Michael Hart, the late son of Goldman Sloan Nash & Haber’s Murray Hart, was a promising 2nd-year Masters student at McMaster Universitywith a research quest that had potential to alter science. And while cancer caused his untimely death, Michael Kamin Hart’s spirit at McMaster endures. A new endowed scholarship fund was established in 2011 to honour Michael. Scholarships will be awarded to promising students associated with the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research (IIDR). The advance of medical knowledge depends upon pure scientific research. Research in general and lab research in particular can be laborious, solitary and often frustrating. “The purpose of the scholarship is to recognize promising young researchers early in their research studies and encourage them to continue with their research,” says Murray Hart.
During Michael’s time in IIDR, member Justin Nodwell’s lab, Michael’s graduate research explored the use of environmental microbes as sources of biologically active drug leads. “His work was very successful,” says Nodwell, professor and associate chair, Graduate Education, Department of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences. “He was able, in a relatively short term, to identify a potent antimicrobial agent in extracts of strains of an environmental Streptomyces isolate. The molecule has the remarkable capacity to inhibit the growth of pathogenic microorganisms including several that are resistant to most, if not all, existing clinical antibiotics. He purified the molecule, solved its structure and thereby demonstrated that it was a novel member of a little-understood class of antibiotics called the ‘tetrodecamycins’.”
By means of generous donations this scholarship will greatly help other future promising students like Michael to continue with their scientific research and help advance medical science for the betterment of society.
GSNH is proud to announce thanks to support from clients the first scholarship was awarded on Friday, November 2nd 2012 at the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research during its second annual Trainee Research Day.
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