Infertility is a health issue that affects over half a million Canadian of childbearing age. Half of these cases are related to male reproductive dysfunctions. While semen analysis provides information about some causes of male infertility, about thirty percent of these cases remains unexplained. In this context, the main goal of our project is to […]

Interstitial cystitis is an inflammatory disease of the urinary bladder and is recognized as a serious medical condition associated with a profoundly negative impact on patients’ quality of life. Currently, there are no widely acknowledged causes of this disorder and no effective treatments available. Panag is a Halifax based drug company which focuses on development […]

A critical challenge today in neuro-surgery is the determination of tumor boundaries intraoperatively. There are means of doing this using high-resolution MRI machines, however, these can be prohibitively costly. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) offers a promising, cheaper, label-free alternative. However, the basic models used for clinical, real-time OCT limit its usefulness and depth of focus. […]

Over 14 million Canadians live with overweight or obesity. Patients want conversations with their primary care team about weight and create personalized plans to improve their health. Primary care clinicians want to have these conversations too, but don’t know how. This project partners with an interdisciplinary primary care team (ESPCN) and the Canadian Obesity Network […]

AF is an irregular heart rhythm resulting from abnormal electrical impulses and is the most common cardiac arrhythmia encountered in clinical practice. Ablation therapy has been used to eliminate areas responsible for maintaining the arrhythmia using radiofrequency energy. Targeting the culprit regions usually require accurate estimation of activation times in IEGM recordings. The conventional time […]

Currently available diagnostic imaging tools, such as chest radiography and computed tomography, are inadequate for assessing the lungs of preterm neonates. There is considerable interest in using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to monitor lung development in neonates longitudinally, since it is a non-invasive and non-ionizing imaging modality. MRI can potentially detect complications at an early […]

Medical leeching can be traced back to the beginning of civilization. Ancient Egyptians, Indians, and Greek physicians used leeching as a treatment for a variety of diseases. In the past few decades, comprehensive studies have investigated the therapeutic applications of leech products and especially leech saliva. Recent studies completed by our lab have determined a […]

In adults, influenza vaccination is administered by intramuscular injection, a procedure that many people find painful and that some find frightening (ie: needle-phobia). Influenza vaccination is now encouraged or recommended for all Canadians. Every year, there is a large effort to vaccinate as many people as possible before the ‘flu season’. The urgency to vaccinate […]

The SRRM4 gene has been recently identified as a key protein responsible for a subtype of highly aggressive prostate cancers, called neuroendocrine prostate cancer (NEPC). Detection of SRRM4 protein in patient tumor biopsies is therefore important to predict and diagnose NEPC, so that early and more effective therapeutic means can be in place. Unfortunately, there […]

Cyclin-dependent kinase-2 (CDK2) regulates cell cycle, whose structure and biological characteristics are well known. CRIF1 plays a regulatory role in the bone marrow microenvironment-induced leukemia cell cycle arrest through inhibiting CDK2. In this multi-disciplinary research, we will use a combined structure function study to reveal the interaction between CDK2 and CRIF1. This will facilitate the […]

Heart failure (HF) is a condition that develops after the heart becomes damaged or weakened. HF occurs when the pumping action of the heart is not strong enough to move blood around, especially during increased activity or under stress. In addition, the heart muscle may not relax properly to accommodate the flow of blood back […]

Chronic heart failure (HF) is an epidemic affecting approximately 1.5-2% of Canada’s population (12% in patients over 80yrs) and the current one-year mortality rate after HF diagnosis remains disturbingly high at 25-40%. Even with treatment, many HF patients require hospitalizations during the course of their disease; in Canada HF is responsible for $3 billion in hospital […]