As the demand for nanotechnology grows, The Edward S. Rogers Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering has responded with an undergraduate course that “is one-of-its-kind in Canada.”
Introduction to Micro- and Nanofabrication Technologies, which was launched in 2009, provides students with the chance to obtain knowledge and hands-on skills in the in-demand field of nanotechnology. The course and its benefits are outlined in an article by Dr. Aju Jugessur, Senior Research Scientist and Manager of the Emerging Communications Technology Institute (ECTI), which was published in the IEEE Graduates of the Last Decade (GOLD) newsletter.
Another technology commercialization success story emerges from U of T. Interface Biologics Inc (IBI), a company founded by Professor Paul Santerre, Director of the Institute of Biomaterials & Biomedical Engineering (IBBME), announced the successful conclusion of a licensing evaluation period with Fresenius Medical Care.
Fresenius Medical Care, the largest provider of dialysis products and services, will apply IBI’s Endexo technology to dialysis circuits for treating end-stage renal disease. Last week marked the conclusion of an evaluation period, at which time Fresenius Medical Care exercised its licence option, including the payment of a $2-million licensing fee. This payment represents an important step for the company as it transitions from research and development to a commercial-stage company.
Professor Santerre serves as IBI’s Director on its Advisory Board, and is the company’s Chief Scientific Officer.
“The research that led to the founding of this company was incubated in my lab within the Faculty of Dentistry from 2001 to 2004,” Professor Santerre said. His research into novel biomedical polymer technologies was identified by U of T’s Innovations and Partnerships Office (IPO) as viable for commercialization. IPO identified an investor, and in December 2001, IBI was created.
Although separate from U of T, start-up companies such as IBI not only demonstrate the innovative and creative thinking of its University researchers, but also turns their research into high-impact, life-changing products.
IBI’s Endexo is a self-locating fluoro-oligomeric additive that reduces platelet adhesion and activation, protein adsorption and thrombus formation in medical devices, thereby reducing the need for anti-coagulants, such as heparin. Endexo has significant manufacturing advantages over other anti-thrombogenic coating or impregnation alternatives and does not change the mechanical or functional properties of the underlying medical device.
IBBME’s unique interdisciplinary position between the Faculties of Engineering, Medicine and Dentistry makes it a particularly fruitful environment for the development of groundbreaking biomedical technologies such as this, remarked Professor Santerre. “IBBME researchers make use of the resources of facilities and expertise from all its Faculties and partners. The research that led to the founding of IBI, for example, involved chemical engineering and the health care expertise in Dentistry and Medicine. And I don’t have to look farther than our teaching hospitals and IBBME cross-appointed professors for consultants,” he said.
Along with taking advantage of such a community of expertise, he notes that IBI’s success comes as the result of a diversified portfolio. “IBI has always had at least three technologies in development, with short-and long-term goals,” he explained. “The investors stay engaged, and the risks we take remain measured.”
As investment grew from $1 million in 2001 to $10 million in 2004, Professor Santerre stepped back from his role of company President, but continues his leadership role as Chief Scientific Officer. In 2010, Professor Santerre received the Julia Levy Award from the Canadian Society for Chemical Industry for Commercialization of Innovation in Canada in the field of Bio-medical Science and Engineering. He continues to lead IBBME as its Director, where he fosters a community of excellence and where researchers develop the biomedical engineering technologies that change lives.
Professor Chris Damaren, of the University of Toronto Institute of Aerospace Studies (UTIAS), offers insight into what the future of space exploration may look like as the famed NASA shuttle program comes to an end.
The Engineer, who also serves as Vice Dean, Graduate Studies, discusses the future of manned space travel in North America and what possible role the private sector could play in the aerospace industry.
To read the full interview, please visit U of T Research
Demand for air travel is projected to rise roughly 5%, a figure that could mean disastrous results for the environment. Professor David Zingg, Director of the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS), is doing his part to make the field of aviation more environmentally friendly.
The U of T Engineer, who is also a Canada Research Chair in Computational Aerodynamics and Environmentally Friendly Aircraft Design, was recently featured in Wings Magazine for his research on applying high-fidelity aerodynamic shape optimization to the design of aircraft configurations.
