Dr. Barb Olson built a career out of curiosity, turning years of laboratory research into medicine that now protects livestock across the country. In 2021, the Government of Alberta inducted her into the Alberta Order of Excellence alongside her husband and research partner, Merle. Her Alberta Order of Excellence profile describes a scientist who never stopped asking questions, from a childhood spent on a relative’s farm to a career spent commercializing discoveries made in Alberta laboratories.
From Winnipeg Camping Trips to a Ph.D.
Barbara Eloise Chanin was born in Toronto in 1953 and grew up in Winnipeg, the middle child of five. Summers were spent camping rather than travelling, and it was time on an aunt and uncle’s farm, while a brother received medical treatment abroad, that sparked her lifelong affection for animals. Barb’s father ran a recreational vehicle business while her mother helped raise the younger children, and with an older brother often in poor health, Barb took on extra household duties early. She still found time for horses, riding her horse Mountain Man every chance she got through high school. She earned her undergraduate degree with honours from the University of Manitoba, a master’s degree in toxicology from the University of Guelph, and completed her doctorate in veterinary physiological sciences at the University of Saskatchewan in 1984. It was there she met fellow student Merle Olson, who stopped to help her fix a flat tire.
Building the Biofilm Research Group
Barb and Merle married and eventually settled in Calgary, where both joined the University of Calgary in 1984. Barb worked as a postdoctoral fellow before helping form the Biofilm Research Group, which studied how bacterial colonies growing in living tissue shield themselves from antibiotics and the immune system. The group’s work led to the first diagnostic kit to help physicians choose antimicrobials for treating cystic fibrosis, along with tools now used to study pipeline corrosion and crop pathogens. Alongside the lab work, Barb spent years as a public advocate for science, judging science fairs and helping connect university researchers with Calgary classrooms.
Leaving Academia to Build Alberta Veterinary Laboratories
In 2004, frustrated that Alberta-made discoveries so often had to be commercialized elsewhere, Barb and Merle left the university to found Innovotech, followed by Alberta Veterinary Laboratories and Solvet Animal Health. The companies manufacture affordable veterinary pharmaceuticals, including GiardiaVax, the first commercial vaccine against a parasite that can spread from animals to humans, and pain-control treatments that have become standard practice for Alberta livestock producers. Barb took charge of quality control, quality assurance and regulatory affairs as the company grew. “We set up a facility including clean rooms and a warehouse that would fulfill the requirements of Good Manufacturing Practices to be in compliance with Health Canada,” she has said of building AVL from the ground up. Barb has always pointed to her staff as the reason for that success, calling AVL’s team “amazing” and crediting their loyalty for the company’s steady stream of new products.
A Partnership Built on Research and Trust
Barb and Merle also founded Get Away Dialysis, helping Canadian kidney patients travel to Mexico for treatment, and remain longtime supporters of Alberta’s 4-H movement through their “I Care for Cattle” education campaign at agricultural shows and the Calgary Stampede. Together the couple holds more than 50 patents and has produced over 250 peer-reviewed publications. They learned of their selection to the Alberta Order of Excellence on their 40th wedding anniversary, a fitting note for two careers built entirely as a team.
Barb lives in Calgary with Merle, and the two spend their free time hiking, skiing, cycling and canoeing in the backcountry near Canmore. Their three grown sons watched their parents build a company, raise a family and keep publishing research at the same time, and Barb still makes room to mentor students the way volunteer scientists once mentored her, judging science fairs and welcoming young people curious about a career in the lab.
How many discoveries made in Alberta labs are still waiting for someone willing to build a company around them?
