Innovations Realized

Explore thousands of successful projects resulting from collaboration between organizations and post-secondary talent.

13270 Completed Projects

1072
AB
2795
BC
430
MB
106
NF
348
SK
4184
ON
2671
QC
43
PE
209
NB
474
NS

Projects by Category

10%
Computer science
9%
Engineering
1%
Engineering - biomedical
4%
Engineering - chemical / biological

Development of a next-generation in vivo human gene-editing therapeutic platform – Year two

The over-arching goal of our project is to develop a robust next-generation gene-editing platform to repair the deleterious mutations that are responsible for genetic diseases such as Cystic Fibrosis and cancer. First-generation precision endonuclease technologies have been tremendous for in vitro gene disruption studies and ex vivo treatments, but there has been limited success at developing safe and effective in vivo human gene-editing therapies. To address these issues, we propose to package a highly specific RNA-guided dual nuclease technology (TevCas9), into liposomal delivery vehicles developed by Specific Biologics Inc. (SBI). By combining these technologies, we will create a powerful therapeutic platform that fulfills the target product profile for an ideal in vivo gene-editing platform. As proof-of-principal, we propose to target and repair the CFTR delta F508 mutation, a monogenetic mutation that results in Cystic Fibrosis (CF) and in which >85% of CF patients carry at least one copy of the mutation. CF was chosen as our model due to the high unmet medical needs of these patients and the suitability of SBI’s proposed liposomal (lipid-based) delivery system to target cells of the respiratory mucosa through nebulization. However, following our initial studies TevCas9 will be retargeted to other clinically relevant targets.

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Faculty Supervisor:

David Edgell

Student:

Thomas Alan McMurrough

Partner:

Specific Biologics Inc

Discipline:

Biochemistry / Molecular biology

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

Western University

Program:

Elevate

A mass balance modelling framework for chemicals and their primary metabolites for ecological and human health assessment – Year two

Chemicals manufactured and used in society degrade through physical and biological processes (e.g., photolysis, biotransformation) into break-down products (e.g., metabolites). Most “parent” chemicals can breakdown relatively quickly so that they are not persistent or bioaccumulative; however, some metabolites formed during the degradation processes can persist in the environment thus requiring consideration for ecological and human health assessment. The environmental fate, bioaccumulation, exposure and associated risks of these formed metabolites are largely unknown. The proposed research includes the development and testing of an exposure modelling framework for the holistic assessment of parent chemicals and their primary metabolites formed during degradation processes in the environment (e.g., air, water) and in biota. This research will combine Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationship (QSAR) methods and mechanistic, multi-media environmental fate and exposure models. QSAR models will be developed to estimate degradation properties (e.g., reaction rates, half-lives) and databases and models will be used to estimate metabolite formation pathways. The Risk Assessment IDentification And Ranking (RAIDAR) multi-media mass balance model will be revised to incorporate this information and quantify the fate and exposure of parent chemicals and selected metabolites to humans and ecological receptors. Case studies will be performed to evaluate the performance of the new modelling framework.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Frank Wania

Student:

Alessandro Sangion

Partner:

Arnot Research and Consulting Inc.

Discipline:

Environmental sciences

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

University of Toronto

Program:

Elevate

Development of an antibacterial membrane for purification of floodwater

When floods happen, municipal water distribution systems are damaged and the residents will not have access to clean water. As a result, the will face the risk of health effects from water-born bacteria and pathogens increases. In this project, we proposed a system to purify the water stored frim flood water. This purified water can be used for drinking. This membrane based system can remove the bacteria and pathogens from water. To fabricate the membrane, we will use biopolymers and metals with antibacterial properties.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Satinder Kaur Brar

Student:

Mitra Naghdi

Partner:

The Carbon Accounting Company

Discipline:

Engineering - civil

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

York University

Program:

Accelerate

Production of isomalto-oligosaccharides with tailored technological and nutritional functionalities

The project will assess functional benefits of an isomalto-oligosaccharide preparation. Isomalto-oligosaccharides are functional oligosaccharides that are applied as functional food ingredients to reduce the caloric content and the glycemic load, as a source of dietary fibre, and to support homeostasis of intestinal microbiota. Regulatory approval of the products and the functional claims requires scientific support related to the digestibility and the impact on glucose homeostasis in humans. This project will evaluate the digestibility and the glycemic lead of isomalto-oligosaccharide in animal models and in humans. Experiments with the commercial product will be complemented with experimental oligosaccharide preparations with defined linkage type and degree of polymerization to improve our understanding on the digestibility of isomalto-oligosaccharides. The project will support marketing of a successful commercial product to secure long-term manufacturing capacity for functional oligosaccharides in Canada.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Michael Gänzle

