This text is part of the special notebook 55 years of INRS
In 55 years, INRS has contributed to overcoming several social challenges and to advancing scientific knowledge in multiple fields.
Defeat tuberculosis
Until the 1950s, tuberculosis was one of the deadliest diseases in Quebec. The doctor and microbiologist Armand Frappier helped to combat this epidemic, which killed his mother in 1923.
In 1938, he founded the Montreal Institute of Microbiology and Hygiene to reproduce the vaccine he had observed during his studies in Paris. This institute, now attached to INRS, has borne his name since 1975. Vaccination has helped to spectacularly reduce the prevalence of tuberculosis. The Institute has produced other vaccines, against diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus and against influenza, among others.
Predicting river floods
In 1944, engineer HM Finlayson began studying the hydroelectric potential of the rivers of northern Quebec. He quickly encountered the difficulty of predicting the flooding of these rivers.
After choosing the La Grande River for the construction of dams, the Quebec government turned to a team from INRS. This will use a deterministic model to simulate the maximum floods of this river, using the power of the best computers from the 1970s. INRS also helped to review the dimensions of the Pont-Arnaud and Chute-Garneau dams, at Saguenay, after the floods of 1996.
Stop doping!
INRS has extensive expertise in the fight against doping. It houses the only laboratory in Canada accredited by the World Anti-Doping Agency. Founded in 1976, it processes 15,000 samples per year and can detect 400 illicit drugs and doping agents. Its services have been used during several Olympic Games and in professional sports circuits, including the National Hockey League. It is also at INRS that chemist Christiane Ayotte developed a new approach to detecting anabolic steroids using a mass spectrometer, which she considers much more sensitive than traditional methods.
The “family paradise”
The family policy adopted in 1997 created the Quebec Parental Insurance Plan (QPIP), early childhood centers (CPE) and the unified family allowance. These innovations have encouraged the arrival of mothers on the job market and improved family support, among other things.
This advance stems largely from the efforts of the Familles en mouvance research partnership, founded by INRS anthropologist Renée B. Dandurand, who, since the end of the 1970s, has been interested in the various transformations concerning family life in the Quebec. The INRS produced a series of reports which took stock of Quebec’s family assistance programs and compared them with other family policies. This exercise will become the driving force behind the thinking of the PQ government of the time.
Lasers of the future
In the mid-1980s, INRS used the first frequency drift laser. He also designed a femtosecond laser. Over the years, the laser has found concrete applications in telecommunications, physics and even medicine, such as eye surgery. Today, certain INRS researchers wish to use it in the early detection of cancers.
In 2021, other INRS researchers contributed to the development of a laser capable of producing high-intensity light waves in the extreme ultraviolet spectrum, but small enough to be housed in a laboratory, a world first .
Control lightning
In 2015, physicist Roberto Morandotti and his collaborators guided an electrical discharge using lasers and made it navigate around obstacles. This breakthrough was made in the Femtosecond Sources Laboratory of the INRS Energy Materials and Telecommunications Center. Small electrical discharges are used, for example, to operate neon lamps or to trigger the ignition of car engines. But as they are erratic, it is difficult to use them more. Professor Morandotti’s innovation could promote the development of new applications in micromachining and pollution control.
An oil-eating bacteria
Professor Satinder Kaur Brar and her team from INRS demonstrated, in 2018, the potential of a natural solution to decontaminate waterways that have suffered oil spills. In fact, the bacteria Alcanivorax borkumensis feeds on hydrocarbons, which it uses as a source of energy. It has a range of enzymes that are very adept at degrading the elements found in petroleum (benzene, toluene, xylene, etc.), including esterases. These are much more efficient, versatile and resistant than the enzymes of other bacteria. This approach would make it possible to decontaminate difficult-to-access sites in a natural way.
The invisibility cloak
In an experiment described in 2018, Professor José Azaña’s team succeeded in hiding an object illuminated by a light source. Until then, technologies intended to make objects invisible did not work under lighting composed of all the colors of the rainbow, like natural light. They attempted to deflect the light by going around objects, without interacting with them.
Professor Azaña’s approach lets light reach the object, but manipulates the frequency of the light waves, making the object imperceptible. This innovative technique suggests potential applications for fiber optic telecommunications systems as well as in computer security.
Store solar energy in the ground
The work of Nicolò Giordano and Jasmin Raymond, recognized among the 10 greatest scientific discoveries by the magazine Quebec Science in 2019, demonstrated the possibility of storing heat in the ground of a subarctic region.
Batteries are generally unsuitable for the northern climate and only allow short-term storage. The new approach would produce energy with solar panels in the summer and store it in the ground at an initial temperature near freezing. During the winter, this energy would be withdrawn from the ground and would help heat communities in Quebec’s far north with solar energy even if the sun only shines there for a few hours in the winter.
Longer lasting batteries
In traditional fuel cells, alcohol molecules located in the anode compartment manage to cross the membrane that separates them from the cathode compartment. However, this contains oxygen. The reaction of oxygen with alcohol creates a drop in voltage and ultimately renders the battery unusable.
In 2020, Professor Mohamed Mohamedi’s team designed a membrane-free green fuel cell that works with oxygen in the air. Thanks to the installation of electrodes which do not react to alcohol in the cathode compartment, voltage drops are then avoided, making this new solution a first in the country.
This content was produced by the Special Publications team at Duty, relating to marketing. The writing of the Duty did not take part.