Germany

U of T and Max Planck Society establish centre to study neural science and technology

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 15 Apr 2021 20:54:12 +0000

U of T and Max Planck Society establish centre to study neural science and technology

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 04/15/2021 - 16:54

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Max Planck Society President Martin Stratmann and U of T President Meric Gertler participated in a virtual launch event for the Max Planck-University of Toronto Centre for Neural Science & Technology (photo by Axel Griesch für MPG and Johnny Guatto)

Geoffrey Vendeville

Topic

Global Lens

Temerty Faculty of Medicine

Germany

Centre for Addiction and Mental Health

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Global

Meric Gertler

Research & Innovation

Ted Sargent

University Health Network

The University of Toronto has joined forces with Germany’s Max Planck Society, one of the world’s foremost scientific institutions, to establish a centre for the study of neural science and technology.

Hosted by both institutions, the Max Planck-University of Toronto Centre for Neural Science & Technology aims to develop and deploy advanced technologies to study brain circuits for the improvement of human health, while charting new territory in computing.

There are plans to train more than 25 doctoral students over the next five years.

“Max Planck and U of T are ideally suited to form a close collaboration,” said U of T President Meric Gertler during a virtual launch event this week.

“This is especially true when we consider our combined talent in brain function and health.”

The virtual event was attended by Martin Stratmann, president of the Max Planck Society, Stéphane Dion, Canada’s ambassador to Germany and special envoy to the European Union and Europe, and Dion’s diplomatic counterpart, Sabine Sparwasser, Germany’s ambassador to Canada.

Ted Sargent, U of T’s vice-president, research and innovation, and strategic initiatives, told attendees the collaboration would give PhD students access to resources and expertise not only at U of T and the Max Planck network, but also at the University Health Network (UHN), the Hospital for Sick Children and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

“It’s a partnership that’s going to drive not only cutting-edge research, but also innovative education and research translation in neuroscience and technology,” he said.

(Clockwise from top left) U of T President Meric Gertler, Max Planck Society President Martin Stratmann, German Amassador Sabine Sparwasser and Stéphane Dion, Canada’s ambassador to Germany and special envoy to the European Union and Europe.

The new centre will divide its research focus into four main streams: micro/nanotechnology for neural interfaces and sensors; understanding the neural basis of memory and behaviour; human neurons, microcircuits and cellular/molecular neurobiology; and neuroscience-inspired artificial intelligence and computing.

The plan calls for PhD students to spend their first year in Toronto and up to three years with a Max Planck partner institute before graduating with a U of T degree. Frequent exchange between the two institutions will take place throughout the students’ studies.

Stratmann, who joined the virtual inauguration from Munich, said Max Planck’s academic partners represent a “who’s who in science.”

“This new centre is special, I have to say, because it is truly interdisciplinary,” Stratmann said, citing Toronto’s expertise in neuroscience, neurosurgery and artificial intelligence.

“The Vector Institute [for Artificial Intelligence], for example, is highly regarded in Europe – even reaching attention on the federal political level.

“I have talked many times with (Chancellor) Angela Merkel about the Vector Institute.”

Dion and Sparwasser saluted the new partnership, which was inaugurated two days before the 50th anniversary of an agreement solidifying German-Canadian scientific and technological co-operation.

“What we see today is a match made in heaven,” said Sparwassser, noting U of T’s prowess in brain science, computing and other fields, and Max Planck’s history of success, including 20 Nobel laureates.

Joyce Poon, director of the Max Planck Institute for Microstructure Physics in Halle, Germany, worked with Taufik Valiante, an associate professor in U of T’s department of surgery in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine and scientist at the Krembil Brain Institute in the University Health Network, to make the Max Planck-U of T Centre a reality.

“It is another major pillar of the growing neurotechnology ‘ecosystem’ here at the University of Toronto and participating TAHSN [Toronto Academic Health Science Network] hospitals,” Valiante said.

“It is also exemplary of the much-needed cross-disciplinary work that needs to be done to advance brain science.”

Researchers such as Poon, who specializes in integrated photonic devices and circuits for communications and neurotechnology, bring an engineering background that complements experts such as Valiante, a neurosurgeon and scientist who has researched memory, epilepsy and the biophysical properties of neurons, among other topics.

Valiante said the new Max Planck-U of T Centre’s creation comes at a key time.

“There is a great sense of societal urgency given an aging population and the fact that neurological conditions have a greater societal burden than heart disease and cancer combined,” he said.

Illan Kramer, U of T’s director of international research partnerships, said interdisciplinary and global collaboration with a world-class institution such as the Max Planck Society will allow local researchers to see complex scientific questions in a new light.

“You really can see the problem from a 360-degree perspective when you look at it in through an interdisciplinary and international lens,” he said.

Moreover, the agreement creates new opportunities for U of T graduate students to work with top researchers in their fields, giving the university a competitive edge in recruiting promising students.

“It winds up being an excellent net benefit from a variety of perspectives,” Kramer said.

“Not only does it help experts do better research, but we get to attract the absolute highest calibre researchers.”

From cargo bikes to online politics: U of T students plug into German innovation via virtual internships

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 27 Oct 2020 14:52:42 +0000

From cargo bikes to online politics: U of T students plug into German innovation via virtual internships

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 10/27/2020 - 10:52

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MotionLab.Berlin is an innovation hub focused on enhancing urban mobility (photo courtesy of MotionLab.Berlin)

Topic

Faculty of Arts & Science

Global

Innis College

St. Michael's College

Students in the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Arts & Science gave their language skills and career options a big boost last summer via internships with innovative German businesses – all without setting foot in the European country.

Run by the department of Germanic languages and literatures, the students took part in futurGenerator, an extension of the department’s iPRAKTIKUM initiative. The internship program, which was conducted virtually this year because of the pandemic, connected students with companies in Berlin and Freiburg so they could receive international work experience.

Hania Eid worked remotely for three months with MotionLab.Berlin, a growing innovation hub focused on developing hardware to enhance urban mobility.

“When I heard of MotionLab as ‘Europe's first prototyping space for hardware in mobility,’ I was immediately interested,” says Eid, a member of Innis College who recently completed her bachelor's degree in political science with a double minor in equity studies and Spanish. “I thought this would be a great way to learn more about a sector that I had never considered working in before, and to contribute to a great company that’s developing original projects.”

She worked with one of the company’s co-founders and produced research for an upcoming project called NOCA, or “no car,” that is devoted to cycling infrastructure, market research in the area of cargo bikes and the impact of COVID-19 on cycling infrastructure internationally.

“Now, more than ever, it's important to include cycling infrastructure in the bustling cities of major countries, especially in Europe,” says Eid. “Because of COVID, many cities have introduced temporary bike lanes to make way for more sustainable and healthier modes of transportation. With these new lanes, the cargo bike industry is booming.”

Her work consisted of examining international markets, products and consumer preferences to analyze the feasibility of introducing NOCA to the streets of Germany in the near future.

“By the end of my internship my language skills had improved immensely,” says Eid, adding that she was keen to work in a German-speaking enrvironment following graduation. “It was also great to conduct research on a topic completely unrelated to my work in undergrad. Since I'm a recent graduate, it's important to consider different fields of work so as not to limit myself. I’ll definitely be looking into working in Germany in the future.”

Stuart Jones a fourth-year student at St. Michael's College also completed an internship with MotionLab.Berlin. He is majoring in international relations and European studies and minoring in German studies. He, too, wanted to strengthen his German language skills.

“I truly believe immersion is the pathway to language mastery, and futurGenerator has offered some really great opportunities for students to engage in an authentically German-speaking work environment,” he says.

Jones worked on a new digital engagement platform that functions as a virtual symposium for social and political issues.

“As a student of global – particularly European – politics, the chance to do political and business research for an initiative based in Germany was too good to pass up,” says Jones.

“I did research and compiled reports on this new political engagement platform – very much still in its genesis – which hopes to connect users so that all citizens can feel their voices are heard and they can appreciate all the channels of democracy beyond just voting.”

The reports Jones wrote and the content he was exposed to during the internships was all in German. “This really helped me focus on the language and learn a great deal of new vocabulary and terminology I wouldn't have otherwise in class,” he says. “And I gained exposure to current societal discourses in Germany surrounding democracy, political participation and other contemporary issues.”

Jones says he also felt like he was exploring possible career paths. “It was so relevant to my interests and area of academic study, it was almost hard to believe sometimes,” he says. “I could really see myself working at a company or on projects like this in the future.”

Stefan Soldovieri, chair of the department of Germanic languages and literatures, and Helena Juenger, the iPRAKTIKUM student placement co-ordinator, say they are pleased with futurGenerator’s first online internships.

“In the beginning, we felt like the students were not going to have as great an experience as the students who went to Germany last summer,” says Juenger. “But the students and MotionLab were incredibly enthusiastic. It was a success on both sides and that was really, really gratifying.”

