Canadian Haptics Interdisciplinary Community Initiative Fall Workshop
Medical devices can be used to diagnose or prevent disease, they can improve a patient’s quality of life and they often save lives. Devices such as pacemakers have been around since the late 1950s, but advancements in med-tech have come a long way since then. As research expands and technology advances, a multitude of medical devices are being developed and prepared for market.
We have an intimate relationship with technology. It is infused in our daily life, from our home and car to our finances and health care. As we welcome new technologies into our most personal spaces, there is a growing recognition that design-based thinking needs to consider ethics and the users it serves.
A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the University of Waterloo and the University of Twente to establish an international, transatlantic data research network rooted in the combination of engineering and sciences with social and health sciences was signed at the Design Lab.
Leaders in community health care, technology, research and entrepreneurship will gather next week to discuss the ways these areas intersect in medicine now and should in the future, while celebrating a milestone anniversary for one health-care facility in the region.
Congratulations to CBB members Drs. N. Chandrashekar, S. Acker, A. Laing, N. Jiang, J. Kofman, L. Giangregorio, and K. Grindrod in being awarded seed grant funding from the Propel Centre for Population Health Impact for the Chronic Disease Prevention Initiative (CDPI) competition for Spring 2015.
John McPhee heads the new $10 million Green and Intelligent Automotive (GAIA) research facility in the Faculty of Engineering with $1 million initial funding from Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada (TMMC). The Governments of Canada and Ontario are also providing $2.1 million each through the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the Ontario Research Fund Research Infrastructure program.
Zoya Leonenko chair of the conference organizing committee, the Faculty of Science, Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology (WIN) and the Centre for Bioengineering and Biotechnology (CBB) planned the three-day conference June 17-19 that brought industry and researchers together for the first Annual Meeting of the Biophysical Society of Canada.
CBB member Helen Chen and team wins Infoway Innovation Award at e-Health 2015. The winning idea aims to increase access to cardiac rehab and was recognized for its Tele-Cardiac Rehab idea, which would provide patients with tools to help them manage cardiac rehab remotely and on their own time. Tele-Cardiac Rehab would eliminate common barriers that hinder compliance with cardiac rehab including travel time and work demands.
A new research centre at the University of Waterloo that will revolutionize the ability to predict and delay illness and injury associated with aging is receiving $1.3 million toward wireless wearables and other devices and technology. More than $4 million was awarded to four Waterloo teams including CBB member Bill McIlroy from Kinesiology: Advanced Aging ResearCH Centre (ARCH) to transform health and well-being of older adults.