Nolan De Leon, 2024 Falling Walls Manitoba winner.

Falling Walls Lab is an international competition, created by the Falling Walls Foundation, inspired by the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.  It promotes research and innovation in all disciplines, by posing the question, “Which walls will fall next?” 

Nolan De Leon (Dr.MD, PhD) won the grand prize sponsored by InfoMagnetics Technologies. The prize includes $1000 cash along with airfare and accommodations in Berlin, Germany to compete in the global Falling Walls competition finale Nov. 7 to 9 with their presentation, Breaking the Wall of Prenatal Diagnostics.

Megan Crooks (MA Clinical Psychology) won the second-place prize of $750 sponsored by Research Manitoba, with the presentation entitled, Breaking the Wall of Phantom Pain Prevention.

Anastasia Matsko (Dr.Med/PhD) was the third-place finalist winning $500 sponsored by QDoc Virtual Healthcare with the presentation Breaking the Wall of Dental Implants.

Sajad Saraygord Afshari (PhD, P.Eng, Postdoc), won the Audience Choice award of $500 sponsored by Red River College Polytechnic for the presentation, Breaking the Wall of AI-Powered Drone Work: Revolutionizing Wildfire Prevention.

“The Falling Walls Lab is an important opportunity to showcase the world-class research happening every day in Manitoba and I would like to thank the large community who came together to bring this celebration to life,” said Dr. Hans-Joachim Wieden, Associate Vice-President Partnerships Knowledge Mobilization & Innovation. “Students are the greatest drivers of change in addressing the pressing challenges faced by society and by empowering entrepreneurs and innovators across disciplines we can make these great ideas a reality.”

Congratulations to all the presenters for sharing their exciting research and being a part of this second Falling Walls Manitoba event:

• Mahdi Zakeri (Healthcare & Medical Sciences): Breaking the Wall of Bone Loss & Healing
• Abhinav Tiwari (Agriculture & Food Science): Breaking the Wall of Grain Drying
• Juanita Garcia (Healthcare & Medical Sciences): Breaking the Wall of Exercise in Spinal Injury
• Venkata Daggupati (Computing & Information Science): Breaking the Wall of Emergency Room Challenges
• Anastasia Matsko (Engineering & Technology): Breaking the Wall of Dental Implants
• Hussein Agoushi (Architecture & Urban Studies): Breaking the Wall of Community Silence
• Samantha Phrakonkham (Healthcare & Technology): Breaking the Wall of Eye Healthcare
• Sajad Saraygord Afshari (Engineering & Technology): Breaking the Wall of AI-Powered Drone Work: Revolutionizing Wildfire Prevention
• Amir Barzegar Behrooz (Healthcare & Medical Sciences): Breaking the Wall of Alzheimer’s Therapy
• Megan Crooks (Healthcare & Medical Sciences): Breaking the Wall of Phantom Pain Prevention
• Nolan De Leon (Healthcare & Medical Sciences): Breaking the Wall of Prenatal Diagnostics
• Carmine Slipski (Healthcare & Medical Sciences): Breaking the Wall of Oral Health Detection

Café Scientifique brings experts together with non-researchers for a discussion about the questions their work has raised for a non-research audience. Café is sponsored by the office of the vice-president (research and international) VPRIO and is a part of the Learning for Life Network.

“Our Café presentations this year were an engaging and insightful look into some of the extraordinary research breakthroughs that take place every day at UM,” says Annemieke Farenhorst, associate vice-president (research). “Researchers are working to improve the lives of people in our communities, and Café is a wonderful opportunity to share this progress with the public. I want to extend my gratitude to the researchers and content experts who presented this year, as well as everyone who joined us and asked questions in-person and online.”

All Café Scientifique presentations are permanently featured on the University of Manitoba Youtube channel:

Technology for Healthcare Service and Public Input, Feb.22, 2023 – Understanding patient experiences, perspectives, and outcomes is critical to improving healthcare services and how it is delivered. Today, input from patients informs new developments in technology that provide a more person-centered and accessible healthcare experience for all.

Featuring UM researchers: Alanna Baldwin, Gayle Halas, Jennifer Henzel, and special guest Sarah Kirby from the George & Fay Yee Centre for Healthcare Innovation.

Time is Brain: Preventing, Treating, and Recovering from Stroke, March 15, 2023 – As part of International Brain Awareness Week and in conjunction with the Manitoba Neuroscience Network, UM researchers highlighted new methods to identify those at highest risk, and innovative rehabilitation techniques to help patients recover from stroke, third leading cause of death in Canada.

Featuring UM researchers: Jillian Stobart, Jai Shankar, Amir Ravandi, & Ruth Barclay.

Racism and COVID-19: Understanding Racism during the pandemic in Canada, USA and Mexico, March 29, 2023 – During the COVID-19 pandemic, an international team of researchers led by experts at the University of Manitoba examined conditions that contributed to a rise of racism across North America.

Featuring UM researchers: Lori Wilkinson, Jeremy Patzer & Kiera Ladner.

Wellbeing in Youth: Supporting Teens with Higher Body Weight, April 26, 2023 – Teens with higher body weights face a significant risk of mental health difficulties, due to the complex intersections of weight-related stigma and other related adversities.

Featuring UM researchers: Leslie Roos, Jon McGavock, Emily Cameron, and special guest Mae Santos, Registered Dietitian.

Windows on the Universe, May 10, 2023 – We have entered a new era where astrophysicists and nuclear physicists can work in concert to piece together the puzzles that astrophysical observations present. Physicists and astronomers are exploring new frontiers in understanding the ultra-small and mega-large in this next era of precision astrophysics.

Featuring UM researchers: Kyle Shiells, Juliette Mammei, Samar Safi-Harb, and special guest Jorge Piekarewicz from Florida State University.

On a Shaky Podium, May 24, 2023 – To address recent allegations of abuse in sporting organizations in Canada, organizations receiving funding from Sport Canada must provide Safe Sport Training to help prevent maltreatment in sport. This extensive toxicity led Canada’s federal Minister of Sport to declare that we are experiencing a safe sport crisis. UM experts are working from legal, pedagogical, psychological, and sociological perspectives to make sport safe(r) for all Canadians.

Featuring UM researchers: Sarah Teetzel, Martine Dennie, Shannon Moore, Lori Wilkinson & Leisha Strachan.

Join us again for the next Café Scientifique season, planned to begin in November 2023.

Kriellaars is a scientist of the Manitoba Institute of Child Health. His research is directed to physical literacy, physical activity, and obesity and he has been awarded national and international awards for scientific research and innovation. He works with Canadian Sport for Life, PHE Canada, the Sport Medicine and Science Council of Manitoba, Cirque du Soleil and the National Circus School, as well as the RCMP on community wellness initiatives.

One often hears that Olympic Games spur on a Nation to become more physically active. However, when looking at the relationship between the prevalence of obesity and Olympic performance one is led to a different conclusion.

Figure 1 below plots the prevalence of obesity and Olympic medals won by Canada at the Summer and Winter Olympic Games combined. This figure reveals little indication that Canada’s Olympic performance has inspired the population to become active. Some actually argue that sporting events such as Olympics have contributed to creating a spectator society which would seem to fit with the amount of time we spend in front of screens of one form or another. One need only to look at the local sports bar to view spectatorship in action, complete with over-­‐consumption of food and excessive consumption of alcohol.

 Figure 1. The prevalence of obesity (blue diamonds) and the combined summer and winter medal count (squares) is plotted annually.

The measured obesity prevalence was used to create a regression equation (y=0.4144x-­‐ 807.18, r=0.977) for estimation of prevalence of obesity values used in Figure 1. The measured obesity prevalence is listed in the table below and derived from the 2011 report entitled “Obesity in Canada: A joint report from the Public Health Agency of Canada and the Canadian Institute for Health Research”. The self-­‐reported data was ignored, as a strong systematic bias of under-­‐representing obesity is present.

The total medal count was obtained from the Wikipedia page.The summer and winter medals were summed per year up to 1992, after this the medal counts were combined in each quadrennial (as the winter and summer Olympics were offset by 2 years after 1992).

The strong association (r=0.88) between medal count and obesity is illustrated in the scatter plot below.

Figure 2. Scatterplot of the obesity prevalence and medal count between 1988 and 2012. The best fit line is shown.

Interestingly, this relationship persists back to the 1972 Olympics, but the strength somewhat weakens (r=0.7) due to an aberrant amount of medals for Canada at the LA Olympics (Figure 3). If the LA data is deleted, the r increases to 0.97 – an almost perfect relationship.

Figure 3. Obesity prevalence and Olympic medal count from 1972 to 2012. The LA Olympics had an aberrant increase in medals (48 medals). Best fit line shown including LA data.

Of interest, is the fact the increase in total medal count over the years can largely (almost entirely) be explained by the increase in the number of events at each Games (data not shown). In other words, we continue to get our fair share of medals. This further highlights the notion, that we are creating a highly disparate culture of the few that are active and an increasing majority that is inactive. Of course, an association between medal count and obesity does not indicate that it is a casual relationship, that “the Olympics is the cause of obesity”. It simply highlights that, despite continued Olympic success, this has not resulted in a reduction of obesity by spurring on a nation of people with active lifestyles. We are truly a spectator society.

About the author

Dean Kriellaars is a faculty member the Department of Physical Therapy. He is a scientist of the Manitoba Institute of Child Health. His research is directed to physical literacy, physical activity, and obesity. Dr. Kriellaars has been awarded national and international awards for scientific research and innovation. Dr. Kriellaars has received two University of Manitoba Presidential Outreach awards for meritorious community work, and recently was awarded the Campbell Award for longstanding community service. He was recently awarded the MPETA builder award for outstanding dedication and promotion of health and physical education in Manitoba. He works with Canadian Sport for Life, PHE Canada, the Sport Medicine and Science Council of Manitoba, Cirque du Soleil and the National Circus School, as well as the RCMP on community wellness initiatives.