Our People - Cancer

Research Interests:

• Biomechanical properties of soft tissues
• Integration of imaging and mechanics
• Biomechanical-based image registration for surgery and radiotherapy
• Mechanics and structural applications of composite materials
• Smart devices and sensors

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​Research Gate

[YouTube Lecture] September 30, 2014 "An engineering prospective on Cancer'

Research Interests:

• Health informatics

• Clinical problem solving, reasoning, and decision making

• Cognitive methodologies for the analysis of human computer interaction, knowledge acquisition, and medical expertise

• Cognitive aspects of computerized clinical practice guidelines

ResearchGate

Google Scholar

Research Interests:

• Simulation, light and matter interactions, biomedical applications
• Predictive simulation of light interactions with organic and inorganic materials
• Realistic modeling of material appearance for image synthesis
• Remote sensing (effects of adverse environmental conditions on crops and forests)
• Biomedical optics (development of procedures and equipment for the prevention and treatment of different medical conditions, from jaundice to skin cancer)

ResearchGate

YouTube channel

Research Interests

• Breast cancer, glioblastoma and acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL)
• Vaccine development
• Immunotherapy
• Phage based nanomedicine

Google Scholar

Research Interests:

• Biomedical optics

• Tissue optics and spectroscopy

• Ultrafast optics, coherence tomography, sensing, imaging

• Confocal and fluorescence microscopy

• Skin cancer detection

• Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics

Google Scholar

Research Gate

Research Interests:

• cancer therapy
• colorectal, breast, prostate and lung carcinomas
• cancer tissue microenvironment
• chemokine pathways
• tumor-initiating cells
• proteins

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Research Gate

Research Interests:

• Imaging for Type 1 Diabetes
• Alzheimer Diagnosis
• Imaging of the Rear of the Eye
• Optical Properties of the Eye amd changes in the Eye's Optical Properties
• Two Photon Therapies
• Ophthalmic instrumentation, optical systems, quality and design

• Confocal microscopy and ophthalmoscopy, measurement of refractive error

• Retinal image quality

• Optical effects of refractive surgery, reflections from the retina

• Optical properties of the eye, monochromatic aberrations of the eye

• Refractive properties of the crystalline lens and their changes with growth and accommodation

• Eye-imaging systems for treatment and diagnosis

• Biophysics, bio-photonics, and Vision Science.

ResearchGate

​Google Scholar

[Research2Reality] May 8, 2015 "Early Alzheimer's Diagnosis: Imaging the Living Eye"

[YouTube Lecture] October 1, 2014 "Optics of the Eye as a Window on the Brain"

[YouTube] February 12, 2013 "Melanie Campbell AAAS Profile"

[Waterloo Stories] February 12, 2013 "An early test for Alzhemer's disease"

[Waterloo Stories] January 22, 2013 "Early test for Alzheimer's may rely on the eyes"

Office of Research - Technology Transfer & Commercialization:

• Imaging Amyloid Beta in the Retina
• Ophthalmic and Microscopy Imaging Technology

Research Interests:

• Cancer research

• Cell cycle, DNA replication, biomarkers and checkpoints

• Genetics, yeast genetics, molecular biology

• Protein factors

• Kinases

• Chromatin

LinkedIn

[CBB researcher story] January 2, 2013 "How the Trout are Saving Us: Using Biomarkers to Improve Water Quality"

Research Interests:

• Mathematical modeling - Stochastic Modeling and Optimization, Markov Decision Processes, Partially Observable Markov Decision Processes, Dynamic Programming, Simulation Models.
• Health Care: Medical Decision Making, Organ Transplantation, Cancer Screening, Health Care Delivery.
• Production Planning: Multicriteria Scheduling

LinkedIn

Research Gate

Google Scholar

Research interests:

• Imaging, treatment, and prevention of diseases
• Fabrication and characterization of innovative biomaterials for drug delivery systems (nanoparticles, medical devices, biodegradable films, hydrogels, etc.)
• Vaccine development for protection against HIV and other diseases

Google Scholar

[Waterloo News] February 6, 2019 "Researchers find new treatment for Chlamydia"

[Waterloo News] April 16, 2018 "Developing new way to fight transmission of HIV"

Research interests: 

• GTP-dependent phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinases
• IgA1 protease family of bacterial proteases

Research Interests:

