Ryerson University
At Ryerson, the Hausner lab collaborates with Dr. Gideon Wolfaardt, an environmental microbiologist who holds a Canada Research Chair in Environmental Interfaces and Biofilms. Specifically, both labs are interested in to what extent the composition and abundance of planktonic cells yielded from biofilms grown in lab-scale flow cells (continuous flow-through systems) reflect the composition and structure of the biofilms. Mona Reza and Dmitry Lomovtsev, two NSERC-USRA supported Ryerson undergraduate students, and Duy Nguyen, a student volunteer, worked on this project. Dr. Wolfaardt is also one of the co-PIs on an NSERC-supported project on cellulose degradation. A recent collaboration with Dr. Wolfaardt and Dr. Dan Foucher (Department of Chemistry and Biology) involved investigations of the antimicrobial effect of NaDCC, a bleach substitute. Ari Morgenthau and Alex Mihai-Nicolae (Ryerson undergraduate students) worked on this project.
Arizona State University
The Hausner lab began its collaboration with ASU in 2009 when Martina Hausner was funded for a project on characterizing biofilms in microbial fuel / microbial electrolysis cells. Laura Berthiaume is the graduate student from Ryerson on this project and she works with three researchers at Arizona State, Dr. Bruce Rittmann, Dr. Prathap Parameswaran, and Dr. Cesar Torres. The microbial electroysis cells are all setup and run at the Biodesign Institute on the ASU campus. Samples are then sent to Laura for microbial analysis. This project was initially supported by the Ryerson International Initiatives Fund.
University of Manitoba
The Hausner lab began its collaboration with the University of Manitoba in 2008, when we received funding through the NSERC Strategic Project Grants program ("Development of designer microbial consortia for bioconversion of cellulose to energy and value-added products”; PI: M. Hausner, Co-PIs: David Levin, Richard Sparling, Josh Neufeld). At the University of Manitoba, we collaborate with Dr. David Levin and Dr. Richard Sparling, researchers in the departments of Biosystems Engineering and Microbiology. Patrick Ronan and Augustyna Dobosz are the graduate students from Ryerson working on this project.