Name: Canadawide ScientificFounded: 1976Headquarters: OttawaEmployees: 25Core Competency: Superior customer experience, Product breadth Contact Info: 1-800-267-2362Web Site: www.canadawide.ca

Deborah Roche, Operations Manager, and Michael Frame, GM,

survey the 15,000 square-foot Canadawide Scientific warehouse.

LB


If we want to protect an endangered animal such as the wood-land caribou, we have to do more than just study the animal in

isolation. We must understand how it interacts with its total envi-ronment, including its habitat and other animals, as well as humans. We must then try to determine the best possible condi-tions for it to live in healthy numbers and study the threats that could undermine its persistence. it’s no different with humans, except that the problems we have created for ourselves—on a global scale—are even more complex.

sometimes it seems that science is inadequate to address the myriad problems of pollution, global warming, population growth, biodiversity loss, changing ocean conditions, and so on.

scientists don’t always take a big-picture approach. applied science, for example, is often focused on knowledge for a specific need or to solve a practical problem, such as the invention of a new technology. The science may delve into the mechanics of the technology with little regard for its social implications. basic or “pure” science, on the other hand, is aimed at gaining an understanding of a phenomenon or process, sometimes without considering its practical application. While both areas are valuable to society, neither alone attempts to tackle that greatest of human experiments in its entirety: our own survival!

a branch of science that has emerged over the past two decades is attempting to encom-pass both fundamental understanding and practical applications with a fascinating goal: to learn the degree to which humans are living in harmony with their environment and how they can con-tinue to do so over the long term. unlike many specialized scien-tific fields that might interest only a few people, this one ought to interest everyone!

industrial society has had an enormous impact on natural eco-systems, to the point that very little of nature remains untram-melled by the human footprint. sustainability science helps identify potential “planetary boundaries” such as the world’s avail-able “biocapacity” compared with humanity’s collective “ecological footprint.” in short, it helps us better understand the complex challenges we face.

The terms sustainability and sustainable development get tossed around a lot, and it’s often difficult to know exactly what

they mean. The most commonly cited definition is from the un World Commission on environment and Development, which defines sustainable development as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

Part of the difficulty is that some environmental problems are so complex and much of the science to date has addressed only fragments—dealing with one problem at a time. but the problems and their solutions are interrelated and must be looked at from a larger perspective. This is the realm of sustainability science.

as with our caribou scenario, we must first look at the scien-tific conditions necessary for sustainability and then look “back” to the present day, studying options for getting there. in some

ways, this is opposite to the kind of forecasting that is often used in science. The u.s. national Research Council characterizes the study as a way to improve our capacity to live on the earth in a way that will “meet the needs of a much larger but stabilizing human popula-tion… sustain the life support systems of the planet, and… substantially reduce hunger and poverty.”

That’s a pretty tall order. as the national academy of sciences points out, some issues to be resolved include improving access to clean water, developing cleaner energy and manufac-turing systems, reducing the impact of pollu-tion on human health, enhancing agricultural

production and food security, creating more livable urban environ-ments, and reducing poverty.

This branch of science is gaining respect in academic circles worldwide, but it’s such an important field that it should be part of science programs in all schools. in a world that is expected to reach a population of 10 billion, it’s important for science to con-sider how we are to survive and live in harmony with the natural systems that we are a part of and therefore depend upon. it’s a huge task that requires a broad vision. as more people—not just scientists—begin to understand the science and the complexity of the problems, and to design lasting solutions, we will start to see a brighter, more sustainable future.

Dr. David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author, and chair of the David Suzuki Foundation. Learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org.

New Science looks at Big Picture for the future

By David Suzuki

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suzuki comment

Sometimes it seems that science is

inadequate to address the myriad problems of pollution, global

warming, population growth, biodiversity loss, changing ocean conditions, and so on.


lab reports

Accreditation and Credibility go Hand-in-hand

By Jason Hagerman

The time has come to sell the house. it’s too big now that the kids have moved out, too much work to keep clean, too expensive to keep it cool in the summer and warm in the winter. but

before you sell, the house needs a bit of work. it was perfectly fine for you to live in, but nobody is going to buy a house with a roof that sometimes leaks when the snow melts, or windows that only open halfway. it’s time to find a contractor to bring these things up to standard.

