For some, the summer is a chance to catch up on sleep or travel. However, for hundreds of undergraduates in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, this summer was a chance to experience life in the lab.

Under the supervision of faculty members and senior graduate students, students undertook  a broad range of research that can improve life in many ways. From less turbulent flights, improved air quality, new biomedical devices or computers that don’t crash, students were devising new solutions for society.

Many of the results were presented at the Undergraduate Engineering Research Day (UnERD) on August 17. However, if you missed those presentations, fear not! Learn more about the research conducted by six students this summer at U of T Engineering.

The days of the blood sample routine – arm out, tie tube, make a fist, find a vein, and tap in – may soon be over, thanks to a new analysis method developed at U of T by Institute of Biomaterials & Biomedical Engineering (IBBME) Professor Aaron Wheeler in which only a pinprick of blood necessary.
Traditional methods of blood sampling requires intravenous extraction of several millilitres of blood. A phlebotomist then separates serum, which is frozen for transport or storage, and later thawed and analyzed. A relatively new alternative to the traditional method uses blood samples stored as dried blood spots (DBSs). The DBS method requires only a pinprick to extract a few microlitres of blood, which is blotted onto filter paper, where the sample, it has been found, remains stable. While DBSs have been gaining increasing popularity for the ease of sampling and storage for some time, they are still not a standard laboratory technique, and the process for using them remained laborious – until now.

In a study published in Lab on a Chip on August 25, Professor Wheeler and colleagues demonstrated the proof-of-principle that digital microfluidics could be used to automate the process of dried blood spot analysis in the case of testing for specific genetic diseases at Newborn Screening Ontario (NSO) in Ottawa. This paper is the result of a collaboration between Professor Wheeler and NSO rsearchers.

NSO regularly screens every baby born in Ontario for genetic diseases – some 140,000 babies a year – and collects DBS samples via heelprick. Each DBS must be manually collected. Technicians must prepare the sample for testing, put it into a centrifugal tube, pipette solvent onto the sample, extract the necessary material by centrifuge, and then use robotics to conduct the chemical analysis.

Professor Wheeler’s digital microfluidic platform automates this process. Droplets are manipulated onto the sample using electrical signals, and the material needed for analysis is extracted – all on a “lab-on-a-chip” with little manual intervention. He created the prototype for this process in the Bahen Cleanroom, a facility of the Emerging Communications Technology Institute at U of T.

Professor Wheeler’s study quantified particular amino acids that are markers of three metabolic disorders: phenylketonuria, homocystinuria, and tyrosinemia. His next steps will be to evaluate the rest of the 28 diseases that NSO screens for.

Professor Wheeler’s innovation is indicative of the innovative tools for biomedical engineering that IBBME researchers create. “The applications for this process go far beyond newborn screening,” Professor Wheeler stated. “Pharmaceutical companies are moving towards dried blood spot analysis, but they’re still lacking the tools to make widespread use feasible. We’ve demonstrated that digital microfluidics could be that tool. Our system is fast, robust, precise, and compatible with automation.”

While it might be a while before the days of the dreaded blood sample needle are behind us, Professor Wheeler’s digital microfluidics method is the next step in moving to a DBS-based sampling system, says Dr. Pranesh Chakraborty, Director of NSO. “This approach could save considerable costs as a result of the lower volumes of reagent required,” he affirmed. “An automated system based on this approach would also process samples faster, with higher accuracy, less risk of errors, all while freeing up time for technologists to perform other work.” Dr. Charaborty’s team provided the screening and medical perspective in this research.

A patent has been filed, and Professor Wheeler is currently exploring commercialization options.

 

Ray Chen (CompE 1T3 +PEY) has a lofty goal: he wants engineering students to enter the workforce with more than just technical knowledge, but the communication and leadership skills necessary for them to succeed.

In order to do that, he and a team of dedicated volunteers have created the Leadership Summer School that he hopes will help students, like him, become true leaders in their field.

From Aug. 21 to 27, U of T Engineering hosted the elite Canadian Federation of Engineering Students (CFES) program, which included 21 participants from 14 countries around the world.

Engineering students from as far away as Mexico and Belgium took part in the new professional development program, which will give youth a head start in the working world.

The CFES summer initiative, the first of its kind in Canada, selected only a couple dozen engineering students to take part in the sessions.  It brought students and others from professionally related organizations together on the University’s St. George Campus to share lessons and tips in an interactive environment. Five experienced international trainers also helped the future leaders learn more about best practices and leadership opportunities.

“People really brought international experiences with them when they came,” he said, “and when you have so many people sharing their strengths and advice in one place, it creates stronger engineers.”

