My goal is to develop new approaches in speech technologies for physically or cognitively disadvantaged users. This includes applying the specialized automatic speech recognition (ASR) algorithms developed during my doctoral research into real-world tools for speakers with speech disorders. For example, I will develop software-assisted human-human interaction in which speech that is unintelligible because of […]

Peptides control a vast range of intra- and intercellular processes. However, linear peptides suffer from instability and poor cell permeability, which limits their application as therapeutic agents. In contrast to linear peptides, cyclic variants are more resistant to both exo- and endoproteases, which explains the therapeutic potential of this class of molecules. Peptide macrocycles have […]

Dynamic Nuclear Polarisation makes it possible to boost the MRI signal of 13C labelled pyruvate 10,000-fold, overcoming the low natural signal of carbon. This makes imaging of metabolic processes possible, and could provide useful insight on changes in cellular metabolism due to cancer. Imaging the metabolic products of pyruvate allows monitoring not only where metabolism […]

Stem cells are at the forefront of modern medicine and are expected to revolutionize both the human and veterinary healthcare industries. Currently, a major obstacle to the field is the time-consuming and costly technical time spent growing and maintaining various stem cell populations. The degree of contamination with non-stem cells, ability of the stem cells […]

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) consists in implanting electrodes delivering electric stimuli in deep brain structures to relieve motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease (PD). Even if DBS is successful in alleviating symptoms for about 50,000 patients worldwide, it is an invasive neurosurgical technique, and its mechanisms of action remain elusive. This therapy could be greatly improved […]

Thrombolytic therapy is the mainstay of stroke treatment. However, this treatment can be potentially harmful. A patient-specific model of expected outcome would greatly facilitate the treatment decision making process both for clinicians and patients. We propose to develop a clinical tool by incorporating the imaging and clinical dataset to predict the fate of tissue in […]

In this project, a modified Delta parallel robot is designed in which the number of passive joints is reduced, and an active joint is added to the hardware. To the best of our knowledge, this configuration seems to be the first of its kind. In this project, kinematic and dynamic analyses will be performed. Active […]

Robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery is an emerging field in research and industry. A major challenge with the existing medical robotic systems (including the da Vinci® from Intuitive Surgical) is the lack of haptic feedback (sense of touch). On the other hand, medical imaging is only used for direct visualization in the existing systems. Certain surgical […]

Cancer is classified into various stages of malignancy. The highest and most lethal stage is characterized by tumor invasion and  metastasis. There are basically two mechanisms for cancer metastasis, (i) transport of malignant cells through the blood  stream and (ii) active movement of tumor cells into healthy tissue. In this project we are interested in […]

Food safety is of paramount importance to Canada. Recent episode of Listeria out-break in a meat processing plant has created renewed interest in monitoring of food borne pathogens in ready-to-eat (RTE) meat products. The proposed device is aimed to detect Listeria monocytogenes in food samples within a few hours. This device integrates the microfluidics and […]

The accurate recording of EEG (electro-encephalographic) signals from the scalp provides an important source of information for many research topics focused on analyzing the correlation between brain dynamics and specific states of the body for patients or healthy subjects. The recording of clean EEG signals becomes nevertheless a daunting task when attempting to quantify the […]

Standing balance is controlled by several inputs, including vision, vestibular sense, and ankle proprioceptionResearch studies in this field actively engage and manipulate these input mechanisms to examine theireffects on the balance output, mainly muscle actuation in the lower limbs. While significant progress hasbeen made, it is often difficult to isolate a single input and test […]