This research will explore the vision of professionals, women, partners, and decision –makers about the implementation of the Brazil national policy of humanization of childbirth. This research will review the specific roles of health promoters, nurses, physicians, social workers, psychologists and midwives in different health care organizations to educate women about their rights during the […]

The project builds upon prior work done by Prof. Katherine Kuchenbecker’s former Ph.D. student Naomi Fitter and current Ph.D. student Mayumi Mohan in the field of human-robot interaction. They investigated ways of using an upper-body humanoid robot (a Rethink Robotics Baxter Research Robot) to play physically interactive games with elderly adults in order to motivate […]

The current project is a partnership between the University of Western Ontario and the London-Middlesex Canadian Mental Health Association, and will aim to increase the equitability of access to mental health services by investigating the barriers that prevent certain populations from such access. To do this, two key areas of service delivery, crisis services and […]

The aim of this research and development project is to design and develop a bedside point-of-care device to be equipped with the CardiAI’s machine learning technology for heart failure management. our POC system will include disposable cardiac biomarker strips and an electronic reader. Once implemented, it will be connected to the AI platform that will […]

This study aims to evaluate the instructor manuals of the Canadian Congenital Heart Alliance’s Fearless Physical Activity event. The hosts are provided with these manuals prior to each event session. These instructors will be provided with an evaluation checklist, and will be interviewed, post-event, to assess the instructor resources. The objective is to determine whether […]

Due to increasing rates of childhood obesity, it is important to investigate the relationship between motor skill development, physical activity, body composition and sleep patterns. Previous research in this area has focused on school-aged children and adults, when daily habits have already formed and are difficult to modify. The purpose of this project is to […]

Mesenchymal stromal cells (MSC) hold promise as cell-therapy candidates for numerous diseases such as Graft v. Host disease due to their ability to influence the immune system. MSCs have been shown to be capable of a broad range of immunomodulatory effects, including the production of factors that allow them to serve as Medicinal Signaling Cells […]

Nanomaterials have revolutionized biomedical and pharmaceutical technology in the past decades. Several nanomedicines have reached the clinics but the overall clinical translation is still low. Precise delivery of the pharmaceutical agent at the right time and space remains a challenge. Responsive materials can overcome this limitation by modulation of their behavior according to internal (e.g., […]

The United Way of Greater Victoria (UWGV) is spearheading a collaborative community development project with the UVIC Office of Community-Based Research (OCBR) and BC Healthy Communities entitled Community Tables: Engaging Neighbors. Four Mitacs OCBR Interns (plus a fifth supporting intern) will work with 3 neighborhoods and on a broader Capital Region District level with citizens […]

Recent scientific breakthroughs have led to the development of methods to differentiate human PSCs (hPSCs) into skeletal muscle cells. This has allowed, for the first time, the development of cellular models to study muscle diseases such as Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and the possibility to utilize these cells for cell therapy applications. However, the reliability, efficiency […]

The United Way of Greater Victoria (UWGV) is spearheading a collaborative community development project with the UVIC Office of Community-Based Research (OCBR) and BC Healthy Communities entitled Community Tables: Engaging Neighbors. Four Mitacs OCBR Interns (plus a fifth supporting intern) will work with 3 neighborhoods and on a broader Capital Region District level with citizens […]

It remains unclear which factors drives variation in the gut microbiome across humans. Past work has taken an evolutionary perspective and compared the gut microbiome of humans on Western diets to wild primates and humans on non-Western diets and identified particular microbes which are at different abundances. However, the focus of these studies has mainly […]