The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) — responsible for safeguarding the health of people, animals, and plants in our country — recognizes that scientists do a much better job of identifying and dealing with biological threats if they work together.

That’s why Angelica jumped at the opportunity to research physical literacy programs for kids with CHD through a Mitacs internship.  She partnered with Sportball, a non-competitive sports education organization that offers methodology-based instruction for kids aged 16 months to 12 years old. Sportball programs across Canada work on developing children’s physical literacy while focusing on important sport, social, and motor skills.

In collaboration with University of Waterloo-Mitacs researcher, Yael Zilberman-Simakov, LeNano's portable device tests blood for a specific biomarker, a type of protein, elevated by the onset of heart failure. “If a patient has a higher-than-usual concentration of the biomarker, they are at an increased risk of having heart failure,” says Yael. “Similar to how glucose levels should be monitored among diabetic patients, this type of protein needs to be checked every day.Compared to a lab test, personal test devices like LeNano's are faster, simpler, and more convenient.

Kobo’s Big Data Director Darius Braziunas says he knew early on that to stay competitive in the e-book world Kobo would need to collaborate with university researchers to take their products to the next level.

The company is a spin-off from McMaster University and was created “organically,” says InnovoGENE CEO Kha Tram. It all started when Kha was completing his PhD at McMaster and was looking to develop technology that could quickly identify E. coli in food. He realized the same technology could be used to rapidly test bacteria in water — and InnovoGENE was born.

Florian Mayer, a Mitacs Globalink intern who spent his summer at Ryerson University in Toronto, wants to figure out how cities and roads can be built to reduce traffic, while working to improve long-term health outcomes in the world’s busiest cities. Researching alongside Associate Professor Leila Farah, Florian examined how the urban environment affects public health and how planners can work with communities to improve it on a local level. 

Working under the direction of Professor Jonathan Kelly, Xinyi is helping to extend leading-edge technology that makes it possible for the wheelchair to navigate and drive itself.

This summer, Alexia’s working on a research project with Dr. Anne Ellis at Queen’s University’s Department of Biomedical and Molecular Sciences. Dr. Ellis’s research explores allergies and their impact on the Canadian population. Alexia’s project will help determine whether links exist between local pollen counts, a mother’s allergies (or lack of them), and biomarkers of children’s potential allergies in umbilical cord blood. From there, researchers will better understand the impact of pollen on children’s health outcomes and whether pollen-related allergies can be prevented.  

And for undergraduate Saudi Arabian student Abdulkarim Hariri, a Mitacs Globalink Research Internship this summer at the University of Ottawa meant the chance of a lifetime to contribute to an important part of quantum computing research.