The Yellow Pages offer up two options. The first is a big, colourful advertisement for a local contractor boasting years of experience, speedy work and discount prices. The ad even guaran-tees that workers will be on-site within 24 hours of your call. The second ad contains mostly text. it lists credentials, mentions the availability of references and provides a phone number to call during business hours, as well as an address. Who do you call?

While reading this you’re obviously being led in a certain direction; surely you would choose the contractor with credentials and references. You do this because you want to get a certain quality of work—that the result will be what you asked for—and the credentials confer a mes-sage that the contractor knows what he’s doing and can provide this degree of quality.

When a business seeks out the services of a laboratory, be it medical, environmental, chemi-cal, any type of lab at all, these credentials and references come in the form of accreditation. as a lab, quality control is paramount, and regulatory bodies that provide accreditation have the power to make or break your reputation.


Accreditation means quality control and adherence to regulations“in ontario, the labs that do testing on humans are all licensed by the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care. They have licenses which specifically outline the type of tests they do,” says Dr. Gregory Flynn, Managing Director for Quality Management Program—Laboratory services (QMPLs), which is operated by the ontario Medical association and accredits licensed medical labs in ontario. by licensing a lab, the govern-ment is saying that yes, the lab is able to do a given test or undertake a given procedure.

accreditation, on the other hand, means that a lab can do a test with a degree of quality related to a given quality standard.

Within QMPLs is a section called the ontario Lab accreditation Division (oLa), which has a partnership with the standards Council of Canada (sCC). The oLa accredits labs using an international standard called iso standard 15189.

“The 15189 standard is becoming the pre-eminent standard to accredit medical labs against, and ontario is a world leader in the application of that standard. We are probably behind only Germany in terms of accrediting labs to that standard,” says Flynn.

This overarching international standard, Flynn says, is used increasingly throughout the world to harmonize the expectations for standardization within medical labs.

“Canada is a country that has hit well above its weight in terms of establishing the 15189 standard,” he says.

Possibly the most important part of this standard (and others like it) is that it incorporates a requirement for a quality manage-ment system with many elements directed toward a process of continual improvement, echoing principals from Toyota Motor Company’s Toyota Production system (TPs), a system it has drawn from.

“Laboratories are required to meet a vast array of standards ranging from safety to quality and integrity of information sys-tems, confidentiality, document control and inventory control,” says Flynn.

This ever-evolving medical lab standard has between 500 and 600 benchmarks that labs must meet.

Medical labs aren’t the only ones that measure themselves against international standards.

Canadian Food inspection agency Food, Feed and Fertilizer labs all work under a quality system, which is the internationally recognized quality system for labs (iso 17025). This standard is recognized by Codex alimentarius (World Health organization food standards guidelines) as good practices for labs involved in the import and export of food.

Audits a-plentyin order to maintain accreditation, labs must undergo regular audits.

“The holder of the 17025 standard is the sCC, and we get audited every two years by this independent body,” says barbara Lee, CFia national Director of Food, Feed and Fertilizer Lab services. “We know when inspectors are coming, and what they do is review all aspects of our quality system. They also bring with them technical experts in a given area, so you get a review every two years of your complete quality system as well as the technical parts of your system.”

additionally, part of this standard requires that the CFia do an internal audit of its own system on a quarterly basis. Results are returned to the sCC demonstrating that the system either meets standards or falls short.

“if something was to deviate from the qual-ity standard, we have, depending on the nature of the action, 30 to 60 days to fix it,” says Lee.

additionally, as a means of maintaining quality, “we also have independent audits done by foreign coun-tries,” Lee says.

