Science and Enterprise

Tag: Canada

  • Trial Shows Synthetic Cannabinoid Effective on Nerve Pain

    Researchers at University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada find the drug nabilone, prescribed to treat nausea in chemotherapy patients, helps treat diabetic neuropathy, or nerve pain. The findings of Cory Toth and colleagues at Calgary’s Hotchkiss Brain Institute are reported in the October issue of the journal Pain (paid subscription required). Diabetic neuropathy results from…

  • Student Start-Up Company Develops Stroke Rehab App for iPad

    Students at four universities in Canada developed an iPad application and started a company to help stroke survivors perform rehabilitation exercises at home. StrokeLink, the name of the company and the app, was part of the 2012 Next 36 program, a Canadian entrepreneurial accelerator for start-ups founded by undergraduates. The StrokeLink app offers stroke patients…

  • Smartphones Found Feasible Tools for Telemedicine Images

    Researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix and clinician colleagues in Arizona found smartphones could exchange acceptable teleradiology images for stroke diagnosis under real-world conditions. The findings from this clinical trial appear online in the journal Stroke. The research, led by Mayo Clinic neurologist Bart Demaerschalk, tested the smartphone application ResolutionMD used to transmit CT…

  • DNA Bar Codes Help Authenticate Natural Health Products

    Researchers at University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada found DNA identification successfully verified a vast majority of natural health products sold  in two North American cities. The study led by Mehrdad Hajibabaei, in Guelph’s integrative biology department and Biodiversity Institute of Ontario, appears online in the journal Food Research International (paid subscription required). Hajibabaei says…

  • FDA Approves Clinical Trial for H5N1 Vaccine

    Infectious Disease Research Institute (IDRI) in Seattle and Medicago Inc. in Quebec City, Canada say the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved their request to start a clinical trial of a vaccine for the H5N1 avian flu. The early stage — phase 1 — trial will test the safety and ability to generate an immune…

  • Lighting Devised to Help Shift Workers Regulate Body Clocks

    Researchers at Université Laval in Quebec City, Canada developed blue lighting to help shift workers regulate their internal clocks, to stay alert when working and get sleep when needed. Marc Hébert (pictured left), an ophthalmology professor at Laval and researcher in the university’s mental health research center, invented the light and started a company to…

  • Hydrogel Culture Process Developed for Tissue Engineering

    Engineers at University of Toronto in Canada developed a culture that can grow tissue cells in sufficient quantities and precision that it can lead to devices to produce treatments such as skin grafts on demand. The findings appear in the July issue of the journal Advanced Materials (paid subscription required), and the technology is being…

  • New Quantum Dot Material Boosts Solar Cell Efficiency

    Engineers at University of Toronto in Canada and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia developed a film made of nanoscale semiconductors called quantum dots for inexpensive and more efficient solar cells. The team led by Toronto engineering professor Ted Sargent published its findings in a letter to the journal Nature…

  • Max Planck Licenses 2-D/3-D Technology for Development

    Max Planck Society in Munich, Germany has licensed to TandemLaunch Technologies in Montreal, Canada a new three-dimension display technology that lets viewers see 3-D movies or games in 2-D without glasses to construct the images. Financial terms of the exclusive licensing agreement were not disclosed. Current 3-D images are presented as stereoscopic pictures, with overlapping…

  • Daily Bathing of Elderly Sharply Reduces MRSA Infections

    A study at an Ontario geriatric facility shows the bathing each day of acute care patients with antiseptic cloths resulted in a sustained decrease in methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) incidence among those patients. The team led by Heather Candon, an infection prevention and control practitioner at Baycrest, a Toronto geriatric care facility, presented its findings…