Grant funds York-led household energy insecurity study
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Godfred Boateng, an assistant professor in York University’s School of Global Health and Canada Research Chair in Global Health and Humanitarianism, has been awarded a grant by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development for a two-year project on household energy insecurity in Colombia.
The HEINS study is a continuation of Boateng’s leading work in comprehensively measuring and understanding resource insecurity across the Global South, undertaken at the Global & Environmental Health Lab at York’s Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research as part of his mandate as a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair.
In deciding to study this topic, the York professor observed that measurement of energy insecurity has historically been limited to the macro level – representing a country or region – and has not been widely extended to the household level, particularly outside the Global North. He also noticed there has been little assessment of the relationship between household energy insecurity and health outcomes among women and children in the Global South. As a result, it is difficult to determine how inadequate access to clean and safe energy sources impacts women and children differently in the household. It also becomes difficult to propose strategies to ensure clean energy transitions that effectively target the needs of that demographic.
Boateng’s HEINS project, which will be conducted in three municipalities in the Choco province of Colombia, will address these issues. It will use a mixed-methods approach to find out whether or not household energy insecurity uniquely impacts disease, socioeconomic and psychosocial outcomes. The project will also produce and validate a scale – one of the first of its kind in Latin America – that can be used to comprehensively assess the impact of household energy insecurity on women, infants and children.
“With this grant, my team and I will advance current scholarship on the adverse effects of household energy insecurity in Latin America,” said Boateng. “It will produce a novel instrument for identifying energy insecurity hotspots, which will serve as recruiting points for a longitudinal study that examines the effect of energy insecurity and indoor air pollution from conception through the first two years of life.”
Ultimately, the goal of the project is to generate scientific evidence to develop sound, scalable technologies and strategies to ensure equitable clean energy transitions across the Global South. Through this study, Boateng and the Global & Environmental Health Lab, in partnership with Lucumí Cuesta, will advance research that promotes equitable access, good health, human development and environmental sustainability.
Faculty of Science responds to industry needs in the chemical and bioeconomy sectors
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By Elaine Smith
To meet the changing needs of the chemical and bioeconomy sectors, the Faculty of Science is offering several new educational opportunities to ensure people working in science-related positions have the best possible education to meet evolving industry demands.
The Faculty has recently introduced two new biotechnology programs at the Markham Campus – the Master’s in Biotechnology Management and the Graduate Diploma in Biotechnology – as well as a new micro-credential in Vaccine Production and Quality Control that is aligned with these programs.
“We want to offer our students programs and courses that lead to career success,” said Hovig Kouyoumdjian, associate dean of curriculum and pedagogy for the Faculty.
Luz Adriana Puentes Jácome
Slated to launch in Fall 2024, the Graduate Diploma in Biotechnology and the Master’s in Biotechnology Management are the culmination of research and planning done over the past few years. Professor Mark Bayfield and associate deans Kouyoumdjian and Michael Scheid led the program design and development. Now, Jade Atallah and Luz Adriana Puentes Jácome, assistant professors of biology, teaching stream, have taken the reins and will oversee the two programs.
“Both programs are rooted in industry needs,” Atallah said. “Our colleagues did extensive research to ensure industry alignment; an evidence-based approach is driving them.”
The Toronto Business Development Centre, for example, notes that “Canada has experienced a 77.2 per cent growth in biotech companies in the past two decades, with hundreds of small startups working to bring scientific discoveries to market.”
The two programs will share biotechnology courses for the first year, but the master’s students will also take management courses through the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies that will allow them to graduate with the degree and diploma in under two years. The integrative program also includes a capstone course and a paid internship component with industry. The diploma program requires only two semesters of coursework.
“They are both full-time programs but are designed to accommodate mature, working students in terms of scheduling,” said Atallah.
The master’s program aims to meld scientific knowledge with business skills.
“The interdisciplinary approach better reflects the workplace reality and maximizes understanding of the overall product lifecycle from conception to commercialization,” said Atallah. “It’s a marriage of two Faculties and will provide well-rounded knowledge and skills in both areas. It will increase the students’ competitiveness while benefiting the biotech economy.”
Puentes Jácome agreed, noting, “We want these students to be very versatile. They need the professional biotechnology knowledge, but the business background will be very useful in the startup economy, while in established companies, it will give them the skills to move around.”
