UW revamps aquatics lab to expand research on climate change, pathogen transmission

KITCHENER -

The newly revamped aquatics research lab at the University of Waterloo will make the facility one of the few in the country able to do live infection experiments of animals to study pathogen transmission — which could translate into human health applications.

Over the last two years, the Waterloo Aquatics Threats in Environmental Research (WATER) facility has undergone $5.2 million dollars in upgrades and another $2 million worth of equipment will arrive this summer, creating new research possibilities.

“We’re able to house a lot more animals in the facility,” said Paul Craig, associate professor of biology at the University of Waterloo.

Craig describes the renovation as a big step forward for the centre – which has expanded its footprint at the campus. There are now three separate facilities researching the impact of climate change on fish and amphibians.

New tanks house a wider variety of darter fish, which researchers observe to help them to understand the health of local rivers and ecosystems.

“Fish don’t really like a lot of big swings in temperature and so, we want to study what’s going to be the impact on these species from a climate change perspective,” said Craig.

Other animals being studied include zebra fish, which can reproduce through several generations in a two to three-year period, giving researchers a snapshot of climate change impacts.

PATHOGEN TRANSMISSION

New temperate and cold pathogen challenge labs at the university will make the WATER facility one of the few in the country that can do live infection studies to learn about immune responses in fish and amphibians – potentially producing vaccines for those animals.

Barb Katzenback, an assistant professor of biology at the university, is studying African Clawed Frogs, which are known to be carriers of disease.

She says amphibians are dying off due to the spread of disease with over a third of their populations endangered or threatened, and those studies could have human applications.

“An antiviral response in frogs has a lot of similarities to an antiviral response in humans and we can use these animals as models to then take that knowledge and translate it back to human health,” said Katzenback.

The pathogen rooms are expected to be online in February with studies planned for the spring.

“We’re busy planning and we’re excited,” said Katzenback.

Researchers are eager to better understand the natural world and what it has to tell us.

“The pandemic has been a little bit challenging to work with but we have had some really great success and that really stems from some of the great students we’ve had working in the lab with us,” said Craig.

The renovations also include new water recirculation systems that now recycle about 90 per cent of the water in the lab.