• Methionine chemistry and biochemestry (amino acid methionine and its roles in proteins, cellular pathways and its functions)

• Bionanomaterials, bionanotechnology (for novel drug carriers, molecular foundations for nanodevices)

• Medicinal chemistry

• Enzymology
• Bioorganic chemistry
• Protein structure and function

ResearchGate

[Daily Bulletin] June 1, 2018, 11 CBB Members Named Outstanding Performance Award Winners

Research Interests:

• Mathematical modelling in systems biology
• Control theory
• Synthetic biology

ResearchGate

​[Google Scholar]

[CBB researcher story] August 6, 2015 "Decreasing antibiotic resistance in bacteria"

[YouTube Lecture] September 30, 2014 "Model-based design in synthetic biology"

Research Interests:

• Low-dose, low-cost x-ray imaging system (e.g. tuberculosis screening)

• Circuit technology, Photon counting circuits for biomedical imaging

• Large area digital medical imaging

• Silicon Thin-film Applied Research

• Device physics

• Amorphous semiconductors and semiconductor devices

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ResearchGate

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[Engineering News] November 12, 2018 "New X-ray technology to be tested on cancer patients"

[YouTube Lecture] September 30, 2014 "Bending the cost curve: Building a $1000 diagnostic X-ray imager for scalable and sustainable healthcare"

[Office of Research] "Paving the way for a digital X-ray and health-care revolution"

Research Interests:

• Integrative cancer biology
• Combination of cancer treatments
• Nano-scale drug delivery
• Cancer stem cells
• Biomechanics

ResearchGate

​LinkedIn

Google Scholar

[Waterloo News] June 23, 2016 "Nanotechnology and math deliver two-in-one punch for cancer therapy resistance"

[Waterloo Stories] February 11, 2015 "Study finds new lethal combination of cancer drugs shrinks tumors"

[Waterloo Stories] January 16, 2018 "Math can predict how cancer cells evolve"

Research Interests:

• Microfluidics and nanofluidics
• Lab-on-a-chip, diagnostic devices (biomedical, environmental, food safety)
• Interfacial Phenomena

Google Scholar

Research Interests:

• Protein structure, functions, evolution (yeast, mammalian cell lines, plant-bacterial)

• Bioinformatics, systematics and protein evolution

• Protein structure and interaction modeling
• Protein expression pattern analysis
• Molecular genetics

LinkedIn

ResearchGate

Google Scholar

Research Interests:

• Proteins: energetics, kinetics, mechanisms, structure, dynamics, folding, function, evolution, engineering and design, thermodynamics, kinetics (ALS, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, prions, cancer)

• High resolution nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (fluorescence, CD, NMR, FTIR, DLS)

• Optical spectroscopies

• Bioinformatics and computational modelling

• Biocomputing and protein engineering

• Biophysical chemistry and biochemistry
• Bionanotechnology and biomaterials

​[Waterloo News] November 24, 2015 "New insights into protein structure could change the future of biomedicine"

[​Chemistry News] August 20, 2014 "Chemist Elizabeth Meiering takes on the ALS ice bucket challenge"

Research Interests:

• mHealth and wearable technology design
• Ubiquitous sensors for smart homes and remote patient monitoring
• Big data and health data analytics
• Technology to support longer independent living

LinkedIn

Research Gate

Google Scholar

[MaRS] April 26, 2018 "UbiLab team wins Healthy Behaviour Data Challenge"

Research Interests:

• Biomedical applications of electromagnetics

• Electromagnetic compatibility, interference, propagation mechanisms

• Material measurements, metamaterials and its engineering applications

• Energy harvesting

• Surface and subsurface detection using near-field microscopy

• Electronic packaging

• Photonics

• Radiating systems, theoretical and computational electromagnetics

Research Gate

Google Scholar

Research Interests:

• Drug discovery
• Rational drug design and medicinal chemistry
• Cancer therapy
• Treatment of neurological disorders (Alzheimer's, Parkinson's)
• Drug discovery/rational design
• Synthesis and biological evaluation of novel organic molecules and peptides/peptidomimics as therapeutic agents

ResearchGate

​Google Scholar

[Science News] October 22, 2018 "Nekkar lab determines that depression medications can help treat Alzheimer’s disease"

​[Pharmacy News] July 29, 2015 "Waterloo pharmacist examines drug therapies for Alzheimer’s disease"

Research Interests

• Early Cancer Detection
• Eliminating Positive Surgical Margins
• Non-contact Biopsies for Endoscopy 
• Functional Brain Imaging 
• Early Detection and Understanding the Age-related Vision Loss Problems. 