Classes ranging from Life Planning (how students can prepare for their careers and achieve personal goals) to Emotional Intelligence (which lays out how engineers can approach stressful situations and understand emotional behaviors in a team) were covered.

Besides the obvious benefits of hosting an event of this nature it also served as a meet-and-greet for participants and strengthened relations between different institutions.

“These days engineers travel all over the world and it makes sense that we create essential dialogue with our peers wherever they live,” said Chen, who is currently studying political sciences and economics at Sciences Po Paris overseas.

Although capacity at the conference was limited, the knowledge students gained was still shared with fellow students, student groups in their home institutions.

“Physically only 24 people can attend, but [the participants] go back and develop the skills the learned and share them with their student groups and peers,” he said. “Students can still be a part of the program even if they’re not in room with us, that is why it’s so interesting.”

During the seven-day event, youth also had the opportunity to open up about ways students are falling short communication-wise and what can be done at their respective universities to expand upon their leadership knowledge –- a skill Chen confesses many students lack.

“We’ve heard from employers that students have the technical knowledge but not necessarily the communication skills so I decided to create this event where people can learn.”

He realizes that in order for U of T and international engineering students to make their mark in the world they need to learn how to better communicate their ideas.

“You have the technical knowledge, but what are you going to do with it? We want to help others prepare for the world outside of university where they’ll need communication skills, too. Knowing what you’re doing is only half the battle,” he said, ” the other half is helping others understand it.”

Researchers at the University of Toronto have developed a new method for creating 3D hydrogel scaffolds that will aid in the development of new tissue and organs grown in a lab.

The discovery is outlined in the latest issue of Nature Materials.

Hydrogels, “jello”-like substances, are highly flexible and absorbent networks of polymer strings that are frequently used in tissue engineering to act as a scaffold to aid cellular growth and development.

The paper demonstrates for the first time that it is possible to immobilize different proteins simultaneously using a hydrogel. This is critical for controlling the determination of stem cells, which are used to engineer new tissue or organs.

“We know that proteins are very important to define cell function and cell fate. So working with stem cells derived from the brain or retina, we have demonstrated we can spatially immobilize proteins that will influence their differentiation in a three-dimensional environment,” explains Professor Molly Shoichet of the Department of Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry, the Institute for Biomaterials & Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Chemistry.

Immobilizing proteins maintains their bioactivity, which had previously been difficult to ensure. It is also important to maintain spacial control as the tissue and organs are three-dimensional. Therefore, being able to control cell fate and understanding how cells interact across three dimensions is critical.

“If we think about the retina, the retina is divided into seven layers. And if you start with a retinal stem cell, it has the potential to become all of those different cell types. So what we are doing is immobilizing a protein which will cause their differentiation into photoreceptors or bipolar neurons or other cell types that would make up those seven different cell types,” says Professor Shoichet.

The end result is a new hydrogel that can guide stem cell development in three-dimensions.

Professor Shoichet identifies two long-term outcomes from this discovery.

“We could use … it as a platform technology to look at the interaction of different cells and build tissues and organ,” Professor Shoichet states, while also noting that it could help lead to a more fundamental understanding of cellular interaction. “By growing cells in a 3D environment, similar to how they grow in our body, we can develop a better understanding of cell processes and interactions.”

The research was led by Professor Shoichet and was conducted by Ryan G. Wylie,  Shoeb Ahsan, Yukie Aizawa, Karen L. Maxwell and Cindi M. Morshead.

A group of 12 graduate and undergraduate students from the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering are headed to Battle Mountain, Nevada on Sept. 12 to compete in The World Human-Powered Speed Challenge.

At the competition, teams from around the world will race their independently-built bicycles over 200 meters. Their hope is to break speed records for human-powered vehicles, and be crowned number one in the world.

Driving the unique vehicle is a one-of-a-kind experience that’s difficult to explain says Aerospace Science & Engineering student, Victor Ragusila (UTIAS). “You’re basically inside a big drum so any sound is amplified. You don’t have time to be scared, it’s very exciting. Even when it’s ‘Oh man I’m crashing, I’m down,’ you’re still so excited.”

To find out more about the group’s human-powered vehicle, please visit the Toronto Star.

Professor Javad Mostaghimi (MIE) spoke to Yahoo Canada TV about a surprising discovery made by researchers at the National Autonomous University of Mexico who discovered how to turn tequila into diamond films.

The scientists originally experimented with organic solutions like acetone, ethanol and methanol before realizing that tequila contains almost equal percentages of ethanol and water — two compounds needed for the experiment to succeed.

The final product is hard and heat-resistant — properties that could make the diamond useful as coatings for cutting tools, high-power semiconductors, radiation detectors and optical-electronic devices.

Watch Professor Mostaghimi explain the process in more detail on Yahoo Canada TV  or read about it on Physorg.com