One crucial difficulty with fast charging lithium-ion battery packs is the possibility of battery capacity deterioration if not properly managed. Fast charging electric vehicles for example, should involve ensuring that each one of the thousands of cells are charged safely and are balanced to all the other cells if the range of the vehicle is […]

For people with mobility impairments, such as spinal cord injury survivors, rehabilitation and at home care settings come with the possibility of costly, painful pressure ulcers and skin breakdown. Occurring at a high frequency, current practice requires constant vigilance by caretakers and individuals using self-management practices. This injury comes from a prolonged application of pressures, […]

Histone deacetylase 6 (HDAC6) is a protein known to be involved in a wide array of cancers. Although there are currently 4 approved HDAC inhibitors to date, these drugs lack the selectivity to only target HDAC6, given its high structural similarities with 10 other HDAC proteins, resulting in severe side-effects in patients such as nausea, […]

The inclusion of touch and physical sensations from within Virtual Reality and other Mixed Reality experiences provides exciting opportunities from both an entertainment and academic perspective. Enhancing immersive integration within these environments is useful, beneficial and thus highly desired- whether we are looking to develop skills for use in challenging technical and medical or dangerous […]

Current testing for SARS-CoV-2 focuses on detection of the pathogen via isolated nucleic acids, routinely from nasopharyngeal swabs. To our knowledge, no approved clinical SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic tests using nasopharyngeal swabs incorporate measurements of host responses at the time of diagnosis. Monitoring host responses during SARS-CoV-2 infection is important, as stratification of COVID-19 patients based on […]

Chronic cough is a persistent daily cough that lasts greater than eight weeks and affects 10% of the general population. It is associated with a significant burden on health and quality of life. In clinical practice, there are very limited tools in order to quantitively monitor cough. Existing products are too expensive and labor intensive, […]

Despite substantial research efforts, the problems of spreading infectious diseases (such as COVID-19) through surface transmission and infections associated with medical devices persist. One promising solution is to apply a coating to the surface of concern that can provide effective surface disinfection. However, existing approaches typically provide only short-term disinfection effects (a few hours), contain […]

Petroleum hydrocarbons (comprise crude oil, gasoline, and diesel) are an important energy resource used by industries and human. At the same time, contamination by oil and oil products has caused serious harm to humans and the environment and increasing attention has been paid to the development and implementation of innovative technologies for the removal of […]

Our method reveals the interaction landscape of a given drug. We will generate a two-part biosensor inside living cells. The first part involves a genetically encoded reactive ‘beacon’. The second part is the drug of interest, synthetically modified with complementary reactivity to the beacon. When present together in cells, both parts chemically combine to form […]

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased depression and anxiety in Canada, adding to the current opioid drug dependency crisis. Mental health supports can be used with drug options to relieve symptoms and promote better health. Some cases of depression are resistant to treatment, and alternatives are needed that bring patients relief. Psilocybin is a compound found […]

Apples are among Canada’s most valuable fruit crops, and the improvement of apple varieties is crucial for the success of the industry. Breeding apples is expensive and time consuming, requiring decades of investment. A better understanding of the relationship between genetics and fruit traits will allow for more efficient breeding. Current apple breeding techniques make […]

The proposed research concerns the construction of a computer simulation environment for the artery phantom with cardiac cycles and ultrasound signals obtained using our novel wearable ultrasound sensor (WUS) technology when monitoring the cardiovascular health. It is difficult to assess health indicators of the artery of a living subject experimentally for comparison with those estimated […]