Innovative Projects Realized

BSBP Honours Internship at Alethia Biotherapeutics – Vincent Méthot

Alethia Biotherapeutics is developing sotevtamab, a recombinant antibody targeting clusterin, a protein often elevated in advanced solid tumors. Sotevtamab works by inhibiting epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT), which contributes to cancer spread, chemotherapy resistance, and immune evasion. The drug is being tested for various cancers, including lung and colorectal cancer, with the aim of enhancing chemotherapy efficacy and improving immune responses against tumors. Early animal studies demonstrated sotevtamab’s ability to reduce tumor spread, enhance chemotherapy effectiveness, and stimulate anti-tumor immune responses. These promising results led to human trials in patients with advanced, treatment-resistant cancers. A recent Phase II study combining sotevtamab with docetaxel in advanced lung cancer patients showed improved responses and survival. Another ongoing Phase II trial is evaluating sotevtamab with FOLFOX in colorectal cancer patients with liver metastases. An intriguing finding associated with sotevtamab treatment is the formation of tertiary lymphoid structures (TLS) in both animal models and patient samples. These immune structures, rarely observed with current treatments, are linked to better patient outcomes. The project aims to investigate how sotevtamab induces TLS development in tumors, as these structures play a key role in enhancing immune responses against cancer.

Innovation Intermediary: Design Strategies for Business Incubator Modeling

TechBA Vancouver is evolving from exclusively operating as an organization delivering programs run by the US-Mexico Foundation for Science (FUMEC) and supported by Mexico’s Secretary of Economy, to an innovation-focused solution generator. This encompasses accelerating and incubating services for businesses. Along with TechBA`s other eight locations in highly technologically competitive environments, its objective is to position Mexico as a world—class innovation-led technology provider. Through this project, TechBA Vancouver will co-design and experiment with strategic design methodologies to prototype a new innovation-led incubator business model. The proposed methodology over two sequential Mitacs Accelerate Internships (8 months total), will directly benefit TechBA and their client firms in their efforts of building sustainable, innovation-led companies positioned for national and international markets.

Simulation of cerium dissolution and interaction with the catalyst-ionomer interface in fuel cells

Polymer electrolyte fuel cells are a key technology in the race against climate challenges, and while commercial applications are increasingly common, challenges remain in cost, performance, and durability. Most of the issues that prevent full commercialization affect the catalyst layer, the region where the power-generating electrochemical reactions take place, like the oxygen reduction reaction. This layer consists of platinum nanoparticles supported on a carbon material and covered by an ion conducting polymer. Resistance to the transport of oxygen molecules to this layer causes loss of efficiency, especially at a lower platinum surface area.
Driving the cost of fuel cells lower by reducing platinum loading and achieving high durability for heavy duty automotive markets both result in lower catalyst surface over the product lifetime and require increased robustness to oxygen transport losses. The small scale of the components in the catalyst layer make it a challenge to study experimentally and computational efforts are crucial at understanding the underlying interactions. To this end, we propose developing a computational model based on molecular dynamics of the platinum/carbon/polymer region to rationalize the factors affecting oxygen transport resistance and to propose design improvements that can reduce power losses and costs in next-generation fuel cells.

Online monitoring and optimization of a reactive crystallization process

This project aims to experimentally investigate the optimal operating conditions for the reactive crystallization of compounds. A stirred-tank reactor will be set-up and the effects of mixing conditions on the resulting crystal particle size distribution will be investigated. Techniques for the online monitoring the reaction process will be explored, which will be used for model predictive control. This is an important process in pharmaceutical manufacturing as many drug products must be produced as a crystal with well-defined size distribution.

Réappropriation par l’art : L’investissement des espaces urbains de Baie-Comeau par les jeunes Autochtones.

Ce projet, réalisé en partenariat avec le Centre d’amitié autochtone de Baie-Comeau (CAAM), vise à permettre à de jeunes autochtones de s’exprimer à travers des activités artistiques et de se réapproprier les espaces urbains de Baie-Comeau. Par le biais d’ateliers artistiques et d’une exposition, les jeunes pourront partager leurs expériences et leurs histoires, renforçant ainsi leur lien avec la ville et leur identité culturelle. Ce projet contribue à rendre visibles les jeunes autochtones dans la ville, souvent absents des données et des politiques publiques locales. En travaillant avec le CAAM, ce projet aidera aussi à renforcer son rôle en tant qu’espace culturellement sécurisant pour ces jeunes, tout en sensibilisant la population de Baie-Comeau aux réalités autochtones.

Internship project: Screening of dopants in V2O5 for enhanced electrochemical performance using machine learning-accelerated methods

Vanadium pentoxide (V2O5) is a widely studied material for electrocatalysis due to its redox properties and potential as an efficient catalyst for the oxyge¬¬n evolution reaction (OER). However, further improvements in its catalytic performance can be achieved by modifying its surface structure through the incorporation of dopants. This project aims to enhance the catalytic performance of V2O5 in OER by screening various dopant elements. Machine learning-accelerated Monte Carlo simulations will be employed to investigate the effects of dopants on surface reconstruction and controlled defect formation. After identifying promising candidates, density functional theory (DFT) calculations will be performed to create Gibbs free energy diagrams, offering insights into their electrocatalytic activity. The most promising candidates will then be synthesized and experimentally validated for water splitting performance.

