Projets novateurs réalisés

Analyzing lactate metabolism in cell culture with paper chips

Le but du projet est de concevoir un dispositif sur papier pour la détection du lactate dans les cellules en culture. Le lactate est un sous-produit du métabolisme et un marqueur du caractère invasif du cancer. En effet, les tumeurs deviennent hypoxiques durant leur croissance, ce qui altère le métabolisme. La consommation de glucose dans les tumeurs est élevée, tout comme la production de lactate, connue sous le nom d’effet Warburg, une glycolyse aérobie typique des tumeurs invasives. Ces conditions (faible teneur en oxygène, métabolisme, …) sélectionnent des types de cellules plus agressifs et aggravent la maladie. Il est donc intéressant de mieux comprendre le rôle du lactate en biologie cellulaire.
En combinant les technologies du papier à la détection électrochimique, nous envisageons de créer un dispositif robuste et non spécialisé pour des mesures rapides. Les dispositifs seront testés sur des cellules en culture, pour suivre les niveaux de lactate en tant que déchet métabolique pendant la culture afin de démontrer la viabilité de notre approche. Nous prévoyons trois étapes:
1- Fabrication des puces
2- Fonctionnalisation enzymatique des puces
3- tests en culture cellulaire
Le produit du projet sera un dispositif bioanalytique pour l’analyse chimique en culture cellulaire du métabolisme.

Defect-Controlled 2D Material Platforms for Quantum Light Sources

The development of quantum technology is exciting frontier being pursued globally due to its potential for transformative innovations across information security, communications, medicine, energy and more. A critical component if the availability of robust quantum light sources. This research focuses on a promising approach – creating quantum light sources that can operate at room temperature. Current quantum computing relies heavily on superconducting circuits which must be kept at ultra-low temperature, requiring complex cooling systems that consume tremendous energy. The ability to generate and control quantum light at room temperature would be a major breakthrough. In this study, the trainee aims to induce atomic defects in hexagonal boron nitride, a two-dimensional material just atoms think, to create a room-temperature quantum light source. The material will be synthesized in Korea, then analyzed using cutting-edge imaging techniques at McMaster University in Canada. This international collaboration allows knowledge transfer in both directions. By combining strengths from both sides, the researchers hope to make significant strides toward realizing practical, energy-efficient quantum light sources – a pivotal achievement that could catalyze the broader quantum technology.

DecisionHub: Automated Dispute Management

“THIS IS A GENERIC TEXT PUT IN PLACE AS THERE WAS NO PROJECT OVERVIEW”

McMaster MPP in Digital Society: Social Capital Partners

For over twenty years, Social Capital Partners has invested in projects and people with the goal of using our capital to create more economic opportunity. We have chosen to take risks, try things that others are not doing, and co-design solutions with our partners that can be scaled. We invest where we are uniquely placed to have a big impact and over the years have had some big successes – and some failures! – supporting social finance, social enterprise, community infrastructure and demandled social hiring. For the past five years SCP has focused on the ownership agenda. We have worked with our network to change the policy landscape to make it easier for more workers to have an ownership stake in the business they work for – building wealth, financial security and economic resilience for themselves and their communities. We are continuing our work on the ownership agenda, but are now embarking on SCP’s next strategic phase. In the coming years we will focus on solutions, projects, policy, advocacy and investments that reverse the trend towards greater wealth inequality and greater concentration of assets. This is a natural extension of our work on the ownership agenda. We believe that extreme wealth inequality is incompatible with democratic stability. We believe the system as currently designed leads to extreme wealth concentration and is therefore unsustainable. We believe that public policy can make an impact on these issues, and properly designed policy can incent private actors in better ways. Social Capital Partners – we invest in projects, build networks, conduct research and advocate for policies that reduce wealth concentration and expand asset ownership.

The toxic effect of major depression

Major depression (MDD) is a chronic psychiatric disorder. The aim of this project is to examine the link between specific molecular alterations and neuropathology in the brain in patients with MDD. We will use post-mortem brains that were collected by the Sao Paulo autopsy service. More specifically, oxidative modifications to proteins and lipids, and levels of neurotrophins, which are necessary for the survival of neurons and glial cells, will be measured and correlated with markers of neurodegeneration. We hypothesize that oxidative stress and neurodegeneration will be increased in patients with MDD, but neurotrophins will be decreased in patients. We also hypothesize that increased oxidative stress and decreased neurotrophins will be associated with greater neurodegeneration in patients with MDD. This project will expand our understanding of the link between neurodegeneration and specific molecular alterations in MDD, and may reveal targets that can be used for the development of novel interventions.

