Our People - Biophysics

Research Interests:

• Dynamics and control of MEMS
• Design of MEMS devices
• Micro-power generation
• Multi-body dynamics and control
• Biomechanics

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Research Interests:

• Quantum devices (High and low Tc tunnel devices, nanobiotechnology-based devices)
• Biomedical engineering, MEMS/MOEMS and CMOS integration
• Lab on chip, medical diagnostic and microfluidic devices
• Remote sensing and radio astronomy

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)

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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

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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.

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[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:

• Biomedical and scientific imaging

• Computer vision and video analysis

• Image processing, segmentation/classification

• Multiresolution techniques

• Automated interpretation of SAR (synthetic aperture radar)

• Remote sensing

• Stochastic models

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

[The Record] May 8,2018, have ties with a new Montreal sports analytics research lab in Kitchener

[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"

Research Interests:

• Theoretical molecular biophysics and soft matter (chromosomes, polymers, electrostatics)

• Polymer physics for chromosome organization in a cell

• Confined polymers (chain topology, spatial organization, and dynamics)

• Electrostatic modification of lipid membranes

• Physical basis for cell selectivity of antimicrobial peptides

• Polyelectrolytes and polyampholytes

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

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

Research Interests:

• Clinical trial design
• Contact lens performance
• Drug delivery
• Ocular biomaterials
• Proteins at interfaces

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University Research Chair

Office of Research - Technology Transfer & Commercialization:

• Long-lasting Eye Drop Delivery Platform for Targeted Ocular Delivery Applications

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"

Research Interests:

• Classical and visual optics
• Optical system design, science and engineering
• Psychophysics/human factors
• Visual perception, visual optics math modelling
• Biomedical image processing

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[CBB researcher story] July 29, 2015 "Image processing to automate early glaucoma diagnosis"

Research Interests:

• Biophysics of lipids and lipid-protein interactions

• The role of structural changes and physical properties of lipid template in controlling biological processes and diseases

• Biomedical nanotechnology (lipid films, molecular mechanism of Alzheimer's disease)

• Drug development and delivery systems, antimicrobial peptides in lung disorders

• Fluorescence and atomic force microscopy

• Kelvin probe force microscopy and single molecule force spectroscopy

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[Global Impact] May 2018, studying Alzheimer's at a molecular level to find a cure

[YouTube Lecture] October 1, 2014 "Scanning probe microscopy in biomedical research"

Research Interests:

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

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Research Interests:

• Biomedical diagnosis

• Targeted drug delivery

• Environmental monitoring

• DNA-based biosensors and functional polymers

• Nanomaterials, (gold nanoparticles, liposomes, magnetic nanoparticles, quantum dots, graphene hydrogels, hybrid nanomaterials)

• Bioinorganic / Bioanalytical chemistry

University Research Chair

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[Waterloo Stories] February 27, 2013 "Waterloo researcher uses nano-materials to clean water"

Research Interests:

• Bio inspired solar cell technology
• Targeted drug delivery
• Bio compatibility
• Tissue engineering
• Cardiovascular
• Industrial biotechnology
• Sensors
• Polymers

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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

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[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:

• Protein and DNA separation analysis towards disease diagnosis and drug discovery

• Biosensing and Devices (bacterial, proteins, fluorescence)

• Living cell analysis and water toxicity testing

• Lab-on-a-Chip technology (point-of-care biomedical diagnosis , chemical detection, protein separation and identification, environmental testing)

• Micro-scale fluid mechanics, droplet microfluidics and nanofluidics

• High Throughput Screening For Drug Screening
• Manufacturing Nanomaterials and Carbon Management

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Canada Research Chair in Lab-on-a-Chip Technology [Canada Research Chair Profile]

[Waterloo Stories] June 14, 2012 "Creating the tiny future of science"

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
• Wound Care
• Cardiovascular
• Machine learning/AI

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Research Interests:

• Calcium channel analysis for target drug delivery for treatment of pain, arrhythmias, angina, and potential benefits in treatment of epilepsy and cancer.

• Structure, function and pharmacology of calcium channels and sodium channels

• Structure and function and analysis of NALCN cation channel  and anti-calcium channel toxins

• The Spafford Neurobiology Research Laboratory studies voltage-gated calcium channels, molecular physiology, biophysics, cell biology, protein biochemistry, fluorescence microscopy and tissue cultures.

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[Science News] April 25, 2014 "Waterloo discovers a key regulator in the pacemakers of our brain and heart"

Research Interests:

• Electrophysiological characterization of neuromuscular disorders

• Autonomous and knowledge systems

• Machine perception and sensors

• Image processing and analysis, pattern analysis and recognition

• EMG signal decomposition, simulation and quantitative EMG and DQEMG

• Biomedical engineering

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Research Interests:

• Ultrasound imaging innovations: Complex flow imaging, High-performance beamforming platforms, Flow phantom design

• Therapeutic ultrasound discoveries: Sonoporation, Micro/nanobubble cavitation, Wave-matter interactions, Cellular dynamics studies

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