Bridging Knowledge and the Economy

Hello,

After a wonderful sunny week-end, I’m leaving to Houston to attend TechConnect Summit 2009. This year, 5 of Univalor’s technologies have been accepted.

In case you are attending, I’ll be at Univalor’s booth (# 1029). I’ll also be sending updates on Twitter #TechConnect.

Visual Cortical Implant

Developed by Pr. Mohamad Sawan and his team at the Polystim neurotechnologies Laboratory , this electrical platform allows blinds to recover vision. This system consists of a miniaturized implant connected to the cortex and communicating to a camera (which acts as an eye prosthesis). Pr. Sawan’s visual prosthesis project passed the stage of perfecting a first generation functional prototype (proof of concept). Now, in view of confirming complete validation, elaborated in vivo tests must be made in collaboration with medical research institutes in Montreal.

MR-SUB: The “Fantastic Voyage”

Because of the high number of patients diagnosed with cancer, tumor targeting, target chemotherapy and chemoembolization are of special interest for modern medicine. Nevertheless, many tumors are still out of reach to catheterization (in particular the ones that must be targeted in regions only accessible through smaller diameter vessels). Some 40 years after the release of the “Fantastic Voyage”, Prof. Martel came up with the solution. He developed a MRI based platform which enables to reach targets usually inaccessible to catheterization. Its applications include cells targeting, chemo-embolization and local hyperthermia.

Color-Changing and Color-Tunable Photonic Crystal Fiber for Textiles

“Smart textiles” are already everywhere. Essentially used for their technical performances and their functional properties, they are forecasted to represent 80 % of textiles by 2020. Current photonic textiles, usually made from conventional optical fibers (fiberglasses, usually used in telecommunications), have been shown to be limited in terms of applications since they cannot be woven and don’t provide a uniform coloration in time. Prof. Skorobogatiy proposes to use plastic fibers constituted by successive layers of polymers. From a single light source, Pr. Skorobogatiy’s fibers naturally emit a homogenous color which is controllable in real-time. Furthermore, since they are made of polymers, they can be easily woven using a common loom.

High Resolution Refractometer

In the past decades, the flow cytometry technologies became a routine test for counting, and discriminating microscopic particles in a stream of fluid. To better discriminate each cell type, these techniques require a first step of fluorescence labeling. This step makes difficult to reuse the sample for further experimentations. Using a refractometer as a detector permits to skip this step. The Prof. Yves-Alain Peter and his team introduce a low cost and high resolution refractometer. Due to its organization, it is capable to characterize a particle in a volume. All its components are fabricated simultaneously in one conventional microfabrication process.

Direct Writing of Freefrom 3D Microstructures

Many methods allow the fabrication of microscopic pieces. However, because of technological limitations, they have been confined to relatively thin device architectures (a few layers) and are limited by materials constraints. To overcome these limitations, Prof. Therriault proposes a radiation-assisted direct-writing approach which allows manufacturing in a straightforward manner and in ambient conditions 3D functionalized microstructures.