Generally, aside from foreign audits, local experts survey lab systems.

“When we send a team in, it is of your peers,” says Flynn. “it’s somebody from ontario, a team with expertise in that area because we choose them for specific knowledge and ability, and

lab reports

Labs are a lot better run when they

know somebody’s looking.

Lab business Fall 2009 29CALA.indd 1 3/23/09 10:17:28 AM

they are people you’d see at scientific meetings. There is a phi-losophy of helping and improvement.”

This philosophy extends into services offered by QMPLs, which is planning to unveil a nine-part webinar series focused on quality management systems in september.

“it’s not appropriate for an accrediting body to actually be a consultant to the organizations that they accredit. However, we can be somewhat helpful. our view is that short of actually going and consulting, this is the best educational product we can deliver to help labs on that journey,” says Flynn.

Accreditors are also accreditedRegulatory bodies such as sCC, CFia or QMPLs don’t just sit back and tell labs what to do without themselves staying on the cusp of quality management. if a master carpenter wants to tell his or her apprentice how to do something, the master needs to stay up on the newest techniques and be able to demonstrate his pro-ficiency in order to critically evaluate the student.

QMPLs is accredited, and audited, by sCC. “Likewise, they are accredited too,” says Flynn. For the 15189 standard, “they’re accredited by the asian Pacific Laboratory accreditation Collaboration, or aPLaC.”

CFia is accredited by sCC, which is also accredited by the international Laboratory accreditation Cooperation (iLaC) to

enforce the 17025 standard. accreditation, experts believe, is essentially a promoter of proactivity.

“one of the major benefits of the quality system is that it is generally proactive rather than reactive,” says Lee, and being pro-active helps organizations like CFia stay up-to-date, to make sure it’s on the leading edge of science.

“We’re finding that as the standard itself evolves, more and more it becomes a preventative approach,” she says.

it is becoming increasingly infrequent to come across a lab that is not pushing to meet an international standard, and meeting such standards demands and breeds constant vigilance.

ISO (International Organization for Standardization) is the Geneva, Switzerland-based association of national

standards institutes from 161 countries that develops internationally recognized operating standards.

Technical committees comprising experts from the industrial, technical and business sectors which have asked for the standards, and which subsequently put them to use, develop ISO standards.

The latest available figures show that ISO holds 704,871 pages of standards relating to 17,765 separate standards.IS

O S

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ards

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tech watch

Chromatographyin the early 20th century, it was generally accepted that chlorophyll and xanthrophyll were the only two pigments present

in the structure of plant leaves. Then along came a botanist by the name of Mikhail semenovich Tsvet. He set out to identify further pigments, and along the way developed the technique of adsorption analysis. Within a decade of the development of this technique, Tsvet had identified eight separate pigments and had come up with a name for his technique: chromatography. Tsvet would grind leaves by hand in an organic solvent to extract pigment, and then wash the material through a vertical column containing adsorptive material.

Today’s chromatography equipment operates at extremely high levels of efficiency and is suitable for a variety of applications. speed and sensitivity are ever increasing. below are just a few new examples of cutting-edge chromatography.

Perkinelmer, inc. now offers swafer, a new micro-channel wafer technology platform for flow switching applications in capillary gas chromatography (GC). From simple techniques such as con-necting two detectors to one col-umn and removing unwanted material from a column, to sophis-ticated multidimensional separa-tions on complex samples, swafer’s capabilities cover a wide range of applications. Two versions of the swafer are now available. The s-swafer is a scalable splitting

device designed for sample-stream splitting between a range of detec-tors or columns, while the D-swafer is based on the classic Deans’ switch principle. swafer is designed with a broad spectrum of applications in mind, from detec-tion of pesticides in food products to the analysis of complex matrices such as petroleum or natural prod-ucts, and integrates all paths in contact with samples into a single circular disk 20 mm in diameter and 3 mm in thickness. www.perkinerlmer.com

