McMaster University

[drpgq]

Wade Hemsworth
The Hamilton Spectator
(May 30, 2009)

Three post-secondary institutions in Hamilton will be receiving more than $60 million in federal and provincial infrastructure funding.

McMaster University is getting $38.5 million, Mohawk College gets $20 million and Redeemer University College gets $3 million. But McMaster and Mohawk will have to find other ways to pay for priority projects that didn't make the cut.

McMaster officially learned yesterday it will get $22 million for its nuclear research facilities, to enhance its ability to produce medical isotopes and to broaden its research and training capabilities. The federal and provincial governments are each putting in $11 million.

The new capacity could allow McMaster's 50-year-old reactor to become a backup supplier of medical isotopes produced at Chalk River, which is now closed for repairs. It already supplies 60,000 isotopes for prostate cancer treatments a year, and is the only other in Canada that can produce medical isotopes.

The $22 million follows $16.5 million announced Monday toward a centre for spinal cord injury and cancer education and rehab.

Still, the university will have to find other ways to pay for its proposed $60-million family medicine training clinic downtown and a $45-million life sciences building at McMaster Innovation Park.

Mohawk is getting $20 million toward its plans to renovate and expand its Fennell campus. It had asked the federal and provincial infrastructure program for up to 85 per cent of the $84-million budget.

Redeemer's $3 million comes from a federal matching program for private institutions.

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[SteelTown]

Williams Coffee Pub is going to be located at McMaster University Health Science Centre, both the 2nd and 1st floor as well. Opens July 20th. Should be interesting to see a two story coffee shop. It's called Williams Fresh Café. It'll be located right next to the newly renovated Halth Sciences Library.

That means there'll be 3 Williams nearby McMaster, I think that's more than Tim Hortons.

[SteelTown]

Looks like there's a good chance that around 3,000 employees at McMaster could be going on strike on September 1st. Strike mandate vote is tomorrow.

[highwater]

Holy!

[SteelTown]

Add another 3000 Teaching Assistants and Research Assistants to joining the strike as well. Their contract ends August 30th. They were the ones that shut down York University.

[Blurr]

I was at York during that time, and it was no fun. I hope they work things out.

If not, maybe ship them over to the lister block to shave a couple years off that completion.

[emge]

Would that affect the IAHS at all?

[SteelTown]

I think the teaching staff at IAHS is all Mohawk employees so I don't think so. But expect interruptions.

[emge]

Likely the Divinity college will get affected, though?

[SteelTown]

Yea they are McMaster employees.

[SteelTown]

Looks like CUPE 3906 Unit 3, Post Docs, could go on strike as well. Could get nasty with three unions going on strike.

I believe this is the first union in Canada, perhaps North America or even in the world, for Post Docs. Universities doesn't like the idea of having Post Docs unionized.

[sofasurfer]

Originally Posted by SteelTown

I believe this is the first union in Canada, perhaps North America or even in the world, for Post Docs..

Apparently, there are three in the US: Rutgers, Conn, and UofCalifornia.

I'm pretty certain none exist in the UK.

Oh, and I gather the CAW strike mandate was passed - should be interesting.

[SteelTown]

From what I hear from UK post docs that's here at Mac all of their benefits and vacation time is covered by the government.

Post docs here get no vacation time and no benefits unless you buy into a plan.

CAW members (myself) could be hitting the picket line on September 1. Two other unions could be joining as well.

[sofasurfer]

Originally Posted by SteelTown

From what I hear from UK post docs that's here at Mac all of their benefits and vacation time is covered by the government.

Post docs here get no vacation time and no benefits unless you buy into a plan.

IIRC, UK postdoc contracts are the same as other researchers' - i.e. you get vacation as any other university employee.
The whole benefits system is totally different btw - 'covered by the government' is a fair summary (i.e. NHS coverage as everyone gets).

Originally Posted by SteelTown

CAW members (myself) could be hitting the picket line on September 1. Two other unions could be joining as well.

I'm CAW here at Mac, too. But I'll be on vacation in the first week of Sep.

[SteelTown]

The last strike lasted I believe 5 weeks. Guess I'll be on a 5 week vacation as well haha.

[drpgq]

Post docs striking? There's a joke there somewhere, probably involving trees falling in the forest.

[SteelTown]

Tentative agreement reached with Postdoctoral Fellows

July 28, 2009
http://dailynews.mcmaster.ca/story.cfm?id=6297

McMaster has reached a tentative collective agreement with CUPE Local 3906, Unit 3 which represents the University's Postdoctoral Fellows.

Details of the contract will be made public once the tentative agreement is ratified by both parties. The union is unanimously recommending members approve the agreement and has scheduled ratification meetings for Thursday, July 30 and Friday, July 31.

This is the first collective agreement for McMaster's Postdoctoral Fellows. Not only is this a first collective agreement between the University and CUPE for this bargaining unit, it is also the first collective agreement for a stand-alone unit of Postdoctoral Fellows in the country.

