In the current climate of environmental awareness the need for alternative energy sources is undeniable.  In this respect hydrogen gas is a frontrunner as a clean burning fuel, with water being the only by-product.  Coupled with a PEM (polymer electrolyte membrane) fuel cell, hydrogen is a promising alternative to gasoline for automotive applications.  While significant progress has been made, this technology is still in its infancy.  A significant drawback in this technology lies in the storage and transportation of hydrogen within a vehicle.  To this end, our project focuses on the delive

In this internship, UNS-Tech will partner with Prof. Woolley to detect products of interest to his lab using UNS-e-chip. The antibiotics, developed by Prof. Woolley, are novel systems that can be activated by light or enzymes. The assay will employ UNS-Tech’s state-of-the-art electronics-based detectors for HPLC. The results will be analyzed and the findings will be published in scientific journals. The intern will benefit from this internship by gaining tremendous knowledge of synthesis of products of great value to the pharmaceutical industry.

This project addresses an important need for more reliable diagnostics and health care testing. DNA microarray technology coupled with PCR has enabled a dramatic improvement in high]throughput clinical diagnostics, with analogous advances from other biomolecular and chemical microarrays in areas of metabolomics, proteomics, etc. There is still room for improvement, however, in boosting signal from low]replicate samples and reducing false positives from either fluorescence noise or lower fidelity hybridization or coupling.

Environment-friendly, renewable energy sources are required to meet the world's ever increasing energy demands. While conventional silicon-based photovoltaic solar cells provide an attractive alternative to fossil fuel based energy sources, their inherent high cost has limited their use. The optical rectenna solar cell (ORSC) represents a potential high efficiency, non-silicon based, economic alternative. This internship aims to investigate the design and fabrication of ORSC devices.

The interns will spend time in the company lab to build and test proprietary electronic chemical detectors. These will be tested and undergo quality control measures in Universal NanoSensor Technologies’ lab. Once deemed robust, these detectors will then be used concurrently with present art detectors in a real-world, cutting‐edge, applications‐driven setting so that direct comparison can be made. The interns, under the guidance of the supervisor and other students involved in the lab, will perform head‐to‐head tests using both these detectors in place.

The use of natural compounds in the preparation of polymers may yield materials with the desired properties and better bioacceptance. Bile acids are natural amphiphilic compounds biosynthesized in the liver and have been used in the making of such polymers. In this project, the research team use cholic acid, a major bile acid, in the preparation of new star‐shaped polymers. Poly(ethylene glycol) chains and functional groups can be attached to the cholic acid core to obtain star‐shaped polymers.

SWITCH Materials is developing a revolutionary new type of film for application in SMART window technology. The proposed SWITCH film will allow windows to automatically darken when exposed to sunlight, blocking harmful Ultra Violet and Infrared Radiation and improving occupancy comfort while also providing the user the ability to, at the flick of a switch, “clear” or “bleach” the windows on lowlight days to allow natural day light through the window.

Diarrhoeal diseases pose a serious global problem, especially in the developing world. Shigella flexneri Y, the most deadly species of Shigella, is endemic in most developing countries. An antibody, SYA/J6, against Shigella flexneri Y was developed. Studies have shown that MDWNMHAA is a weakly immunogenic peptide against the antibody SYA/J6. The research team at Zymeoworks Inc., a computational biotechnology company, is hoping to improve the binding of MDWNMHAA to SYA/J6 in order to generate a more effective immune response. This could lead to a vaccine for Shigella flexneri Y.

The purpose of this project is to undertake development research to apply methods for analyzing proteins from fungi that grow on damp building materials that are antigenic in humans. This will allow the presence of the fungal antigen to be detected in dust samples by methods similar to those used for pregnancy test kits and those used for measuring house dust mite and animal allergens in houses. In this case, such methods are used to aid in the rapid assessment of houses and buildings with potential mould problems and in epidemiology studies.

It is estimated that one third of the world’s population is infected by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. With the emergence of drug resistant tuberculosis, the World Health Organization has declared tuberculosis a global health emergency. UDP-galactopyranose mutase, an enzyme essential for tuberculosis bacterial growth and infection, will be studied by a protocol which combines advanced NMR and computational modeling techniques.