The two programs have a joint lab component, and students in both programs will benefit from industry guest speakers and networking opportunities.
“We want our students to have hands-on insights and experiential opportunities,” Atallah said.
The lab component of the course will give students a condensed experience in biotechnology laboratory techniques.
“It is not a cookbook lab,” said Atallah, referring to the usual step-by-step instructions students receive for lab experiments. “Students will be able to make decisions on the best protocol to use, and there’s room for mistakes, so they can troubleshoot and adjust. It will mimic a real-life scenario.”
The master’s degree internships, arranged in collaboration with the experiential education office at the Markham Campus, will last between eight and 12 months. Students will have the opportunity to put their theory to the test. The capstone course, which is project-based, will also provide a real-world opportunity.
Alongside these programs, the Faculty of Science at Markham Campus will also introduce a micro-credential on Vaccine Production and Quality Control. This specialized course aims to provide participants with the essential skills required to use biotechnological tools for the development of vaccines.
The introduction of the micro-credential in NMR is spurred by the government of Ontario’s push for and support of post-secondary education rapid training programs designed to help people retrain or upgrade their skills to meet the needs of employers.
Now, the Faculty of Science is dipping its toes in those waters, inaugurating the NMR Spectroscopy for Industry micro-credential during the Winter 2024 term and developing the micro-credential addressing Vaccine Production and Quality Control.
“We’re very excited about this,” said Kouyoumdjian. “We looked at the demands of the job market, as well as the gaps in training, and gauged the need for these skills.”
The NMR micro-credential course is taught by York University instructor Howard Hunter. Students will learn the basic theory behind NMR spectroscopy, as well as its practical applications. They will learn to successfully process and analyze raw NMR data to understand a sample’s composition or chemical structure, a skill applicable to employees in both chemical and biotechnological fields.
The course is held in the evening, so people employed in related fields can fit it into their schedules. The hybrid course is pass/fail, with a lab component included.
“For us, as scientists, the hands-on aspect is important,” Kouyoumdjian said. “It’s the nature of our field. We design our micro-credentials to contain in-person experiential components and avoid the fully asynchronous online model as much as possible.”
Those who pass will receive both a certificate of completion and an electronic credential badge to affix to a resume or a LinkedIn profile. Kouyoumdjian will approve the badges based on course results; they are authenticated and traceable.
Much like the students are learning new skills, Kouyoumdjian and his team did, too. Throughout the process, they had to learn how to create a micro-credential offering, from proposal to approval to creating contracts, hiring an instructor and promoting the program online. This accumulated knowledge will be used for introducing the aforementioned Vaccine Production and Quality Control micro-credential course.
“As biotechnology continues reshaping how health care works, professionals with such expertise play an important role in progressing this field, especially with the urgent global need for effective disease prevention.” Kouyoumdjian said. “We are looking forward to offering the new micro-credentials, as well as the two new graduate programs.”
Kouyoumdjian applauds the Faculty for making these new offerings possible.
“Like any new initiative, it takes a team to bring these programs to fruition,” he said. “We are looking forward to expanding the knowledge of many students and observing their subsequent career accomplishments.”
Program offers support for open, respectful dialogue at York
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York University’s Office of the Vice-President Equity, People & Culture (EPC) has developed a new way to help York community members engage with complex issues – and with each other: the Supporting Open & Respectful Dialogue (ORD) Program.
Now accepting applications, the ORD Program offers financial and logistical support to students, staff, and faculty members who are trying to develop conversation and connection across differences. Laina Bay-Cheng, interim vice-president of EPC, explains the goal of the program as “giving a boost to grassroots initiatives – whether led by students, staff and/or faculty colleagues – that can help people talk, listen and learn together, even if they are on different ‘sides’ of an issue.”
The ORD Program provides small amounts of funding along with administrative and logistical assistance for developing flyers, advertising events, booking rooms and more, depending on what suits an initiative and the organizers’ vision. “The University may not have lots of financial resources right now, but we can – and should – still be resourceful. EPC is happy to use our networks, our access and our logistical know-how to lighten the load for those leading an initiative,” says Bay-Cheng.