Student:

Justina Su Zhang

Partner:

BioNeutra

Discipline:

Food science

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

University of Alberta

Program:

Accelerate

Conversion of Greenhouse Gases to Value Added Products

Carbon nanofiber is a material with extraordinary mechanical, thermal, electrical, and chemical properties. It has applications in a wide variety of industries including transportation vehicles, concrete, electronic devices, textiles, ink, coatings, lubricants, tires, and agriculture. Yet, the production of carbon nanofibers is an expensive and energy-intensive process. This project targets to develop Carbonova cycle, a catalytic chemical process that enables producing premium quality carbon nanofibers from utilizing greenhouse gases and waste heat. It is not only a viable solution to reduce CO2 emissions from other processes but also it is an economic and sustainable way of producing high-quality nanomaterials.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Pedro Pereira-Almao;Sudarshan (Raj) Mehta

Student:

Lilia Prieto

Partner:

CarboNova

Discipline:

Engineering - chemical / biological

Sector:

Manufacturing

University:

University of Calgary

Program:

Accelerate

Accelerate development of new technologies and applications for advanced water treatment – Year 2

Global population growth, urbanization and changing climate patterns have increased the demand for potable water, wastewater reuse and value recovery from wastewater, and for remediation of industrial process water. Population growth also results in increased demand for the shipping of goods by ocean freight, with the associated risk of the transport of unwanted marine life from one location to another by the discharge of ballast water. Also, the increasing sophistication of food and drug production requires a corresponding development of fluid protection technologies to prevent contamination by undesirable microbes. Consequently, there is increased demand for improved technologies that can provide sustainable treatment of water and wastewaters, protection of the water supply, and development of new fluid treatment methods. Trojan Technologies executed an initial Mitacs cluster program entitled “Steering the Innovation Process: Accelerating “Ideas to Impact” in Water Treatment”, resulting in a comprehensive research program and innovation process to advance the science of reactor development and validation for innovative technologies in water and wastewater treatment. With these new technologies and advancement in the understanding of water treatment, it is now important to apply them to the core business areas.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Ajay Ray

Student:

Vahid Ghodsi

Partner:

Trojan Technologies

Discipline:

Engineering - chemical / biological

Sector:

Construction and infrastructure

University:

Western University

Program:

Elevate

Defining and Targeting Autoimmune Liver Disease

The liver is the largest solid organ in the body and is critical for metabolic and immune functions, however huge gaps still exist in our basic knowledge of the human liver. Due to challenges in obtaining human liver tissue and the fragility of liver specimens, little is known about the cells that make up the human liver and its immune microenvironment: much of our current understanding is derived from studies in animal models. We recently generated a map of the cellular landscape of the healthy human liver using single cell RNA sequencing (scRN-seq), immunohistochemistry and flow cytometry: we will now extend these results to diseased human livers in order to define new treatments for immune-mediated liver disease. Autoimmune liver diseases, such as primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC,) affect 0.5-1 in 100,000 adults and 1-16 in 100,000 children per year and has a higher prevalence in men than women. PSC is a progressive disease that destroys the biliary epithelium of the liver and many patients will eventually require a liver transplant as there is currently no effective therapy. PSC is thought to be aggravated by cells of the innate immune system, making targeted immune modulation an avenue for disease treatment.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Adam Gehring

Student:

Catia Perciani

Partner:

Industrial BioDevelopment Laboratory

Discipline:

Microbiology / Immunology

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

University of Toronto

Program:

Accelerate

Improving the Reliability of AI Systems from a Software Engineering Perspective

Artificial Intelligence techniques have been widely applied to solve real-world challenges, from autonomous driving cars, to detecting diseases. With the popularity of 5G wireless network, more and more AI systems are being developed to provide convenient services to everyone. It is important to ensure the reliability and quality of AI systems from every phase in software development cycle, i.e., development, integration, deployment and monitoring. In this collaboration with Ericsson GAIA, we will propose techniques to systematically improve the quality and reliability of AI systems. In particular, we will explore new testing techniques to test AI systems, especially the underlying AI models. Moreover, we will adapt and improve explainable AI models for the purpose of debugging and optimizing AI models. Automated techniques to support the development, debugging, deployment and monitoring of AI systems will enrich the ecosystem of AI systems in the era of 5G.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Jinqiu Yang

Student:

Zi Peng;Triet Pham

Partner:

Ericsson Canada

Discipline:

