This year the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology (WIN) announced a new funding program for WIN members. The WIN Interdisciplinary Research Funding Program (WIN-IRFP) is a competitive program aimed at providing seed funding and support for interdisciplinary research.
Professor Karim Karim, Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and WIN member, and his partners are one of the inaugural projects under the WIN-IRFP. Professor Karim and his partners, Professor Robin Duncan and Professor Peter Levine, are developing a low-cost, efficient x-ray machine. The innovative micro-CT system for cardiovascular imaging research is a more accessible alternative to magnetic resonate imaging. Their micro-CT system exposes the subject to a lower radiation dose and produces a higher resolution image of low density materials, including soft tissue.
“The WIN-IRFP will help us scale-up and commercialize our product. We would not be able to do this without WIN’s support,"
“The WIN-IRFP will help us scale-up and commercialize our product. We would not be able to do this without WIN’s support,” said Professor Karim. A key requirement of the program is the co-applicant must be a full-time faculty member from outside of the Faculty of Engineering and the Faculty of Science. In this specific instance, Professor Robin Duncan, from the Department of Applied Health Sciences is a co-PI. Professor Peter Levine, from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and WIN member, is the third co- PI on their micro-CT system.
WIN
will
award
three
awards
per
year,
at
a
value
of
$100,000
each,
for
the
next
five
years.
The
intent
of
the
program
is
to
help
WIN
researchers
work
on
“high
risk-high
reward”
blue-sky
discovery
research.
These
projects
should
provide
some
initial
data
points
and
insights
as
a
first
step
to
enable
researchers
to
target
various
established
funding
programs.
The WIN-IRFP is possible through a $1.5 million investment in strategic funding for interdisciplinary research.
Other projects funded through this program include hydrophobic engineering of nanodimensional protein capsules for therapeutics, a novel theoretical framework for the prediction of non-equilibrium systems and mapping lipid and mitochondria depots in fully hydrated tissue with nanometer resolution.
To find more stories like this see our 2017-2018 Annual Report.