L2M – CampusGo

CampusGo is a software platform designed to enhance user experiences in complex environments, such as large campuses, by unifying indoor-outdoor navigation. The platform aims to assist new employees, students, tourists, and visitors with real-time navigation and information. CampusGo offers a range of services, including the integration of multi-modal data such as 3D models, architectural diagrams, and user profiles, as well as indoor and outdoor path-planning capabilities. With a focus on providing a seamless experience through web and mobile interfaces, the system supports real-time navigation and offers users engaging ways to interact with their surroundings. The project is still in its early stages, with the initial deployment and beta testing conducted on a university campus, providing valuable insights into its functionality and user engagement.

Employment Impacts of Mining in Northern Saskatchewan

This research estimates the employment impacts of a new mine proposed for northern Saskatchewan. We estimate the direct, indirect, and induced employment effects of the proposed mine. Using publically available data, the research shows how a direct investment in a mine creates jobs all along its supply chain. This indirect employment is expected to be a significant contributor to total employment gains. The direct and indirect jobs also increase local incomes thereby financing the creation of additional jobs. This research identifies all three types of jobs and the resulting contribution to income. To complete the research, the intern will identify how to scale provincial data down to a regional level to account for the remoteness of these northern communities. The partner organization will receive a complete report that identifies the employment effects that then help it communicate results to its stakeholders.

!Drop impact of non-Newtonian fluids!!!

Le projet portera sur l’étude de l’impact de goutte de fluides complexe qui a de nombreuses applications industrielles ou en géophysique. Nous utiliserons notamment des fluides à seuils qui ont la particularité de se comporter comme des solides lorsqu’il sont faiblement sollicités et comme des fluides quand on a dépassé une contrainte limite dite contrainte seuil. La mayonnaise ou le dentifrice sont des exemples de fluides à seuil. Nous allons essayer avec ce projet de caractériser l’écoulement dans la goutte au moment de l’impact en tenant compte de la particularité des fluides utilisés. Pour cela nous utiliserons des outils théoriques et numériques développés pour l’étude de l’impact de goutte avec des fluides classiques (tel que l’eau par exemple). Nous espérons pouvoir obtenir une meilleure compréhension du phénomène et ainsi expliquer certains comportement singulier.

Integrating Optical and RADARSAT-2 Imagery for Enhanced Lake Ice Monitoring

This project aims to improve how lake ice is monitored in Canada by combining images from optical and RADARSAT-2 satellites with advanced data analysis techniques. Monitoring lake ice is important because it reflects climate changes, which affect both local and global environments. The partner company, ApoSys, specializes in using satellite technology for environmental monitoring, but current methods are limited by factors like cloud cover and lack of detailed data for smaller, remote lakes. By working on this project, ApoSys hopes to overcome these challenges and improve its ability to monitor environmental changes. The results will benefit ApoSys by enhancing its technological expertise, and potentially expanding its business into new markets. Additionally, better lake ice monitoring will support industries like fishing and tourism and contribute to climate change management efforts in Canada.

Rigorous development of database backends

Using a verification-based approach for database storage backends has the potential to avoid such bugs, but specifying the complexity of a modern backend upfront is a daunting task. To decompose the problem into smaller pieces, we base our approach on the following insights: (1) There are two broad classes of backends: eager, state-based maps, vs. lazy, operation-based journals. (2) We can write a high-level, abstract specification that accounts for both. (3) We can prove correctness and equivalence properties from the high-level specification. (4) The specification provides a kind of pseudocode for the implementation. (5) A similar high-level specification accounts for the composition of primitive stores. (6) We can express the complex internal architecture of a modern backend as such a composition.

An initial goal of the internship is to perform an experimental study (of performance and fault tolerance) of the implementation. The focus of the work will tackle items 5 and 6. The intern will design and implement a composition framework, and will use composition to mimic the functionality of an modern backend such as RocksDB. The research objective is to evaluate the backend designed following our rigorous approach, against comparable backends designed in an ad-hoc manner.

Ethnographic researcher – AI industry in Québec

Le projet Art-IA, mené par la Société des Arts et Technologies (SAT), MUTEK, Sporobole et le Metacreation Lab, explore les imaginaires liés à l’intelligence artificielle (IA) dans la création numérique. L’objectif est de créer une plateforme d’échange entre différents projets artistiques numériques pour répondre aux besoins des créateurs et ouvrir de nouvelles pistes de recherche et développement. Ce projet se concentre sur la structuration de communs de l’IA pour la création numérique, avec des séminaires et des groupes de travail. L’étude examine comment les acteurs du projet perçoivent les technologies et l’avenir de l’art en lien avec l’IA. Elle inclut la cartographie des projets artistiques au Québec pour identifier les besoins des créateurs et développer une boîte à outils technologique adaptée. La recherche s’intéresse également à l’utilisation de l’IA dans les projets des partenaires et aux discours sur l’IA sur les réseaux professionnels comme LinkedIn, permettant d’identifier les similitudes et différences dans les visions de la technologie parmi les créateurs et les industries culturelles. La méthodologie combine observation, entrevues avec les artistes et sessions de travail pour enrichir la recherchecréation.