WIN-CBB-IIT-KGP Seed Funding Program on Health Technologies and Knowledge Mobilization

The Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology (WIN) and the Centre for Bioengineering and Biotechnology (CBB) at the University of Waterloo (Waterloo) are partnering with the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (IIT-KGP) Common Research and Technology Development Hub on Healthcare (CRTDH), and we are pleased to announce the Joint Seed Funding Program on Health Technologies and Knowledge Mobilization.

This funding is designed to kick-start research to foster new interdisciplinary and interjurisdictional research collaborations between international partners. In this program, the aim is to promote the development of new health technologies for the betterment of health and wellness for all.

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Details:

Title:

Interdisciplinary Seed Grant Program on Health Technologies and Knowledge Mobilization
Background & Rationale:

Universal access to good healthcare systems and technology is at the forefront of the challenges faced by a large portion of today’s population. Advancements in nanotechnology and microengineering and their applications to medical and healthcare fields are helping meet these needs with novel medication systems, diagnosis and treatments. Knowledge mobilization is also a very important aspect of health- and wellness research, ensuring end-users are aware of new technological developments that are optimized for ease of use and wide adoption by society, which will ultimately help democratize healthcare. As equitable access to health care is often a challenge in limited resource communities, collaboration across jurisdictions is critical to ensure health equity between “haves” and “have nots”.

The intent of the program is to support research teams as they obtain preliminary results and insights that will enhance their applications to various external national and international funding programs. As large-scale funding programs increasingly require a knowledge mobilization strategy to be incorporated into the research program, this fund will help support the integration of researchers from the different academic and research units into balanced interdisciplinary and interjurisdictional teams.

Target Research Areas:

This call will support outstanding joint projects in the following key theme areas of health technology:

  • Advanced Healthcare Platforms (such as point of care diagnostic technologies, wearable or implantable devices for therapeutics and measurements, tissue repair and regeneration, promoting repair and recovery of neural, musculoskeletal and cardiovascular tissue)  
  • Delivery Systems for Therapeutics(for pharmaceuticals and medications, nutrient delivery, food safety and security, etc)  
  • Biomedical Imaging (for cells, tissues, systems, pre-/post clinical assessment and monitoring and other applications)  

Each project must include a Knowledge Mobilization and Technology Translation component, to engage end users, informing them of new technological developments and/or adaptation of the same as alternatives to existing practice.

Eligibility:

For this program, the team must consist of at least one core WIN member and one CBB member who will serve as co-principal investigators (co-PIs) on the project.

Lead applicants are encouraged to bring together an interdisciplinary team of co-applicants and collaborators, and preference will be given to applications with at least one co-applicant from Waterloo’s Faculty of Health.

Applicants are encouraged to include IIT-KGP member(s) in their team to foster research collaboration. Awarded projects that include IIT-KGP collaborator(s) as part of the team will be able to access matching funds from IIT-KGP.

The list of researchers from IIT-KGP can be found at this link: Potential Collaborators from IIT-KGP.

Funding:

To support joint projects, WIN and CBB are each contributing $30,000 CAD to this seed funding initiative for a total available funding pool of $60,000 CAD. Up to three (3) awards of $20,000 CAD will be awarded.

Awarded projects with one or more collaborators from IIT-KGP will receive matching funds from IIT-KGP through its CRTDH and/or any other Sponsored Research Project in the respective domain.

Duration:

Project funding duration will be one (1) year

Application:

Application guidelines PDF

Application_Form_DOCX

Application_Form_PDF

Deadline for Submissions:
18 March 2024 at 11:59pm EST
Announcement of Results:

29 April 2024

Project Start Date:

1 May 2024

Contacts and application submission:

CBB Members to contact CBB at cbb@uwaterloo.ca

WIN Members to contact Lisa Pokrajac at lisa.pokrajac@uwaterloo.ca

General inquires to be sent to both CBB and Lisa

Potential Collaborators from IIT-KGP

Name of the faculty member

Research Profile

Department/School

Area of interest/ representative topic

Prof. Suman Chakraborty

https://www.iitkgp.ac.in/department/ME/faculty/me-suman

Mechanical Engineering

Microfluidics and nanofluidics, Point of Care diagnostics

Dr. Subhamoy Mandal

https://www.iitkgp.ac.in/department/MM/faculty/mm-smandal

School of Medical Science and Technology

Ultrasound imaging and radiological technologies

Dr. Pralay Mitra

https://cse.iitkgp.ac.in/~pralay/

Computer Science and Engineering

Developing algorithms for proteometics, disease modeling and biomarker discovery.

Dr. Nishant Chakravorty

https://www.iitkgp.ac.in/department/MM/faculty/mm-nishant

School of Medical Science & Technology

Application of molecular biology, biomaterials and stem cells in regenerative medicine

Dr. Titash Mondal

https://www.iitkgp.ac.in/department/RT/faculty/rt-titash

Rubber Technology Centre

Polymer composite based flexible electronic sensors for Point of care applications.

Dr. Pradip Kumar Chakraborty

https://www.iitkgp.ac.in/department/CY/faculty/cy-pradipc

Chemistry

Nanomaterials-based fluorescence quenching for lateral flow immunoassay

Dr. Arindam Mondal

https://www.iitkgp.ac.in/department/BS/faculty/bs-arindam.mondal

School of Bioscience

Understanding virus evolution and replication strategies at molecular level, developing therapeutics, prophylaxis & diagnostics strategies.

Dr. Debdoot Sheet

http://www.facweb.iitkgp.ac.in/~debdoot/

Electrical Engineering

Medical data analytics/ AI

Dr. Sandip Kumar Chakraborty

https://www.iitkgp.ac.in/department/CS/faculty/cs-sandipc

Computer Science and Engineering

Secured and Transparent Medical Data/Information Exchange and Block Chain technology

Prof. Dipak Kumar Goswami

https://www.iitkgp.ac.in/department/PH/faculty/ph-dipak

Physics

Development of flexible organic field-effect transistors-based healthcare sensors and related diagnostic interventions