Using a multicontinental invasion framework to understand constraints on movement and range expansion in an aquatic invasive fish species, the round goby

Our proposed project will examine how invasive species spread. We plan to address this question by studying an invasive fish species, the round goby, and compare individuals at the invasion front with individuals in the established areas of the range on two continents (Europe and North America). Our aim is to determine if there is a common phenotypic signature of range expansion by investigating if individuals with particular physiological or behavioural traits are the ones most likely to expand the invasion forward in both in France and Canada. To conduct this research, the research team will leverage cutting edge techniques and expertise at McMaster University and at Lyon University. The research project will serve as a fruitful launching pad for a more sustained collaboration between the French and Canadian teams, with accompanying opportunities for strong multidisciplinary international training. The trainee will work together with the supervisors to conduct field work and run experiments in the lab. They will fully immerse themselves in the research environment of the partner institution. The unique capabilities and knowledge provided by each host lab will facilitate this investigation on how particular behaviours, morphology and physiology might promote or slow down invasion speed and success.

Optimal Flows for the Energy Transfer

In this project, we aim to numerically analyze the following conjecture “optimal flows for energy transfer correspond to reconnection of anti-parallel vortex tubes”. We will be tackling this optimization problem using a novel method employed by Professor Protas’ research group over the past few years. This project comes as a way to maintain a strong academic relationship between the two researchers and their research groups. The anticipated results will address an open question and potentially smooth the path for further research on this and related problems.

McMaster MPP in Digital Society: Blueprint for a national caregiving strategy

Springboard Policy is a is a public policy consulting firm that helps our clients lead policy conversations and influence government decision making. We believe that when more organizations have the power to share their thinking, experience, and expertise, we all get better public policy. Our clients come from the non-profit, private and broader public sectors, and include local community non-profits, national industry associations, and global firms. Some of the ways we help clients influence public policy include researching and drafting public policy reports, preparing consultation and budget submissions, developing policy strategies and tactics and building clients’ internal capacity. We are not lobbyists: we think our clients are their own best advocates. Through this project, the intern will be working alongside Springboard to develop a plan for a national caregiving strategy. This work will be completed with, and on behalf of, a client with a focus on the caregiving landscape across Canada. The project aims to develop a detailed list of policy recommendations for the federal government to implement through a strategy that aims to support family caregivers, care recipients, and the care provider workforce across Canada. This project aims to improve the lives of caregivers, care providers, and care recipients. This project will benefit Springboard’s client’s efforts to support caregivers and care providers across Canada and further their relationships with key stakeholders in the field as well as decision makers. This project will also support Springboard Policy, the partner organization, to build a strong reputation, contribute meaningfully to the policy community, and generate revenue to continue supporting clients to be their own best advocates.

Reprogrammable photonic platform for quantum simulations

Photonic technologies offer promising prospects for quantum information processing and simulations. Quantum states are usually encoded in photonic degrees of freedom like polarization and spatial modes, enabling the mimicking of target evolutions via a number of devices linearly growing with their temporal extension. This constraint intrinsically makes them lossy and inadequate for extreme quantum dynamics, especially with multi-photon inputs.
Recently, a compact liquid-crystal-based platform was realized, demonstrating the observation of asymptotic regimes of discrete-time quantum walks using only three metasurfaces. These metasurfaces utilize spin-orbit effects to diffractively mimic target evolution, operating on spatial modes with quantized transverse momentum. Despite being effective, this method remains static, implementing specific dynamics at fixed times.

We propose a dynamic solution employing three spatial light modulators (SLMs) as a universal platform for quantum simulations in structured light’s momentum space. SLMs offer programmability, enabling the engineering of a multitude of unitary operators within a compact, scalable setup.
This approach allows for the design of arbitrary quantum evolutions, limited only by individual device resolution.
Both participating institutions will contribute their expertise to the platform: on the one hand in design and testing and on the other hand in experimental realization and implementation in the quantum regime.

Aston Dynamics R&D 2024

Combining engineers from Australia and engineer interns from Canada to co-design and test new projects for development in the Electric vehicle and trailer braking industries.

Releasing new product features to the existing branded Wealthstack Dynamic Dashboards.

Releasing new product features to the existing branded Wealthstack Dynamic Dashboards.

Promoting brain health for older adults with developmental disabilities and their families

The current project aims to engage with adults with neurodevelopmental disabilities and their families/caregivers and service providers to gain an understanding of best strategies and practices around engagement of brain and mental health. The expected benefit of this program is to support CAMH and the Azrieli Adult Neurodevelopmental Centre in their goal of improving the knowledge and delivery of brain and mental health services, specifically for individuals with IDD and their families/caregivers.