Innovative Projects Realized

Criterium Group – Analyst Intern 1

Criterium Group has an agile work structure and believe there is value in getting exposure to different projects, clients, and problems. Therefore, to introduce students to this agile structure and breadth of experience, they will support Criterium Group’s private sector clients (non pro-bono), as well as UWCA (pro-bono). These private sector clients range from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies. The internship will provide Criterium Group with the resources needed to continue to provide value to our private and public sector clients. Criterium Group requires keen student minds and eager hands to support our clients’ strategy development, especially during such trying times. One project and client we’re very passionate about and need capacity to pursue is in delivering UWCA’s mission to transform local lives, bring people together, solve unignorable issues, and create a lasting impact.

Techna Guided Therapeutics Cluster

The Guided Therapeutics (GTx) Core of the Techna Institute is developing innovative imaging technology and therapeutic approaches, and translating those advances to commercial and clinical applications. Working with our industrial partners Precision X-Ray and Elekta, the Mitacs-supported interns will develop new capabilities and tools for preclinical image-guided radiation therapy devices and radiosurgical techniques. With Precision X-Ray, the interns will work on developing the ability to use optical imaging to undertake unique preclinical studies in radiation therapy. The interns will also refine the radiation delivery methods of the preclinical irradiator to allow for dose painting. With Elekta, the interns will use a novel magnetic resonance imaging technique to better visualize the fine structures of nerve bundles near a tumour, and use that information to guide a Gamma Knife system in radiosurgery. Novel quality assurance and dosimetry tools will be developed to meet the needs of both industrial partners.

The application and validation of predictive models to establish indices of protein quality in companion animal feed ingredients

This project will result in the generation of mathematical models that will predict the quality and sustainability of protein-based ingredients that are commonly used in dog diets. With the projected growth of human and pet populations, and increases in food production necessary to meet growing demands, providing Canadian pet food companies (such as our industry partner, Champion Petfoods) with the ability to rapidly identify ideal protein-based ingredients to select for dog diets based on environmental, financial, and biological sustainability is a top priority.
The primary objective is to develop a functional model of protein quality and sustainability to be used for the evaluation of common protein-containing ingredients found in dog diets. This model will be based on the equivalent model recommended by the Food and Agricultural Organization for use in the human food industry. The secondary objective is to validate this model for use in the pet food industry by way of a minimally invasive animal study using sophisticated techniques that allow for very few animals to be used.

Development of Pharmacological Probes for Road-Mapping WD40 Domain Proteins

Since the dawn of the human genome sequencing in 2003, great hopes have been put into the development of new therapeutics and personalized medicine tailored on individual DNA profiles. Nonetheless, progress in these fields has been slow, mainly due to the focus of the research community on only a small number of genes and proteins involved in diseases. As a result, there remains a plethora of unexplored proteins and genes responsible for diseases such as Alzheimer’s, cancer, or rare/orphan diseases, that have yet to be understood. To further the knowledge in the field of disease therapeutics, a more in-depth understanding of these unexplored proteins is necessary.

This project will focus on developing chemical probes for WD40 Repeat (WDR) proteins, a protein family that is largely unexplored, despite its abundance in the human body and its involvement in diseases such as cancer. WDRs are ubiquitous in eukaryotes, and are involved in processes like signal transduction to apoptosis. While it has recently been shown that WDRs are in fact druggable targets, they are virtually entirely uncharted in drug discovery. Our goal is to develop chemical probes that can shed light on WDR function in cancer.

IMMUNONUTRITION FOR HEALTH AND PRODUCTION IN PIGS AND BROILERS – Year two

The reduction of antibiotic use in livestock as an emerging public health response, as well as the continued increase in the global need for animal-based proteins, requires holistic approaches to address these current challenges in animal production. Immunonutrition is a promising field that allows modulate immune system responses through interventions with specific nutrients that have a functional role. This approach nowadays becomes more and more associated with attempts to improve gut health which allow to maintain or even in some cases improve animal performance. By designing a panel of biomarkers for the animal’s overall health, including that of intestine, based on an approach combining data mining, controlled trials and field trials with invasive and non-invasive measures, this project will help understand the role of antibiotic growth promoters to effectively replace them, especially those used in prevention to maintain or improve health. The second objective will be the development of tailored nutritional strategies with ingredients that present functional role including vitamins, minerals, and amino acids. The Centre de Recherche en Sciences Animales de Deschambault (CRSAD) as a partner will develop and gain expertise in the global use of nutritional alternatives to replace antibiotic utilization on the farms.

IMMUNONUTRITION FOR HEALTH AND PRODUCTION IN PIGS AND BROILERS

The reduction of antibiotic use in livestock as an emerging public health response, as well as the continued increase in the global need for animal-based proteins, requires holistic approaches to address these current challenges in animal production. Immunonutrition is a promising field that allows modulate immune system responses through interventions with specific nutrients that have a functional role. This approach nowadays becomes more and more associated with attempts to improve gut health which allow to maintain or even in some cases improve animal performance. By designing a panel of biomarkers for the animal’s overall health, including that of intestine, based on an approach combining data mining, controlled trials and field trials with invasive and non-invasive measures, this project will help understand the role of antibiotic growth promoters to effectively replace them, especially those used in prevention to maintain or improve health. The second objective will be the development of tailored nutritional strategies with ingredients that present functional role including vitamins, minerals, and amino acids. The Centre de Recherche en Sciences Animales de Deschambault (CRSAD) as a partner will develop and gain expertise in the global use of nutritional alternatives to replace antibiotic utilization on the farms.

