University of Alberta Firsts
From the beginning, University founders Premier Alexander Cameron Rutherford and Dr Henry Marshall Tory envisioned a post-secondary institution that valued excellence in research.
Many of the University’s faculty are among the pioneers of Albertan and Canadian innovation and invention.
Robert W Boyle’s research in acoustics before the start of World War I led to the invention of sonar (the use of sound waves to detect objects underwater).
Later, Karl Adolph Clark, a chemical engineer, and graduate student Sid Blair were the first to continuously separate bitumen from oil sands, laying the groundwork for Alberta’s huge oilsands industry.
Among U of A’s many medical breakthroughs...
In the early 1920s, biochemist James Bertram Collip refined insulin, so that it could be used by human diabetic patients.
More recently, Ray Rajotte’s Islet Transplantation Group demonstrated a 100 per cent success rate in freeing severe diabetics from insulin injections. The process, which became known as the Edmonton Protocol, has been adopted by transplantation centres worldwide.
Lorne Tyrrell and his team discovered the world's first oral antiviral therapy for chronic hepatitis B, a disease that affects approximately 300 to 350 million people worldwide.
In 2008, David Bundle announced a breakthrough in development of a treatment for the life-threatening E. coli bacteria.
University of Alberta researchers continue to write new chapters in the story of human invention and innovation―in nanotechnology, energy and the environment, health, social sciences, business studies, and the arts and sciences.
What's in This Section?
This section includes a research timeline celebrating the University of Alberta's many research breakthroughs and innovations since our founding: