Development of Cell-Based Functional Assays to Accelerate Commercialization and Therapeutic Application of Recombinant Antibodies

Antibodies are the fastest growing segment of the pharmaceutical market, and with modern engineering technologies antibodies can be programmed to target devastating diseases. Within the immune system, antibodies fight invading bacteria and viruses. High-quality synthetic antibodies directed to disease-related targets have immense therapeutic potential. Development of cell-based assays to enable rapid identification of functionally active […]

Read More
Development and Delivery of Inhibitors for Viral Pathogenic Deubiquitinases

In human viral diseases, misbehaviour of the cellular machinery utilizing ubiquitin is frequently observed. Ubiquitin is a small protein that attaches to target proteins in human cells and signals for their destruction. Human deubiquitinases are enzymes that remove ubiquitin to keep protein levels in balance. Viral pathogens have evolved proteins that mimic human deubiquitinases to […]

Read More
Mental Health: Strategies for Resilience

Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) training is a 12 hour course that was developed in 2001 for health care workers to better support clinical patients in mental health crisis. Evaluations of the training indicate that individuals who take this training improve knowledge of mental health disorders (e.g., psychotic disorders) and are better able to provide […]

Read More
Light collection optimization with semiconductor photodetectors – Year two

Better light collection by photodetectors would automatically improve signal to noise ratio and photodetector performance. For example, for the positron emission tomography application, it would result in a better image quality for a lower dose. The main cause of the light loss is too much reflection of light that is trying to travel from the […]

Read More
Screening of natural compounds for their anti-glycation activity on collagen fibrils using biochemical and biomechanical assays

Since the beginning of recorded time, humans have been developing ways to make themselves more beautiful or otherwise change their appearance. The hair-care industry itself has a huge global economic power: its estimated total value is $47B annually. However, beauty does not come without a price: methods currently being used for hair colouring and styling […]

Read More
Efficient Signal Processing and Radio Resource Management for High-Throughput and Low-Latency Massive MIMO Cellular Systems – Year two

Future cellular systems must accommodate increasing demand for very high throughput and low latency data services. Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) approach involving base stations equipped with much larger numbers of antennas than the numbers of users served promises to significantly increase network capacity, while nonorthogonal multi-carrier transmission is expected to dramatically reduce the latency. Integration […]

Read More
Hybrid Power Systems for Integrated Energy and Food Production in Autonomous Communities

Community integrated energy and food systems bring production and management to the local scale in order to increase autonomy and resiliency. These are particularly expedient in the face of global climate change, more frequent and severe extreme weather, geopolitical instability and peak oil. Bioenergy systems offer enormous potential for such applications because they stand at […]

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

Prostate cancer will affect 1 in 7 Canadian males. While the number of therapeutic options is increasing, matching each patient to the right therapy remains as the challenge for a personalized approach to patient management. Currently, most of the attention has focused on identifying biological tags that can predict patients response. We have developed an […]

Read More
Integrating high resolution remote sensing of multi-scale hydrogeomorphology into long-term river management

Large northward-flowing boreal rivers are an important hydroelectric resource, but effects of river regulation on downstream geomorphology and aquatic ecosystems are difficult to predict. Peace River, BC presents an ideal case study of river response to regulation, with continuous monitoring since dam construction in 1967. However, current understanding of system changes is based mainly on […]

Read More
Predicting noise impact on fish communities in the western Canadian Arctic using Passive Acoustic Monitoring

Several fish species produce species-specific sounds that can be identified in the wild using Passive Acoustic Monitoring (PAM) (i.e. dataloggers configured with underwater microphones). Our project will use existing and new PAM recordings to monitor the distribution of several fish species in the western Canadian Arctic, with particular focus on a keystone Arctic species, the […]

Read More
Development of in operando characterization methods for lithium ion battery materials

The successful commercialization of new cathode materials for lithium ion batteries requires an improved and detailed understanding of the correlations between their structure, properties, and performance. Such a correlation will provide a foundation for better understanding the degradation mechanisms and optimized operating conditions for these cathode materials; pairing new battery materials with ideal applications and […]

Read More
Developing Tools to Track Vocalizing Marine Mammals with Long Baseline Hydrophone Arrays

The scope of this project is to use acoustic data from long-baseline arrays of hydrophones to detect, locate, and track marine mammals based on their vocalization. Specifically, the project aims to assess methods and develop automated tracking algorithms that provide accurate results for individual signals, and a maximum of flexibility regarding the channel, array, and […]

Read More