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Assistant Professor Paul Yoo is new to IBBME’s Neural, Sensory Systems & Rehabilitation theme but has already been awarded a Connaught New Researcher Award and a Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) award. Yoo is taking a new approach to an old cure for people suffering from overactive bladder activity. Studies have shown that stimulating a particular nerve in the ankle can curb overactive bladder activity significantly. Yoo’s current research aims to develop a less invasive therapy that can be remotely activated so that patients may one day be treated in the comfort of their homes. In 2011-12, Professor Milos Popovic was awarded the Connaught Innovation Award, and became a Fellow at the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) for his Functional Electric Stimulation (FES) therapies, which are enabling rapid and lasting recovery of movement control in patients with spinal cord injuries. Popovic, who also holds the Toronto Rehab Chair in Spinal Cord Injury Research at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, was named one of the University of Toronto’s ‘Inventors of the Year’ in 2013 for this promising new rehabilitation therapy. Meanwhile, his company MyndTec was awarded $2M in start-up funds to help commercialize this therapy. Professor Tom Chau, Vice President, Research at the Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital and Director, Research at the Bloorview Research Institute, was honoured by the University of Toronto with an ‘Inventor of the Year’ in 2013 for his work in creating assistive devices based on non-invasive measurements of blood flow in the brain. The research is being used to design communication-assistive technologies for the severely disabled.
of Toronto’s internationally renowned DEEP (DaVinci Engineering Enrichment Program) Summer Academy. Vicki has shaped a curriculum that develops in high school-age students awareness of the challenges people living with disabilities have in and around the community – from using wheelchairs to vision impairment to neuroprosthetics – and allows students to engineer solutions to these everyday problems.
The New Frontier: Mapping the Human Brain IBBME is moving research forward by developing cutting-edge technology that uncovers new dimensions to neurological disorders. Developed from the same technology that lights up our cell phones and computers, a unique imaging system has been developed by Assistant Professor Ofer Levi and his team. The technology uses Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers (VCSEL): low-cost, easily-tested, miniature microchip lasers mounted on an extremely fast, sensitive camera which allows the operator to manipulate imaging with extraordinary speed and precision. This rapid light manipulation means that the brain can be mapped with much greater sophistication and precision much more quickly than ever before, and is able to classify both veins and arteries simultaneously— something that has never before been accomplished. The technology, which is being tested with the help of Professor Peter Carlen, Head, Division of Fundamental Neurobiology, Toronto Western Research Institute, and a cross-appointed professor at IBBME, is being touted as a possible breakthrough technology for helping to study diseases such as epilepsy, Parkinson’s, and to look at the effects of stroke.
Visit our website for more information on Neural, Sensory Systems & Rehabilitation at the University of Toronto: http://ibbme.utoronto.ca
Assistant Professor Paul Yoo and MASc candidate Mario Kovacevic research bladder control and function through nerve stimulation.
INSTITUTE OF BIOMATERIALS AND BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING Rosebrugh Building 164 College Street, Room 407, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3G9 www.ibbme.utoronto.ca
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