Contact lenses are one of the most successful biomedical devices on the market, with approximately 140 million wearers worldwide. Despite their success, these devices still struggle with discomfort, which ultimately leads people to stop using the product. One of the reasons is the buildup of tear film components on contact lenses while wearing them. The objective of this project is to understand how tear film components deposit on contact lenses using a sophisticated eye model. This eye model, OcuBlink, was developed by the partner organization, and simulates some key properties of the eye.

Protein degradation induced by PROTACs (PROteolysis TArgeting Chimeras) constitutes a novel modality of drug discovery, with advantages over the traditional approach. This approach is still at infancy and there is a lot to learn in this field. The trainees will work under academic supervisors at University of Toronto, who are experts in chemical tool development in collaboration with Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC), Toronto to expand the number of chemical tools and technologies, which will enhance the scope and understanding of PROTAC drug development.

Modern molecularly targeted therapies have shown promise in treating some blood cancers, but a cure remains elusive for most acute blood cancer patients. This is largely due to the survival of some blood cancer cells that possess unique properties and can cause treatment failure or relapse, highlighting the need for new therapies. In collaboration with Virogin Biotech Ltd, we aim to develop an innovative oncolytic virotherapy to effectively target acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patient cells that are resistant to current therapies.

For patients with end-stage disease, like cirrhosis, their only treatment option is life-saving organ transplantation. The wait for an organ can take many years over which the patient's condition continues to deteriorate as there is no other treatment. However, maintaining physical activity and a good nutritional intake is necessary to remain on the wait and have successful health outcomes post-transplantation.

Funds are requested for one fellow to work in the laboratory of Dr. Simon Graham at Sunnybrook Research Institute, Toronto, in partnership with Siemens Healthcare Limited. The fellow will work on development of prototype instrumentation that will enable a technique called "parallel radiofrequency transmission (PTX)” to be implemented flexibly for research purposes on a Siemens 3 T MRI system at the Institute.

Intestinal bacteria are now recognized as important for maintaining our health. Many questions remain about how these probiotic or health-promoting bacteria act to influence health, and how to use them to combat the numerous health problems associated with inflammation. The objectives of this research project are to determine how products made by one of these bacteria, Lactobacillus rhamnosus R0011, influence communication between certain cells important in our immune defences, intestinal epithelial cells and antigen-presenting cells. We have found that products of L.

In the military, concussions are common and many occur while non-deployed, including during cadet training exercises. For the majority of those with concussions, symptoms resolve on their own but for a “miserable minority” symptoms persist beyond the typical 3-month recovery period, impacting quality of life. Most concussion research produces group level inferences which cannot be used to make individual predictions. We propose a supervised machine learning approach to build a model to predict symptom recovery from multiple MRI brain measures.

Pressure ulcers (PUs) are a major health problem in people with spinal cord injuries (SCIs). PUs increase hospital admissions, with 25% of SCI treatment cost linked to PU management. Currently, treatment is limited and new therapeutic options are required. Wound fluid from PUs is invaluable for researchers as it allows a detailed study of the disease. However, no system is in place to systematically collect and store SCI PU wound fluid in British Columbia. In response, the aim of this proposal is to collaborate with the Rick Hansen Institute (RHI) to establish a PU biobank.

Three out of five Canadians with dementia wander, raising concern as to how it can be managed. Current information describing best practices to find missing persons living with dementia however, is inconsistent and can cause police difficulty in choosing search and rescue strategies for this population. The purpose of this project is to develop and promote the exchange of best practices to quickly find a lost person with dementia through the development of a guideline. It will involve a literature review and surveys with police across Ontario.