[Website]

[Linkedin]

[Google Scholar]

Research Interests:

• Biomechanics
• Mathematical modeling of hydrocephalus
• Mathematical oncology

ResearchGate

[Applied Mathematics Biomedical Research Group]

[Waterloo Stories] January 16, 2018 "Math can predict how cancer cells evolve"

Research Interests:

• Drug discovery, delivery systems and nanomedicine

• Gene therapy, microbial genetics

• Oncology, Antiviral therapeutics design

• Anti-bacterials

• Acne cosmeceutical design

• Phage-based biotechnology

• Viral exclusion systems

• Cosmeceuticals

• Vaccine design (dementia), bacteriophage-based biotechnology, use of coliphages to design and construct vectors for the development of novel vaccines, pharmaceuticals and gene delivery systems, and the identification and application of novel phage genomic anti-bacterial genes with potential phage therapy applications.

• Strategic management in Pharmacy; healthcare reform

LinkedIn

ResearchGate

Research Interests:

• Medicinal chemistry/enzymology (treatment of prostate and breast cancer, diabetes)

• Nanomedicine; development of novel antibiotics

• Bionanomaterials; synthetic polymers and methodologies

• Peptide, charbohydrate, nucleoside and nucleotide chemistry

[Daily Bulletin] June 1, 2018, 11 CBB Members Named Outstanding Performance Award Winners

[Science News] February 4, 2015 "Chemists develop new method to improve the discovery of antibiotics"

Research Interests:

• Biochemistry and molecular biology of programmed cell death

• Functional genomics of senescence (biological aging) and apoptosis

• Comparative aspects of senescence and stress including the role of hormones and the involvement of free radicals

• Applicable therapies for cancers, inflammatory diseases (arthritis and sepsis), and in the agricultural sector (enhance yield, develop tolerance to environmental stress and plant diseases, and increase the shelf-life of perishable produce)

The Royal Society of Canada Fellow

Research Interests:

• Big data, computer vision and image processing, health engineering, terahertz imaging, fuzzy image processing

• Machine intelligence, opposition-based learning, pattern recognition

• Medical imaging and analysis (CT, MR, and ultrasound imaging)

LinkedIn

ResearchGate​

[News Medical Life Sciences] June 28, 2018 Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Medical Imaging

[GRH News] May 31, 2018, "GRH partners with UW researchers and Huron Digital Pathology to create a “digital revolution” in pathology with medical search engine"

[Daily Bulletin] May 29, 2018, $3.7M in funding for AI and medical imaging project

[Exchange Magazine] May 22, 2018, Speaks about “Faster, Better, More Reliable than Deep Features: A Projection-Based, Pathologist-Centric Approach to Identification of Histopathology Images” at the Pathology Informatics Summit  in Pittsburgh, PA.

[Waterloo New] [Engineering News] May 22, 2018, Electrical and Computer Engineering,  $12 million awarded to Waterloo researchers

[YouTube Lecture] January 21, 2015 "BIG Data, Medical Imaging and Machine Intelligence"

[YouTube Lecture] October 1, 2014 "Medical Imaging: Pixels, Consensus and Learning"

[Waterloo Stories] January 9, 2013 "Making it harder for cancer to hide"

Research Interests:

• Medical imaging (processing, registration, cell segmentation, tracking)
• Computer simulations (biomedical, brain and soft tissue injury and biomechanics, architectural, remote sensing, natural phenomena, fine arts)
• Computational finance
• Scientific computing (numerical solutions of partial differential equations, iterative methods, and multigrid preconditioning, parallel computation on high performance platforms)

Canada Research Chair in Scientific Computing [Canada Research Chair Profile]

ResearchGate

Google Scholar

Research Interests:

• Gene therapy and drug delivery systems (prostate and ovarian cancer treatment)

• Polymeric nanomaterials, biopolymers

• Novel surface active compounds (gemini surfactants)

LinkedIn

ResearchGate

Google Scholar

[Daily Bulletin] June 1, 2018, 11 CBB Members Named Outstanding Performance Award Winners