U of T's Fisher Library acquires copies of Der Eigene, the world's first gay magazine

geoff.vendeville — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 17:34:42 +0000

U of T's Fisher Library acquires copies of Der Eigene, the world's first gay magazine

geoff.vendeville Tue, 07/16/2019 - 13:34

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A 1924 copy of Der Eigene, said to be the world's first gay magazine, was recently added to Fisher's collection. A segment of the inscription is missing where a recipient's name might have been (photo by Geoffrey Vendeville)

Geoffrey Vendeville

Topic

Global Lens

Germany

Faculty of Arts & Science

History

Humanities

LGBTQ

Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library

U of T Libraries

One of the opening pages of a 1924 edition of Der Eigene, said to be the world’s first gay magazine, is missing a piece. The carefully cut-out segment, a few centimetres across, removes the text of an inscription – likely the recipient’s name – that was pencilled in by someone named “Gertrud” nearly 20 years after the issue was first published.

It isn’t a stretch to imagine that the missing name speaks to the risks of owning or being linked with such a magazine in Nazi Germany, according to Andrew Stewart, the reading room co-ordinator at the University of Toronto’s Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library.

“There’s not much information about gay lives at this point because people were very much closeted,” Stewart says.

“It’s very unusual to have people be so open about their private stories and desires like this. I think that’s where the value lies – in that they are speaking their minds and attaching their names to articles, which would have been very risky at the time.”

Der Eigene provides a rare window on gay life and the homosexual rights movement in Germany from the end of the German Empire through to the Third Reich, a period when homosexuality was considered criminal. Not many copies of the magazine survived. Researchers say it had just 1,500 subscribers, even at its peak in the 1920s, and that many copies were later destroyed.

U of T Libraries recently acquired five issues of the magazine dating from the 1920s for its collection – plus a donated hardcover version.

Der Eigene – the title loosely translates to “The Self-owner” or “His Own Man” – made its debut in 1896. It was published by Adolf Brand, who gave up his career as a teacher because of his anarchist leanings and became a bookseller and activist. What started out as an anarchist magazine was re-branded an artistic and literary homosexual periodical dedicated to “manly culture.” It contained essays, poems, short stories and photos related to love among men and youths. Some readers submitted personal ads.

Adolf Brand, publisher of Der Eigene, circa 1930 (photo via Wikimedia Commons)

A Der Eigene subscription came with membership to a club, the Community of Self-Owners, in which members discussed issues facing the community and found safety in numbers against the threat of blackmail. Women were not allowed to join.

Der Eigene shared contemporary right-wing ideals such as racial purity and anti-Semitism, “giving it a complicated legacy in LGBT history,” Stewart says.

Brand, too, was controversial. “He was involved in a lot of scandals and basically had a big mouth,” Stewart says.

The magazine didn’t publish regularly because Brand was often cash-strapped or ran into trouble with police. He once caused a sensation by striking a member of the German parliament with a dog whip and later got mixed up in a royal scandal in which men in the Kaiser Wilhelm II’s circle were accused of homosexuality.

Brand was the only one arrested.

He spent another two months in jail on obscenity charges for publishing pictures of nude boys and a poem on friendship. The censor apparently didn’t realize the poem was written by Friedrich Schiller more than a century earlier.

In the more liberal Weimar Republic established after the First World War, the climate was friendlier toward the homosexual rights movement, although homosexuality itself remained illegal. But Brand often didn’t see eye-to-eye with some prominent gay activists of his time, including the doctor Magnus Hirschfeld, the founder the Institute for Sexual Science – the world’s first sexology institute.

“Hirschfeld was about a scientific approach to sexual identity, while for Brand it was about art and anarchism essentially,” says Jennifer Jenkins, an associate professor of German and European history at U of T.

The copies of Der Eigene in the library’s collection will help researchers understand the nuances in opinion and disagreements surrounding homosexuality in Germany at the time, she adds. “It helps students to see that the question of homosexuality in the 1920s was not either-or, whether you’re on the side of supporting it or not,” she says. “There were diverse sexual subcultures.”

The study of queer German history is one of the most active parts of the field today, according to Jenkins.

“It shows aspects of the past which have some proximity to now,” she says. “When I show students pictures of the different gay and lesbian clubs in Berlin, there’s a way in which you see the historical roots of the present day.”

After the Nazis came to power in 1933, stormtroopers raided Brand’s publishing house and seized journals, books and photos. Authorities ruined him financially but spared his life for reasons that remain unknown to this day. He didn’t survive the war, however. In April 1945, he was killed in an Allied bombing.

As for Hirschfeld, who was Jewish, he faced persecution and left Germany in 1932, living out his final years in France. The institute and its archives – his life’s work – were plundered.

The date when much gay-themed literature was burned in bonfires in Berlin and elsewhere in Germany appears on a bookplate in a hardcover issue of Der Eigene (left), which was donated to Fisher by U of T librarian Donald McLeod.

“It’s important that Fisher library has at least a small collection [of Der Eigene] for study,” McLeod says.

In addition to being the first-ever gay periodical, he says, “they were also beautifully produced and stand as works of art.”