if separation in seconds is what you need, then the agilent 1290 infinity Liquid Chromatography system, from agilent Technologies inc. might be right up your alley. The 1290 enables users to deploy any particle type, any column dimensions or any mobile and stationary phases through its large analytical power range. This range provides the highest separation power per time for sub-two-micron and other advanced particle columns. it is the first system that delivers the foundations for method transferability from and to any vendor’s uHPLC and HPLC systems. The new 1290 infinity binary pump module reduces background noise, contributing to the system’s high signal- to-noise ratio. active Damping combines innovative pump engineering with embedded firmware to greatly reduce “pump ripples” and associated uV noise. To help users take full advantage of the ultra smooth pump module, the 1290 infinity LC also features a new uV Diode array Detector with exceptional sensitivity. The unit also has the capacity to run more than 2,000 samples in an eight-hour shift.www.agilent.com

Wafers Can Detect Pesticides… in Wafers!

The Need for Speed


The first step in sample prepa-ration for analytical methods, such as HPLC, is weighing substances precisely and cor-rectly by hand with a spatula. Weighing with a spatula is a slow, unsafe and expensive process. To address this, Mettler Toledo offers QuanTos, an automated dosing system to transfer small amounts of free flowing sub-stances directly into the tare container. Thanks to high-precision engineering and intelligent electronics, each dose hits the target weight without exceeding tolerances.

The stirrer within the head ensures homogeneity of the compounds. The integrated Radio Frequency identification (RFiD) chip saves all the information, such as substance iD, quantity and date, in a secure and traceable way. QuanTos offers 220 g measuring performance with a readability of 0.005 mg, enabling the typical usP min-imum weight of only 10 mg. The system can dose into a variety of tare containers at a rate of up to 20 times faster than by hand.www.mt.com

Waters’ aCQuiTY ultra-Performance LC (uPLC) system is up to 10 times faster, offers three-times greater rou-tine sensitivity and two-times higher resolution than HPLC systems. one uPLC system does the work of three or more HPLC systems, consumes 95 per cent less solvent and sig-nificantly enhances Ms per-formance, says Waters. This comprehensive system includes the aCQuiTY uPLC sample

organizer, Column Manager and Heater/Cooler, binary solvent Manager and sample Manager for customized throughput and condition requirements. it also includes chemistries and formats to suit specific analytical tasks, including aCQuiTY uPLC 1.7 μm columns, VanGuard pre-columns or aCQuiTY uPLC Hss and Hss T3 1.8 μm columns. www.waters.com

The Thermo scientific accela high-speed chromatographic system provides fast, efficient chromato-graphic separations over a range of flow rates and pressures. accela optimizes the performance of sub-two micron particle columns, providing seamless operation spanning conventional LC pressures, from short LC columns up to 15,000 psi. The accela quaternary pump is capable of handling pres-sures up to 15,000 psi with a delay volume of only 65 μL, enabling high-speed chromatographic separations. The autosampler has a specialized diamond-coated high-pressure valve that can handle the rigours of constant high-pressure injections, while the sampling design enables 30-second injec-tion cycles. The autosampler integrates isothermal injection and separation to provide reliable repro-ducibility by eliminating all external environmental influences to the chromatography. The accela PDa has been optimized for the detection of high-speed chromatographic separations. The one centimetre flow cell pathlength, combined with the minimized flow cell volume of two μL, renders the LightPipe flowcell an excellent choice for fast separations.www.thermo.com

