Tuesday, April 28, 2026

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• Recognize, celebrate, and uplift through the Values at Work program
• Four pre-seed initiatives approved through Global Futures Fund 2.0

• Campus garden plot applications open May 6

• Diagnosing cancer with a drop of blood

Recognize, celebrate, and uplift through the Values at Work program

A message from University Relations.

Canada’s most innovative university is driven by its people. At Waterloo, we think differently, act with purpose, and work together. These are the values that transform ideas into action.

It's this drive that propels the University forward and reinforces Waterloo as a world-renowned institution, despite these challenging times in the post-secondary sector. We’re feeling external and internal pressures, and yet we continue to see great people do great things.

That needs to be celebrated, and it’s why we’re introducing Values at Work.

Values at Work is a recognition program that reinforces our shared values and celebrates our talented employees. To recognize someone is simple: share a short quote about a colleague or a team you feel reflects one or more of our institutional values. They’ll be featured on the Values website and those who have been recognized will be mentioned in the Daily Bulletin each month. They’ll also be entered into a draw (each term) for a W Store gift card.

Let’s recognize, celebrate, and uplift each other— nominate someone today!

Questions? Please reach out to communications@uwaterloo.ca.

Four pre-seed initiatives approved through Global Futures Fund 2.0

A message from the Global Futures Office.

The University of Waterloo is pleased to announce four pre-seed initiatives will receive funding through Round 2.0 of the Global Futures Fund (GFF). This follows adjudication by the GFF Steering Committee and approval from Deans’ Council. The Global Futures Fund supports interdisciplinary and cross-boundary initiatives that advance the University’s Societal, Health, Sustainable, Technological, and Economic Futures.

Pre-seed grants provide up to $50,000 for one year to support new initiatives at an early stage, with a focus on proposal development and feasibility assessments. These initiatives are based on collaboration across faculties and academic support units and often with external partners. Funding for the approved initiatives is expected to begin in June 2026.

The four approved pre-seed initiatives are:

• AMPLIFY: Empowering Regional Youth as Global Futures Leaders, led by Karim Wissa, which works with community partners to engage youth in Global Futures challenges through experiential learning.
• Governing Uncertainty: Community-Centred Evidence Infrastructures for Global Urban Futures, led by Carrie L. Mitchell, which pilots new approaches to evidence governance for urban decision-making under conditions of uncertainty.
• MIRACLE Centre: Microrobotics Institute for Research Advancements in Clinical & Life Science Engineering, led by Veronika Magdanz and Hamed Shahsavan, which strengthens interdisciplinary research and training in medical microrobotics.
• Open Quantum–AI Platform for Generative Drug Discovery and Systems Pharmacology Modeling, led by Mohammad Kohandel and Roger Melko, which integrates quantum computing and artificial intelligence to advance drug discovery research.

The Global Futures Office will be working with the above initiatives to help forge connections and interdependencies with other initiatives on campus, through existing Global Futures funding and beyond. For more information on the Global Futures Fund and how to get involved visit the Global Futures Office.

Campus garden plot applications open May 6

A message from the Sustainability Office.

Did you know that Waterloo has nearly 50 garden plots available for use by the campus community? Managed by the Sustainability Office, employees and students are invited to apply for a plot for the 2026 growing season!

Some additional details: 

• 10 garden plots are available on V1 Green (4x12’ raised bed plots)
• 35 garden plots are available at the North Campus Community Garden (8x9’ in-ground plots)
• Groups of (minimum) two staff, faculty, or students, as well as student groups and departments, can rent plots
• Plots can be rented from May to October.

Applications will open on Wednesday, May 6 at 9:00 a.m. and plots will be assigned on a first-come, first-served basis. For more information, visit the Sustainability Office’s Food Garden webpage.

Diagnosing cancer with a drop of blood

By Mayuri Punithan. This article was originally published on the Cheriton School of Computer Science website.

What if doctors could more accurately diagnose and monitor blood cancer with a simple blood draw? This vision is becoming a reality thanks to research at Rapid Novor, a Waterloo-based company co-founded by Dr. Bin Ma, a computer science professor at the University of Waterloo.

Myeloma is a type of blood cancer that grows in the bone marrow. Typically, patients must undergo multiple bone marrow biopsies to diagnose the disease and to assess the treatment. However, this procedure is painful and invasive.

“Basically, the doctor has to insert a thick needle into the bone to extract marrow,” Ma says. “Then they test it to see if there are any cancer cells inside of it. Even after treatment, this procedure needs to be repeated once or twice a year to detect possible relapse.”

Most people diagnosed with myeloma are older than 65. Some may have mobility issues and fragile bones, making the biopsy procedure even more risky.

To address these challenges, Rapid Novor created EasyM, a non-invasive and highly sensitive blood-based test that traces a biomarker for myeloma called M-protein. Essentially, a physician can collect blood from a patient and send it off for analysis. Using EasyM, a lab can check if the sample contains M-protein and measure its quantity.

What’s key to EasyM is de novo sequencing, a computational biology technique  that  can  determine  the  amino acid sequence of a protein. M-protein is a classic biomarker for myeloma. However, the sensitivity of the existing method for M-protein measurement is too low due to interference from other proteins in blood.

“The amino acid sequence can help us differentiate the M-protein from other similar but normal proteins in the blood,” explains Ma, a pioneer in computational biology. “The experimental data is  very noisy and has  errors.  Our team developed the  de novo  sequencing  algorithm  to figure out  the sequence  from  the  noisy data.”

Every patient’s M-protein sequence is unique — almost like a fingerprint — making it easier to diagnose and monitor myeloma. A doctor can compare a patient’s M-protein quantities at various time points to see if their cancer has improved.

Recently, Rapid Novor received a licence from the Ministry of Health, allowing clinics across Ontario to use EasyM. This milestone paves the way for Canadians to have access to a non-invasive tool for myeloma.

Importantly, EasyM can detect relapse two to eleven months earlier than the current standard of care. This benefit is attributed to EasyM’s high sensitivity and painless approach, which enables the early detection of the M-protein rise before the relapse and encourages frequent patient check-ups.

EasyM is not only more sensitive but also more effective. Myeloma can happen anywhere in the bone marrow. But as Ma puts it, “if the doctor is not digging in the right place,” they may receive misleading results on the patient’s progress.

In contrast, M-protein produced by the myeloma cells circulate in the blood throughout your body, meaning that you get the same readings wherever you take the blood. This is particularly important, as Ma’s research has found that patients who were deemed myeloma-free by the biopsy method still showed detectable levels of the M-protein in their blood.

For Ma, EasyM has been a 10-year journey. What motivated him was knowing that his pioneering work in computational biology could put an end to patient suffering.

“This problem was brought to us at a conference, and we happen to have the technology,” he says. “By chance, if you have a solution to a real-world problem, you feel like it’s your responsibility to make it happen to the people who need it the most.”

He also credits the University’s intellectual property (IP) policy, which grants Waterloo members ownership of their creations. This agency, complemented by Waterloo’s strong entrepreneurial ecosystem, empowers Waterloo researchers to turn their ideas into innovative solutions that drive real-world impact.