By doing this, he and his team hope to decrease the number of greenhouse gasses emitted by planes and help the aviation industry achieve its set target of 50% reduction in total carbon dioxide emissions by 2050.
To read more about David Zingg’s research, please visit Wings Magazine.
While some kids spend their summer days watching TV or playing video games, a few lucky students enrolled in U of T’s Da Vinci Engineering Enrichment Program (DEEP) Summer Academy are doing something amazing: they’re learning hands-on about some of engineering’s most fascinating, innovative research.
As part of the summer program, participants learn about the field of engineering from U of T Engineering students and take part in intriguing activities, like the exclusive tour of Insception Cord Blood Program’s facilities that took place on July 8.
The tour was part of a course called Stem Cells: the Past, Present and Future. The one-week class teaches DEEP participants about the research history and ethical, social and legal aspects surrounding stem cell work.
Find out more about DEEP and other U of T Engineering pre-university programs here
University of Toronto researchers have derived inspiration from the photosynthetic apparatus in plants to engineer a new generation of nanomaterials that control and direct the energy absorbed from light.
Their findings are reported in Nature Nanotechnology , released on July 10, 2011.
The U of T researchers, led by Professors Shana Kelley and Ted Sargent, report the construction of what they term “artificial molecules.”
“Nanotechnologists have for many years been captivated by quantum dots – particles of semiconductor that can absorb and emit light efficiently, and at custom-chosen wavelengths,” explained co-author Kelley, a Professor at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, the Department of Biochemistry in the Faculty of Medicine, and the Department of Chemistry in the Faculty of Arts & Science. “What the community has lacked – until now – is a strategy to build higher-order structures, or complexes, out of multiple different types of quantum dots. This discovery fills that gap.”
The team combined its expertise in DNA and in semiconductors to invent a generalized strategy to bind certain classes of nanoparticles to one another.
“The credit for this remarkable result actually goes to DNA: its high degree of specificity – its willingness to bind only to a complementary sequence – enabled us to build rationally-engineered, designer structures out of nanomaterials,” said Sargent, a Professor in The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto, who is also the Canada Research Chair in Nanotechnology. “The amazing thing is that our antennas built themselves – we coated different classes of nanoparticles with selected sequences of DNA, combined the different families in one beaker, and nature took its course. The result is a beautiful new set of self-assembled materials with exciting properties.”
Traditional antennas increase the amount of an electromagnetic wave – such as a radio frequency – that is absorbed, and then funnel that energy to a circuit. The U of T nanoantennas instead increased the amount of light that is absorbed and funneled it to a single site within their molecule-like complexes. This concept is already used in nature in light harvesting antennas, constituents of leaves that make photosynthesis efficient. “Like the antennas in radios and mobile phones, our complexes captured dispersed energy and concentrated it to a desired location. Like the light harvesting antennas in the leaves of a tree, our complexes do so using wavelengths found in sunlight,” explained Sargent.
“Professors Kelley and Sargent have invented a novel class of materials with entirely new properties. Their insight and innovative research demonstrates why the University of Toronto leads in the field of nanotechnology,” said Professor Henry Mann, Dean of the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy.
“This is a terrific piece of work that demonstrates our growing ability to assemble precise structures, to tailor their properties, and to build in the capability to control these properties using external stimuli,” noted Paul S. Weiss, Fred Kavli Chair in NanoSystems Sciences at UCLA and Director of the California NanoSystems Institute.
Kelley explained that the concept published in Nature Nanotechnology is a broad one that goes beyond light antennas alone.
“What this work shows is that our capacity to manipulate materials at the nanoscale is limited only by human imagination. If semiconductor quantum dots are artificial atoms, then we have rationally synthesized artificial molecules from these versatile building blocks.”
Also contributing to the paper were researchers Sjoerd Hoogland and Armin Fischer of The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, and Grigory Tikhomirov and P. E. Lee of the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy.
The publication was based in part on work supported by the Ontario Research Fund Research Excellence Program, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), Canada Research Chairs program and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Find out more about their work in the following selection of stories:
AZnano
BioScholar News
IEEE Spectrum
GeekoSystem
Nanowerk
Nanotechweb
Popular Science
Science Daily