Automated Sample Prep Increases Efficiency

Faster Separations in an Accelerating World

Accela-rate Your Lab


lab ware

Direct Liquid Injection Vapourizers Deliver Pure VapourFor customers who require reliable liquid vapourization, Brooks Direct Liquid Injection (DLI) vapourizers, from Brooks Instrument, deliver chemically pure vapour in every applica-tion. Brooks DLI vapourizers employ heated gas, rather than a hot metal surface, to accomplish liquid vapourization. As liq-uid enters the heated gas chamber, it is atomized by a carrier gas stream. Once the atomized liquid contacts the hot gas, it immediately converts to vapour, resulting in chemically pure vapour, free of decomposition byproducts or liquid carry-over. Additionally, Brooks DLI vapourizers can accept multiple liquid inlets and will generate perfectly mixed vapours. Brooks offers vapourizer designs to accommodate a wide range of liquid properties, from extremely low vapour pressures (below 1 torr) to very low flow rates (below 5 grams per hour) and very high flow rates (more than 15 kg/hr).www.brooksinstrument.com

Change Flow Rate on-the-FlyThe Pico Syringe Pump from KD Scientific has both infusion and withdrawal capabilities with accurate delivery of picolitre, nanolitre, microlitre and millilitre flow rates. The Pico Pump is designed to hold two syringes, from 0.5 µl up to 10 ml, and combines smoother flow and updated features to create a high performance pump at affordable prices. The flow range of this unit is from 1.3 picolitres/min up to 0.8788 ml/min depending on the syringes selected. The bright two-line display, easy to use interface and six-membrane keys require only two entries to start pumping. In addition, the flow-rate can be changed while the pump is running.www.kdscientific.com

Keeping Biobanks OrganizedThermo Scientific Nautilus LIMS for Biobanking and BioSpecimen Management will help manage biospecimen locations, online requests, chain-of-custody and patient demographics. Built on the hierarchi-cal sample management and patented workflows of Nautilus LIMS, the new biobanking functionality will contribute to the increasing role of biobanks and bioreposito-ries in meeting research and development requirements for relevant biospecimens. Whether storing or tracking whole blood, tissue, cellular lysates, DNA, RNA, proteins, etc., Nautilus supports organization-wide inventory control. Additionally, Nautilus’ Web interface provides centralized global access in a secure environment.www.thermofisher.com

New Liquid Handler Allows Automated Dosing and Pipetting of SamplesLiquid Handler is the latest titration product offering from Mettler Toledo. Liquid Handler is a 50 ml multi-burette with integrated drive for accurate dosing of aqueous or non-aqueous liquids using a six-port valve. Each port is individually assignable, allowing dosing of up to four different liquids, such as samples, solvents and other auxiliary reagents with burette accuracy and resolution. A wide volume range from 10 µl up to 15 l (with repeated filling) can be aspirated or dispensed with a rate ranging from 1.5 to 150 ml/min. The plug and play connection enables immediate automatic recognition by the titrator and configuration in the titrator’s system upon connection. Liquid Handler can be used with Mettler Toledo Excellence titrators T70 (one Liquid Handler) and T90 (up to two Liquid Handlers with sequential or simultaneous operation).www.mt.com


Save Space and Cut Operating Costs with New Vacuum PumpThe new three-stage compact scroll vacuum pump (CSVP) from Air Squared is unique in its size class,

producing up to five mTorr (6.5 x 10-6 atmosphere) vacu-um without a turbo pump—10 times greater vacuum than

standard pumps, which would need turbo boost to reach that level. With a package size of 19.2 x 15 x 14.5 cm (7.5 x 5.9 x

5.7 in) the CSVP is about half the size of standard pumps. The oil-free pump weighs just 4.5 kg (10 lb) and is ideal for portable instru-ments. With power requirements of 150 watts, the rotary scroll design provides quiet, balanced and pulse-free operation. Power delivery is continuous, which virtually eliminates pulsation and associated noise.www.airsquared.com

A new, high-volume manual microtiter evaporator designed for drug-development applications was introduced by Organomation Associates, Inc. The MICROVAP 3 Nitrogen Evaporator is a compact unit that can accommodate three 96-well microtiter plates at once and provides one two-inch long 19-gauge needle centred over each sample well. Featuring individually controlled manifolds for both nitrogen and temperature, this versatile high-volume microtiter evaporator consumes only 20 to 30 LPM of nitrogen per plate. Microvap 3 is suited for drug development laboratories that process thou-sands of small samples simultaneously, and includes standard features such as a 250-watt heater for each plate, equipped with an electronic temperature controller from ambient to 100 C.

