Health Futures

Researchers led by the University of Waterloo have discovered how to turn common bacteria into high-efficiency factories capable of producing tiny, powerful particles for drug delivery, cancer therapy, vaccine development and other biomedical uses.

Led by Dr. Yilan Liu, a Waterloo chemical engineering professor, the international research team altered bacteria found in the human gut, or gastrointestinal tract, to dramatically increase the number of bubble-shaped nanoparticles they secrete.

Many founders find it challenging in the early stages of their business due to limited access to non-dilutive funding. Here enters Velocity — the centre of entrepreneurship at the University of Waterloo — with a solution to the problem since 2008.  

Developing new drugs to treat illnesses has typically been a slow and expensive process. However, a team of researchers at the University of Waterloo uses machine learning to speed up the development time.

Six researchers at the University of Waterloo have been awarded more than $7.5 million in funding to support their research.  

The funding is made possible through the Canada Research Chairs (CRC) Program, which invests up to $311 million annually to attract and retain some of the world’s most accomplished and promising minds.   

Dr. George Shaker has huge hopes for a small radar device he developed with a team of researchers at the University of Waterloo.

An engineer who has pursued the possibilities of radio waves for more than 20 years, Shaker envisions the installation of the silent, unobtrusive system almost everywhere people sit to help detect heart problems before they become life-threatening.

Kinesiology and Health Sciences Professor Lora Giangregorio has been awarded a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair (CRC) in Bone Health and Exercise Science, with a funding allotment of $1.4 million.

She also received a $75,000 grant from the Canada Foundation for Innovation John R. Evans Leaders Fund (JELF) that is associated with this CRC.

Imagine a painless patch that continuously sends your health status to your phone. A team of researchers from the University of Waterloo is on a mission to deliver just that by developing next-generation technologies that can monitor and dispatch personalized medicine. 

A new way to measure male fertility has been discovered by researchers at the University of Waterloo, opening the door to the development of simple, inexpensive tests for clinical and at-home use.

The research team combined expertise in sperm cell behaviour and interface science to determine that the movement of healthy sperm within semen reduces the force with which droplets stick to a water-repellent surface.

One-third of Canadian adults aged 55 or older are nutritionally at risk, potentially leading to increased hospital stays, more emergency visits and physician consultations for possible infections, a new study found.

The University of Waterloo researchers assessed data from more than 22,000 community-dwelling adults aged 55 and over from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging. After an initial evaluation, they followed up with participants up to three years later to track their health-service use over the previous year.