Engineering - computer / electrical

Sector:

Information and cultural industries

University:

Concordia University

Program:

Accelerate

Development of safe storage guidelines for Canadian Flax

Shelf-life and quality of agricultural commodities is directly affected by their storage conditions. Therefore, producers and managers of grains and oilseeds relay on safe storage guidelines of the stored commodity to preserve the quality of these products. These guidelines are developed for specific commodities and are made available by producer groups and technical organizations to the agricultural community. Most of these storage guidelines were developed for different crops several decades ago and are archived in ASABE Standard D245.5 (Moisture Relationships of Plantbased Agricultural Products). However, plant breeding has since resulted in grains and oilseeds of different functional/agronomic characteristics, which directly affects their equilibrium moisture content (EMC) value, a parameter that governs storage life/quality. Our recent work with soybeans has established how important it is to update the safe-storage guidelines for the new varieties of grains and oilseeds. Recognizing the importance of this work and a lack of updated storage guidelines on flax, Saskatchewan Flax Development Commission (SaskFlax) has moved to update this information on flax grown in the Canadian Prairies.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Jitendra Paliwal;Chyngyz Erkinbaev

Student:

Sristi Mundhada

Partner:

Saskatchewan Flax Development Commission

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Agriculture

University:

University of Manitoba

Program:

Accelerate

Detection and Prediction of Network Vulnerabilities with Machine Learning Models and Algorithms

The project investigates the development of artificial intelligence models and algorithms to analyze telecommunication networks, looking for signs that indicate the presence, or imminent arrival, of faults and outages on the network.
The project will use as its main input data (network topology and network health metrics) collected by EXFO in real-time and accumulated over extensive periods of time. Using the collected data, the project will investigate the application of artificial intelligence and, in particular, machine learning techniques to detect/predict network faults, performance anomalies, and even cyber threats, in real-time. Based on the detection and prediction of network faults, we expect to design a cognitive system that will be able to recommend possible mitigations and solutions to overcome those faults, as much as possible. In non-real-time, we plan to design the system in such a way that it will be able to identify network areas with poor system performance and reliability, in order to perform pro-active maintenance.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Brigitte Jaumard;Tristan Glatard

Student:

Raj PATEL;Thai Ba PHAM;Hai Hong Vu PHAN;Dat LE;Huy Quang Doung

Partner:

EXFO

Discipline:

Engineering - computer / electrical

Sector:

Information and cultural industries

University:

Concordia University

Program:

Accelerate

Advanced Applied Probabilistic Programming

Autonomous cars are one example of a compelling next-generation artificial intelligence technology. In order to safely navigate through the world, cars must plan long-range routes and short-range paths, perceive the world around them, and act according to a safety-first policy that takes into account the intent of agents in their surrounding world. While not strictly AI-complete, the challenge of autonomous driving in urban and unstructured environments is substantial, as-yet unsolved, and of paramount economic importance. This research is relating to the most significant challenges remaining to be solved before it becomes possible to make unrestricted autonomous cars a reality. In particular, this research will focus on theory of mind, inference of driver, pedestrian, and cyclist intent, and robust, computationally efficient solutions to these and other inference problems. The aim of this research will be to build the probabilistic programming software systems and tools that will make it possible to efficiently build models that predict what the various agents near and on the roadway will do up to two to three seconds into the future, or at least long enough to allow for contingencies that ensure that the controlled vehicle behaves safely.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Frank Wood

Student:

William Harvey;Jonathan Wilder Lavington;Saeid Naderiparizi;Peyman Bateni;Renhao Wang

Partner:

Inverted AI Ltd

Discipline:

Computer science

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

Program:

Accelerate

Modeling the effects of probiotics in Parkinson’s disease through human stem cell derived midbrain organoids

New studies have implicated the gut as the staging area for the start of Parkinson’s disease. Disruptions in the gut biota can promote the formation of toxic protein seeds that can move from the gut into the brain, spreading through the brain and causing progressive loss of neurons and problems with movement. It still needs to be proven if probiotics can help treat disease. We propose to examine this idea by testing how probiotics influence the function of neurons and other brain cells. Moreover, we will do so in 3D minibrain structures, a complex mix of neurons and support cells that is as close to a brain in a dish model as can be grown with current technology. In this study, we will study how the cells in the minibrain structures respond to probiotics and use this as a foundation to understand the gut-brain axis in Parkinson’s disease.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Thomas Durcan

Student:

David Kalaydijian

Partner:

Lallemand Health Solutions

Discipline:

Other

Sector:

Agriculture

University:

McGill University

Program:

Accelerate

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