Innovative Projects Realized

Influence of various contamination sources on the Community composition of a hydrocarbon-degrading microbial consortium.

This project seeks to evaluate how contamination can influence the growth of a bacterial community. These experiments will be performed using small scale bioreactors in a lab setting, where 1 contamination source can be evaluated at a time. The results of these experiments will be evaluated by using 16s Amplicon sequencing to determine which bacterial species are present at the end of the experiment. We will be able to compare these results to the community grown in the sterile conditions to see how the community changed in the presence of contamination.

3D Telomeric Signatures Define Circulating Tumor Cells (CTCs) and characterize CTC Subpopulations in Intermediate Risk Prostate Cancer Patients

In Canada, 1 in 7 men are likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime. Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) testing is currently not recommended in Canada as population based screening test. Prostate cancer, like other tumors, disperses tumor cells into circulation. If effectively isolated, molecularly analyzed and characterized, CTCs are potentially a reliable biomarker for early, efficient prostate cancer diagnosis and management.
Intermediate risk prostate cancer patients are enrolled for this study from Prostate Cancer Centre, Manitoba Institute of Cell Biology (MICB), CancerCare. CTCs are isolated from 3mls of patients’ blood using a size-based filter and their telomeric profiles compared with their clinical data after blind analysis is done.
Preliminary data from the 175 samples analyzed to date shows that this study could lead to earlier diagnosis and personalized management of prostate cancer, which are the main goals of Prostate Cancer Canada.

Municipal green waste as feedstock for fermentations

Development of sustainable own-fiber-reenforced composites from biopolymers

Building Laser systems in the context of quantum optics

Internship at DFKI Marine Perception in Automated Machine Learning

Congested user-choice EV charging location model

Circuit électrique, operated by Hydro-Québec, currently owns most of the public charging infrastructure for electric vehicles (EVs) in Quebec. Over the next few years, more charging station owners are expected to enter the market. This makes it necessary to anticipate the impact of competition in terms of service quality. This places us in the domain of game theory and optimization, since we must account for the behavior of individual agents (station owners and EV users) aiming to optimize their individual goals and preferences. The objective of this project is to develop a model accounting for: 1) EV user choice of stations; 2) congestion at stations; and 3) the existence of stations from different companies. In this way, the computation of valuable descriptive metrics, such as the throughput rate at each station, can be obtained to inform infrastructure expansion decisions.

Precision analysis of a solar simulator with xenon lamp for solar module technology

Artificial tumour model: the role of mechanical properties in cancer cell malignancy

Risks, Challenges, and Concerns About Mixed Reality

Synthesis and characterization of intermetallic alloys for CO2 Hydrogenation by tandem catalysts

Utilizing Machine Learning and Experiments for Photoswitch Design