Extraction of Rare Earth Metals from E-waste

NeoCtech aims at producing critical rare earth elements (REE), e.g. Neodymium and Dysprosium, from end-of-life materials. REE are called rare because there are few viable primary resources to extract them due to mineralogy of REE bearing ores and physicochemical properties of REE. NeoCtech is carrying out R&D to address the circular economy of REE, and to produce them from secondary resources: REE from recycled waste magnets where REE constitute about 30 wt% of mass. NeoCtech has developed a hybrid and cost-effctive process for the production of rare earth oxides from waste NdFeB magnets. This research proposal is to address one serious challenge for the production of rare earth metals from the oxides, a crucial step with respect to the fact that almost no similar attempt has been done in countries outside China to produce rare earth metals from their oxide forms; in other words, most companies tend to send their metal oxides to China. The success of this research will make NeoCtech a pioneer in the production of rare earth metals for the first time in North America while it can complete the chain of its rare earth metals production from waste streams.

360 Live ID for Livestock

OneCup provides cattle management solutions to the livestock industry. Our AI is called BETSY – Bovine Expert Tracking and Surveillance. Using artificial intelligence, we put a rancher’s skillset into a device the size of a small book. With several types of cameras, BETSY can ID and track cattle activity 24×7. For example, she can track an animal’s growth over a season, or determine if an animal is suffering from a disease or lameness. When BETSY finds something that requires human intervention, she texts or emails a human immediately. Combined with historical tracking, a rancher can access a detailed view of a herd’s entire history, down to the individual animal level.

Investigate parametric machine learningalgorithms to develop anomaly detectionmethods on real-time data

The industry partner, Metafor is developing a new class of IT system management solution. As part of this project, Metafor is building a product feature that monitors computer and network activities and looks for signs of anomalies. This is an important problem as anomalies are usually associated with abnormal user or system behaviors that can potentially result in problems such as system breakdown. As the properties of anomalies and normal behaviours are stochastic and dynamic by nature, efficient and intelligent signal processing and machine learning algorithms are required to detect these anomalies. In this project, the intern will do a comprehensive survey on the state-of-the art of real-time anomaly detection; investigate a set of system indicators or features as well as machine learning algorithms that can potentially be useful in detecting anomalies.

Development of biomarkers to assess health impact of exposure to algal toxins in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) and effectiveness of mitigation measures at marine open-pen salmon farms

Atlantic salmon are Canada’s top aquaculture export and contribute $1.5 billion annually to British Columbia’s (BC) economy. In BC, blooms of toxic algae are a common problem for salmon farmers, often resulting in large production losses due to lost growth and disease with high mortality. I recently identified for the first time at BC fish farms two algal toxins, domoic acid (DA) and okadaic acid (OA) that are likely associated with mortality at these sites. The health impact of exposure to DA and OA in Atlantic salmon are not well understood; this proposed project will first investigate the presence of toxins at farm sites and examine the health effects of acute and long-term exposure to DA and OA. Next, biomarkers will be developed to allow salmon producers to monitor fish for toxicity and gauge the effectiveness of mitigation measures. This work will benefit the partner organization by improving their ability to monitor salmon for toxin exposure and allow them to assess the effectiveness of mitigation measures. Together, this will enable the partner to reduce the health and economic impact of DA and OA exposure; this knowledge will also be applicable to other algal toxins of concern in Canada.

Bullying Purposely Left Out?: Canada’s amended Labour Code and its potential impact on Indigenous workers

Workplace discrimination is common for Indigenous people (1,2). Unacceptable behaviours may take place at work, such as threats, intimidation, or violence (2). The workplace is a location where behaviour labeled as ‘bullying’ occurs (1,3). When examining Indigenous workers, the impacts of behaviour defined as bullying (and the mere act of defining the behaviour as bullying rather than racism, violence or harassment) may be exacerbated given the unique history of Indigenous people. My proposed research on bullying behaviours experienced at work by the Indigenous population has been largely overlooked by existing research on bullying at work and on the legislative and legal response to it. This study is timely in Canada and will contribute significantly to the literature on workplace bullying, violence, racism and harassment. Monique Gignac and the Institute for Work and Health (IWH) will partner on this project. Mutual benefits will be generated as the IWH currently doesn’t have a strong Indigenous research program but can provide strong psychosocial theoretical approaches to workplace health and safety. The connections with Indigenous workers through this project will add to the understanding of how Indigenous people identify their workplace climate and culture as it relates to ‘bullying’ behaviours, racism, violence and harassment.

Development of a multiplexed mass spectrometry assay for the detection and quantification of organ toxicity biomarkers during preclinical drug safety assessments

In recent years, the interest given to disease biomarkers has boomed. Biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies are exploring ways to use biomarkers to speed up the drug development process, as well as to rapidly assess a diseases state, staging, progression and response to therapy. Multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) Mass Spectrometry (MS) has been shown to be well suited for the selective and sensitive quantification of proteins in plasma and has recently emerged as the technology of choice for disease biomarker study. The focus of this research project is to develop a highly multiplexed MRM assay to quantitatively measure changes in organ-specific toxicity biomarkers and test their predictive value following drug-induced organ injury in rats. More specifically, this assay will be used to detect and quantify protein biomarkers associated with various organ toxicities such as hepatotoxicity, nephrotoxicity, cardiotoxicity as well as muscle, vascular and neurotoxicity in the rat urine and plasma.