Quebec’s forest resources, a great source of wealth, provide fully 10% of employment in the province, more than half of it in the Greater Montreal area. The city is home to 40% of Quebec businesses in the paper and wood products sector. They secured 75% of Quebec company patents in the cluster in 2001 and provided more than 56,000 of 155,000 jobs in the sector. The Canadian total was almost half a million that same year. Small wonder, then, that Concordia, in partnership with the Pulp and Paper Research Institute of Canada, Paprican, is engaged in many activities that support this very important industry.
From his office window in the Richard J. Renaud Science Complex, Dr. Adrian Tsang enjoys a stunningly framed view of Montreal. This beauty provides inspiration for his world-leading work at Concordia’s Centre for Structural and Functional Genomics (CFSG), a state-of-the-art facility assembled with the help of a $3 million CFI grant and $1.1 million in seed money from BioChem Pharma, headed by Concordia graduate Dr. Francesco Bellini.
Tsang studies fungi, sequencing and analysing their DNA to develop more efficient and ecologically friendlier industrial solutions. If he has his way, the fungal genes will soon be harnessed to bleach wood pulp for paper without chemicals, and to convert waste such as wheat straws, stalks, twigs and leaves into clean-burning bio-ethanol, among other uses. The economic potential is enormous. He sees a “not-too-distant future” when this technology will reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gases.
This kind of research requires huge computational power and multidisciplinary collaboration. Tsang says he has “one of the strongest integrated teams on campus: computer science, chemistry, biochemistry and biology.” In addition to domestic and international partnerships with Paprican, a division of FPInnovations, the world’s largest not-for-proft forest research institue, and companies like Iogen (a world leader in the development of ethanol from straw) and DSM (the Netherlands-based conglomerate), he has helped build a powerful network across institutional lines. Montreal universities now coordinate equipment purchases for compatibility and to avoid duplication. His projects range from 3-to-5-year deadlines with specific deliverables, to long-horizon shots in the dark. He says: “All major discoveries happen by accident—the initiative to go after the things that are unexpected. The new opportunities are coming from the basic research...Concordia is much more agile and nimble in seeing opportunities from this.”
The Canadian Forest Products Industry is facing enormous challenges in its traditional commodity markets due to competition from lower cost producers. There is currently a significant opportunity to develop new products and manufacturing processes through application of biotechnology. Concordia’s Centre for Structural and Functional Genomics is uniquely positioned to provide us with the tools necessary to bring these ideas to fruition.
Michael Paice
Prinicipal Scientist, Paprican (Division of FPInnovations)
Page Title: Manufacturing Cluster - Paper/Wood - Dr. Adrian Tsang - Concordia University - Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Page URL:http://www.concordia.ca/clusters/paper_wood/index.php
Date Printed: Thu February 23, 2012