[drpgq]

Web-exclusive commentary
The McMaster solution

The university's reactor could be part of a homemade fix to the isotope crisis, says Mo Elbestawi

Mo Elbestawi

Special to Globe and Mail Update Last updated on Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2009 01:17AM EDT

In the early 1950s, an enterprising Canadian chemistry professor who had carried out wartime fission experiments for the National Research Council mounted a campaign to build a nuclear reactor at McMaster University in Hamilton. Harry Thode saw the emerging technology of radio-isotope medicine, and he wanted Canada to get on the bandwagon.

About the same time, a Lethbridge-born physicist named Bertram Brockhouse was conducting experiments in neutron scattering at Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. He and Dr. Thode eventually met up at McMaster (Dr. Brockhouse would go on to win the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1994), and their pioneering work began attracting promising young scientists to both the school and the country.

In those Cold War days, there was a James Bond level of secrecy around the research being done inside the reactor. Scientists were forbidden to discuss their work, visiting scientists were given pseudonyms and code words were used in referring to uranium compounds, heavy water and other important materials. Fifty years later, the secret-agent tactics have disappeared, but Canadian know-how in nuclear science and isotope production has soared beyond these pioneers' expectations and positioned us as a world leader.

This year, McMaster Nuclear Reactor celebrated its 50th anniversary A new $22-million infusion from the federal and provincial infrastructure program is allowing us to expand the reactor's research and education facilities. This is on top of our commercial activities, including the production of iodine-125, a critical isotope used in the treatment of prostate cancer. Normally, the Hamilton facility supplies half the Canadian production of i-125 (Chalk River is the other half), shipping isotopes around the world each week. Every day, our technicians make roughly 100 isotopes – or, as they like to say, enough for 100 dads a day.

When the isotope crisis hit, McMaster's reactor automatically ramped up production by 20 per cent of I-125, and offered to retrofit its facility to handle the production of molybdenum-99 (or moly-99, as it is more popularly known). This would enable our reactor to produce four times Canada's entire moly-99 requirement.

It's not the first time McMaster has stepped up to the plate. In the 1970s, production of moly-99 was moved to the McMaster reactor while the NRU reactor at Chalk River underwent a vessel replacement.

Granted, Canada is not solely responsible for dealing with the global isotope situation, but the world has come to rely on us as leaders in the field. We have spent decades cultivating this reputation and it has begun to pay dividends, both in spinoff opportunities and in our ability to attract scientists from around the world. We would do well to remember that scientists are an itinerant group, and for their own intellectual survival they will relocate to where innovation is most welcome and alive. Last month, the U.S. Senate gave the green light for the United States to begin domestic production of medical isotopes in response to the global supply shortage. Until now, the United States has relied on purchasing its supply from Canada.

McMaster wants to be a part of the Canadian solution; it's willing and certainly able. Ramping up the McMaster Nuclear Reactor to produce moly-99 would utilize a facility with proven technology. It would require a modest investment and relatively little startup time. It would reassert Canada's position as a leader in nuclear research and nuclear medicine. And it would save lives and bring peace of mind to countless numbers of cancer and heart patients in Canada and around the world.

Mo Elbestawi is vice-president of research and international affairs for McMaster University in Hamilton.

[SteelTown]

Looks like there will be a strike next Tuesday, about 2,300 employees. Looks like I'll finally have time to catch up on my TV series.

[SteelTown]

Ignatieff backs Mac isotope plan
Would fund reactor expansion as PM

August 30, 2009
Steve Arnold
http://www.thespec.com/News/BreakingNews/article/626167

McMaster University will get all the money it needs to solve Canada’s medical isotope crisis – as long as Michael Ignatieff gets to be the next Prime Minister.
The Opposition Liberal leader made his promise over the weekend after touring Mac’s nuclear reactor and flogging the Harper government for allowing the crisis to develop.

“Canada has had leadership in this field for 60 years. It’s regrettable to say the least that Mr. Harper and Conservatives have had two shutdowns to supplies of nuclear isotopes on their watch,” he told a news conference. “We’re here today to talk to the world-class researchers at McMaster about how they can step in and begin to fill the gap and also continue their world-class research. When we’re in government they’ll have full-hearted support from my government.”

Nuclear isotopes are used in medical tests to diagnosis cancer and other conditions. The bulk of the world’s supply comes from two sources, a Canadian reactor at Chalk River, Ontario, and a facility in the Netherlands. Chalk River has been forced to shut down because it is leaking heavy water and is scheduled to be decommissioned in 2016 while the Dutch plant is slated to go out of production in March for much-needed maintenance.

A small research reactor in Belgium has been picking up some of the slack, but it is only capable of meeting 10 per cent of the world’s need.

McMaster’s 50-year-old reactor is capable of making Moly-99 isotopes, but the university needs $44.3 million over five years to hire and train staff to meet the demand.

Ignatieff said the problem could be solved, if only the government was willing to act.