[CBB researcher story] July 21, 2015 "Vectors for gene therapy and improving drug solubility"

Research Interests:

• Biomaterials and mechanics of biomaterials and tissues

• Bone quality and fragility, collagen

• Engineering of bone mimetic materials for skeletal reconstruction (3D printing)

Google Scholar

Research Interests:

• Data mining and bioinformatics

• Machine intelligence, computer vision, intelligence robotics

• Pattern recognition and discovery methods of genomic and proteomic data

• DNA sequencing, colon cancer and leukemia gene and data analysis

[YouTube Lecture] September 19, 2013 "Pattern discovery and analysis of genomic and proteomic data"

Office of Research - Technology Transfer & Commercialization:

• Biosequence Gap Pattern Discovery and Knowledge extraction and confirmation system
• Pattern Alignment Clustering to Reveal Functionality in Biosequences - WeMine™
• Multivariate Times Series Pattern Discovery in a Complex Continuous Industrial Process

Research Interests:

• Biomedical image processing and analysis (prostate, breast, lung and dermatological cancer analysis, retinal photoreceptor and blood vessel analysis, musculoskeletal kinematic analysis

• Remote sensing data processing and analysis (sea ice, underwater object, oil spill analysis)

• Perceptual based video and image processing (noise reduction, compression, enhancement)

• Computer vision and pattern recognition

• Multimedia management systems

• 3D graphics and game development

• Cognitive radio networks

LinkedIn

Google Scholar

Canada Research Chair in Medical Imaging Systems [Canada Research Chair Profile]

[Daily Bulletin] June 1, 2018, 11 CBB Members Named Outstanding Performance Award Winners

[Waterloo News] [CBC News] [Gadgets] May 16, 2018, Co-authors discuss the use of aerobic fitness data from wearable tech to predict illness

[Waterloo News] May 15, 2018 "Researchers combine wearable technology and AI to predict the onset of health problems"

[Global Impact] [570 news] [Youtube] April 11, 2018 "How AI is helping doctors diagnose Cancer" 

[The Star] February 9, 2018 "How TheRedPin aims to take a swipe at the real estate industry"

[Waterloo News] June 7, 2017 "Artificial intelligence-driven imaging research makes diagnosing disease easier"

[Waterloo Stories] January 28, 2017 "Artificial intelligence and the Waterloo-Toronto tech supercluster"

[Waterloo Stories] May 20, 2016 "Breakthrough tech helps doctors more accurately diagnose cancer"

[CBB researcher story] January 9, 2013 "Improving Early Diagnosis to Save Lives"

[Waterloo Stories] January 9, 2013 "Making it harder for cancer to hide"

[YouTube Lecture] October 1, 2014 "Integrative systems for biomedical imaging and analysis"

Research Interests:

• MEMS/NEMS

• Nanodevices and carbon nanotube-based sensors for biomedical applications (early disease detection)

• Microassembly and micromirror devices for genetic microarray reading and tissue imaging

• Lab-on-a-chip designs

Canada Research Chair in Micro and NanoDevices [Canada Research Chair Profile]

Research Interests:

• Design/discovery of potential therapeutics to target various diseases
• Understanding the structure and pharmacology of membrane proteins
• Development of in silico methods/tools for sequence, structure and functional analysis
• Inferring the structure-function evolution of proteins
• Protein engineering for biotechnology and pharmaceutical applications

[American Chemical Society] January 23, 2012 "Exploring Inhibitor Release Pathways in Histone Deacetylases Using Random Acceleration Molecular Dynamics Simulations"

[Wiley Online Library] July 27, 2013 "Ligand release mechanisms and channels in histone deacetylases"

[Royal Society of Chemistry] December 19, 2013 "A steered molecular dynamics mediated hit discovery for histone deacetylases"

[Nature Methods] May 8, 2017 "ModelFinder: fast model selection for accurate phylogenetic estimates"

[Royal Society of Chemistry] October 24, 2017 "Reverse engineering: transaminase biocatalyst development using ancestral sequence reconstruction"

[Science Direct] August 10, 2018 "Revealing the atomistic details behind the binding of B7–1 to CD28 and CTLA-4: A comprehensive protein-protein modelling study"

[Nature] August 27, 2019 "Comprehensive in vitro characterization of PD-L1 small molecule inhibitors"

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