Recycling of Laminated Particleboard

This research will focus on the development of recycling solutions for laminated particleboard after services. To effectively recycle the wood particles from the used particleboard as suitable raw material, it needs to remove the cured adhesives from particleboard, usually urea-formaldehyde (UF) resins. It is well known that cured UF resins are susceptible to hydrolysis so the decomposing particleboard panels will allow to recover particles.

Testing, evaluation and development of a commercial protocol to differentiate hPSC-derived pancreatic progenitors into insulin-producing ?-cells in 2D monolayers and/or 3D culture systems

The generation of functional ?-cells from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) for cell replacement therapy and disease modeling of diabetes is a strongly investigated area. Recent scientific breakthroughs have enabled derivation of large quantities of human pancreatic ?-like cells in the laboratory, but the protocols are currently not consistent or optimized for cells of various genetic backgrounds. We aim to develop a commercial kit to differentiate hPSCs into ?-cells with reproducible efficiencies between multiple cell lines.

Hardware Support and Heterogeneous Compilation for P4

Today’s data-center network services cover a broad spectrum that evolve rapidly which means that regularly new services need to be deployed in production networks in a timely manner. Using network programmability, a network programmer can write a precise specification of what the network behaviour should be, and this specification is translated by a compiler and executed on the hardware. The goal of the project is to allow this programmability to include automatically leveraging hardware to improve performance.

The effects of Radical Plus® consumption on exercise capacity in humans

Muscle fatigue and associated perceived exhaustion are among the main barriers to physical activity and training adherence, which directly contributes to the spread obesity and cardio-metabolic diseases in Canada. While several dietary supplements claiming anti-fatigue properties exist on the market, a large number have not gone through robust scientific testing. The Radical Plus® product from Carpe-Diem Inc. is a liquid dietary supplement containing marine collagen, blueberry extract, and polyphenols.

Development of new therapeutics for castration-resistant prostate cancer treatment

Castration-resistant prostate cancer is a late stage disease and many people die of it due to lack of effective therapeutic drugs. In the current project, we propose to develop new therapeutic drug a to specifically target CRPC’s common weak points, which are MCT4 and eIF4E gene’s proteint products that play very important roles in regulation of cancer cell’s energetic and protein translation pathways. The project aims to develop an antibody drug, an small molecule chemical drug and a nanoparticle drug to target MCT4 membrane protein and eIF4E transcription factor protein.

Assessing cognitive load in cochlear implant users through short-term storage of speech

Cochlear implants are surgical implanted devices that allow deaf people to recover some form of hearing and understand speech, but current devices are limited, and the consequences of these limitations have not been fully explored. For example, there is a growing consensus that hearing loss interacts with cognitive systems. Yet, relatively little is known about the cognitive burden of CI users.

Advanced Materials and Technologies for Medical Imaging Detectors and Techniques

The proposed Mitacs program will provide internships for six graduate (thesis-based MSc and PhD) students, and two Post-Doctoral Fellows (PDFs) in a competitive R&D environment at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Research Institute (TBRHRI) – Canada’s newest health research institute. Interns will be involved in research projects which aim to develop and commercialize the next generation of customized detectors to improve medical imaging applications, which are chosen on the basis of the demands of the healthcare system and commercial opportunities developed in the TBRHRI.

Development and commercialization of novel reference material for food allergen and gluten proficiency testing - Year two

The planned research program aims to address an existing gap: the lack of commercial availability of reference materials for food allergens to be used in the context of analytical method development, validation and performance testing. In particular, naturally incurred samples representing food matrices where priority allergens are likely to occur, in a controlled and calibrated fashion are not available. Allergens targeted include egg, milk as well as wheat gluten (targeting both wheat allergen and Gluten testing).

Implementation of a chip-based MDTMA platform for evaluating prostate cancer treatment response and mode of action. - Year two

Prostate cancer is the disease of the old, effecting 1 in 7 Canadians with a death burden of 1 in 28. The management of the disease becomes extremely difficult with the development of the nonresponsive and aggressive form of the cancer. Thus, the clinicians are rendered helpless and hence there is an urgent need for the development of new targeted therapies. Response to chemotherapy drugs varies for every individual, leading to adverse effects in many. Hence every individual responds to chemotherapy drugs differentially, matching the right dose for individual patient is a big challenge.

Treating advanced retinal degeneration – rebuilding multiple co-dependent retinal layers with stem cells

Despite dozens of clinical trials (and countless animal trials) to regenerate the retina with stem cells, none have solved the challenge successfully. This is because the retina has many layers, and all layers are necessary in order to restore vision in patients with advanced retinal degeneration – ~1M patients in Canada and >50M worldwide. Here, we developed a strategy that stratifies a suspension mixture of subretinal graft (including stem-cell-derived RPE and photoreceptors) into correct orientation and layering resulting in replacement of the lost retinal layers.

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