
Study Shows Benefits of Electrical Stimulation Therapy for People Paralyzed by Spinal-Cord Injury
In a study published online in the journal Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair, Toronto researchers report that functional electrical stimulation (FES) therapy worked better than conventional occupational therapy alone to increase patients’ ability to pick up and hold objects. FES therapy uses low-intensity electrical pulses generated by a pocket-sized electric stimulator. “This study proves that by […]

Molly Shoichet is Named to Ontario’s Highest Honour
Professor Molly Shoichet (ChemE, IBBME), a world-renowned researcher of regenerative medicine, is among 30 new appointees to the Order of Ontario, the provincial government announced on Friday. The appointees to Ontario’s highest honour were chosen for their contributions to the arts, justice, science, medicine, history, politics, philanthropy and the environment. The Honourable David C. Onley, […]

IBBME Professors Receive Nearly $6.5 Million in Funding from CIHR
Professors Shana Kelley, Michael Sefton and Gang Zheng of the Institute of Biomaterials & Biomedical Engineering (IBBME) have received nearly $6.5 million in research funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), it was announced on Monday. These grants come from the Emerging Team Grant: Regenerative Medicine and Nanomedicine program which will back IBBME research […]

U of T-hosted Regenerative Medicine Project Awarded $15 Million from Federal Government
Developing products that will enable treatments for devastating health conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, cancer and spinal cord injuries is the focus of a major University of Toronto-hosted research and commercialization initiative that has been awarded $15 million by the Government of Canada’s Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE). The Centre for Commercialization of […]

Calgary Scientists to Create Human ‘Neurochip’
The science fiction of melding man and machine has played out for decades onscreen, from The Six Million Dollar Man to The Terminator. But the bionic hybrid age may well be flickering to life – real life – in the Calgary lab where scientists who made history fusing snail brain cells to a computer microchip six years ago […]

Walking on Thin Ice? Scientist at Climate-controlled Lab Studies Slips and Falls
In the midst of a blistering heat wave, most Torontonians aren’t thinking much about frigid temperatures, ice and winter spills. But in a special laboratory at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, walking is a perilous — and chilly — experience for volunteers like Varun Ohri. A 20-year-old from Mississauga, Ont., Ohri is walking for science. Or […]

U of T Spinoff Company Inks its Third Agreement
University of Toronto spinoff company Interface Biologics Inc. has announced the signing of an evaluation and exclusive license option agreement with Fresenius Medical Care, the world’s largest integrated provider of dialysis products and services. Under the agreement, Fresenius Medical Care will evaluate the use and efficacy of IBI’s EndexoTM technology to various components of Fresenius […]

Artery-on-a-Chip Studies Heart Disease
Professor Axel Guenther (MIE, IBBME) and colleagues have developed a microfluidic platform on which fragile blood vessels can be fixed, allowing the factors that promote and sustain cardiovascular diseases to be studied. Microvascular structure and function are currently studied using either an isometric approach, where small arteries are mounted on two wires, or an isobaric method, where […]

Assistant Professor Milica Radisic Named a “Scientist to Watch”
The prestigious life sciences magazine, The Scientist, recently named Assistant Professor Milica Radisic of the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering (IBBME) and the Department of Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry (ChemE) as the “Scientist to Watch” for her research involving engineered cardiac tissue called the “heart patch.” The idea for the heart patch first came to Radisic […]