L I S T O F A D V E R T I S E R S & W E B S I T E S

CALA ...........................................................Page 29 ...........................................................www.cala.caCaledon Labs ..............................................Page 15 ............................................ www.caledonlabs.comCanadawide Scientific .................................Page 17 ................................................www.canadawide.caEppendorf ....................................................Page 4, 35 ............................................www.eppendorf.comFauske & Associates ...................................Page 8 ....................................................... www.fauske.comFisher ...........................................................Page 2 ....................................................... www.fishersci.caPublic Health Agency of Canada ................Page 23 .........................www.publichealth.gc.ca/pathogens www.santepublique.gc.ca/pathogenesVWR ............................................................Page 10 .......................................................... www.vwr.comWaters .........................................................Page 36 ..................................................... www.waters.com

Low-profile Chamber Features Adjustable Bath GeometryWarner Instruments has introduced the new RC-31 Confocal Imaging Chamber. This closed-bath, low-profile chamber features an adjustable bath geometry and large 25 mm viewing aperture. The closed-bath design of the RC-31 allows the flow chamber to be used with both upright and inverted microscopes—making it ideal for any laboratory set-up. The RC-31 Imaging Chamber provides optimal control of culture conditions, the cellular environment, and is amenable for long-term studies using live cells.www.warneronline.com

Design your Own ChipsDolomite introduced the glass Mitos Capillary Electrophoresis Chip A to separate small quan-tities of biological molecules by capillary electrophoresis. The Mitos Capillary Electrophoresis Chip A separates species in the interior of the microchannel based on their size-to-charge ratio. The high surface-to-volume ratio of the microchannels allows the application of high voltages without overheating the samples. Users can custom design chips with straight chan-nels up to 150 mm in length and with a channel depth varying from 250 nm to 300 µm. The thickness of the top and base layers can range from 150 µm to five mm and the entire chip can be fabricated from quartz.www.dolomite-microfluidics.com


sitting with

according to the u.s. Census bureau, about 1,000 people move to the state of Florida every day. among those ranks on a day in november 2009 will be Dr. rafick-Pierre sekaly, a man of particular reverence in the world of HIV research, who was made the proverbial offer he couldn’t refuse.

“i received a very big sum of money from the state of Florida to start a research institute focused on cancer and infectious disease,” says sekaly.

That sum of money is in the neighbourhood of $100 million, which sekaly will use to design and build the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute in Port st. Lucie to his specifications.

For the time being, sekaly remains in his post at the University of Montreal, men-toring a lab of 45 scientists. When sekaly goes, he will take with him 25 members of the montreal team. The others will remain in Canada, and sekaly will make monthly pil-grimages to check in for at least the next two to three years.

“i have a lot of excellent people here in Canada and i still want to nurture these interactions,” he says.

eventually, in addition to the team that relocates with him, sekaly plans to attract an addi-tional 225 researchers from a variety of fields to the institute. The goal, he says, is to estab-lish a critical mass of scientists in order to make a leap forward in his research.

“You have to attract the best scientists in multiple disciplines to get them working together on a very specific thing,” says sekaly.

The majority of his funding comes from the u.s. already—about $3 million—from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This is compared to the $450,000 he receives from the Canadian institutes of Health Research (CiHR) —and he expects his level of research funding to at least double by adopting the new home.

“i’m extremely grateful to the Canadian government and to everybody that has helped me over the last 20 years. i would never have been who i am today without the support and funding that i’ve been given. but if i want to go a step further, if i really want to implement every-thing i’m developing, that is something that requires much more resources,” sekaly says. “i want to make a difference in patients and i simply can’t do that with the resources i have now.”

Dr. rafick-Pierre sekalyChasing a vaccine for HIV leads renowned Canadian researcher south

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