A gut reaction that’s creating opportunities

Thanks to a Mitacs Accelerate partnership with industry, researchers have discovered how a type of dietary fat can provide relief for this disease, and create business opportunities for the treatment of other conditions.

John Miklavcic was working on his PhD at the university’s Alberta Institute for Human Nutrition when he began an Accelerate internship with Biolipids Inc. The goal was to look into whether gangliosides — special kinds of dietary fat that help prevent infection and regulate the immune system — could be used to treat IBD.

Protecting children and teenagers from cyberbullying

Although their filtering system is able to find malicious chat messages with high accuracy, Two Hat Security was interested in applying machine learning algorithms to automatically detect negative content. To help solve their research challenge, they turned to a Mitacs Accelerate internship with University of Alberta Computer Science PhD candidate Ken Dwyer.

Calgary medical start-up taps into research talent through Mitacs

Despite this, many patients who have problems with the quality of their sleep do not seek medical diagnosis, and when they do, diagnosis and initiating treatment can be an arduous process that is disruptive, uncomfortable, and inconvenient.

Preventing outbreaks of foodborne illness before they spread

Investigators determined that the source was contaminated vegetables from a popular Mexican fast-food restaurant chain. Although the outbreak had no fatalities, E. coli contamination poses a potentially deadly health risk and costs the North American food industry billions of dollars every year.

A simple solution in a single line

Robotic arm to aid with mental health treatment

TMS treatment involves the placement of a magnetic coil near a patient’s head. The coil produces magnetic pulses that induce currents in the patient’s brain. TMS is approved for mental health treatment in Canada and has had promising results treating illnesses such as depression and schizophrenia.

2015 Mitacs Industry Award for Exceptional Leadership: TandemLaunch

Montreal-based start-up incubator TandemLaunch is the recipient of the Mitacs Industry Award for Exceptional Leadership for its contributions in creating opportunities for Canada’s next generation of entrepreneurs.

A visual way to understand and analyze large quantities of scientific data

Envenio’s proprietary software EXN/Aero takes advantage of compact supercomputing equipment to speed up CFD solutions, and as a result, it generates output data at a high rate. Prior to the Accelerate internship, EXN/Aero could not process or display the streaming output data in a useful, dynamic manner.

Sensitizing compounds for cancer-treating viruses find new use in vaccine production

Beyond understanding how oncolytic viruses work, Rozanne and other researchers at the University of Ottawa have studied how these viruses can be enhanced with “viral sensitizers,” small molecules that increase their efficacy. Recently, her research into how viral sensitizers can therapeutically enhance oncolytic viruses has been published in the journal Nature Communications.

Giving Canadian companies a real-world advantage

Han Chen, a Mechanical Engineering Masters student at McGill University, has created what amounts to a virtual factory, where new tools and equipment can be designed and tested, significantly reducing their real-world production time and creating a lot of opportunities.

Robotics research project safely measures structural integrity

Engineering plays a critical role in keeping infrastructure safe, whether for workers on an oil rig or drivers crossing a bridge as part of their commute. Abhijit Chilukuri is putting his mechanical engineering degree to work making infrastructure even safer.

Abhijit is studying at the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, in India and wanted to pursue an international internship to complement his schooling. He researched several internship options and decided to apply for the Globalink Research Internship after it was recommended by several senior classmates.

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