Guyanese/Canadian professor and biomaterials expert Dr. Suresh Narine has been awarded a CDN $3 million Senior Industrial Research Chair in Biomaterials at Trent University , from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada along with Elevance Renewable Sciences Incorporated and the Grain Farmers of Ontario.
A release from Trent University said that over CDN$1.5 million in new NSERC funding was provided to match investments made by Elevance Renewable Sciences, Inc. of CDN$1 million and by the Grain Farmers of Ontario of CDN$500,000 to create the research chair “NSERC/GFO/ERS Senior Industrial Research Chair in Lipid Derived Biomaterials”.
Professor Narine, director of the Trent Biomaterials Research Program, is also a professor of physics and astronomy, and chemistry.
This is in addition to Professor Narine being awarded one of two CDN$1.25 million Ontario Research Chairs in Green Chemistry and Engineering by the Ontario Research Chairs Selection Panel earlier this year in February 2010. This places Trent University’s Biomaterials Research Program among the top-tier research facilities of its kind in the world, the release said.
“Our research offers an alternative solution – to employ agriculturally-sourced renewable feed stocks (fats and oils) to design functional materials more environmentally benign and more in sync with the natural carbon cycle so as to abate and combat climate change,” said Dr. Narine, who was recruited to Trent from the University of Alberta in September 2009. “It is research that is both timely and necessary. On behalf of my team of researchers and Trent University , I would like to offer our deep appreciation to NSERC and our generous founding industrial partners whose match investments are strategically placing Trent ’s Biomaterials Research Program among one of the top facilities of its kind in the world”, Dr Narine was quoted in the release as saying.
Dr Narine has also been a part of Guyana’s Institute of Applied Science and Technology.
For more information, please contact: Professor Suresh Narine (705) 748-1011 Ext. 6105
sureshnarine@trentu.ca