The ORD Program is already offering support to two initiatives, both promoting thoughtful discussion and consideration of the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
The first, Bridging the Gap, is led by Israeli Jewish and Palestinian Arab students and alumni, with vital support from Professor Randal Schnoor. “It is so important to offer a safe space for respectful dialogue on these contentious issues,” says Schnoor. “There is a great appetite for this among students on our campus.”
Bridging the Gap was founded in 2019 by Palestinian and Jewish students Leena Muti, Hilly Adler and Noam Sibony. “For me, Bridging the Gap is a space where I can be unapologetically myself, yet be exposed to people with completely different experiences than my own, which are unapologetically theirs,” says Sibony. “It is a space where my Jewish, Arab, Palestinian, and Israeli peers and I can reveal our mutual humanity to one another in hopes of building a shared future together here on campus.”
The second supported project is a faculty initiative: the Open Office Hours series, which draws on the substantive and pedagogical expertise of professors Thabit Abdullah, David Koffman, Amila Buturovic and Schnoor.
“Thabit and I have been colleagues and friends for years. Our life experiences have been quite different. The areas of our professional expertise barely overlap. And there are some significant differences between how we each understand the current awful war in Israel-Gaza, its reverberations here in Canada and on our campus, what brought us to it and what might bring us out of it,” says Koffman. “But we share in common more important things: a commitment to slow thinking, depolarized learning, deeply humanist ethics and civil dialogue. We’ve been meeting regularly since Oct. 7 to talk. With the encouragement of York’s Religious Studies program, we’ve opened up our dialogue space to anyone who wants to enter.”
About the Open Office Hours series, Buturovic says: “Open Office Hours are an opportunity not just to hear what professors have to say about the challenges on campus or dispense advice but also a safe forum to help understand the multiple ways this crisis is experienced and, hopefully, overcome through open and honest conversation. It is a way to learn as much as a way to process one’s views and emotions.”
The Bridging the Gap and Open Office Hours initiatives get to the fundamental purpose of the ORD Program: creating opportunities for people to develop the skills, knowledge, and relationships required to fully consider challenging ideas and issues. Both Bay-Cheng and Provost Lisa Philipps, whose office co-sponsors ORD, see the capacity for openness to new ideas and respect for people with differing views as essential ingredients for a healthy university community.
“Students need openness and respect in the classroom and for their careers after York, scholars need it to engage in constructive scholarly discourse, and staff members need it to experience an affirming and equitable workplace culture,” says Bay-Cheng.
“We know that community-driven initiatives encourage connections and conversations that underpin a wider culture of well-being,” says Philipps. “The projects and programs we’ll be able to support can create a greater sense of inclusion and safety on our campuses, and that’s what makes learning possible.”
Virtual information sessions about the ORD Program have been scheduled for Tuesday, March 19 at 4 p.m. and Wednesday, March 20 at noon, should interested applicants have any questions. Additional information sessions will be scheduled in the upcoming months.
The future of disease diagnostics explored at Lassonde
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A modern research hub at York University’s Lassonde School of Engineering is focusing on scientific innovation to transform the future of disease diagnostics.
Picture state-of-the-art technologies, busy researchers wearing white lab coats and futuristic, artificial intelligence-powered tools with capabilities beyond imagination. That is the Laboratory of Advanced Biotechnologies for Health Assessment (LAB-HA).
“LAB-HA’s mission is to develop wearable biomedical devices for early detection of burdensome diseases,” says Razieh (Neda) Salahandish, director of LAB-HA and assistant professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science.
Early detection of diseases plays a key role in improving patient outcomes and care. Unfortunately, many diseases are diagnosed through complex and invasive processes requiring expensive equipment and facilities. LAB-HA is committed to changing this reality by creating cost-effective, non-invasive and convenient solutions.
It does so through a wide-ranging approach. “Our work applies all kinds of scientific methods in a multidisciplinary approach to disease diagnostics,” says Salahandish. “There are many different scientific disciplines required to support our research. We have chemists and computer scientists working alongside electrical, software, computer and mechanical engineers.”
Professor Neda Salahandish and student researchers working in LAB-HA
Researchers at LAB-HA include both undergraduate and graduate students who help lead and support complex research projects and activities, enhancing their academic experiences and technical skills.
Many of LAB-HA’s projects are also conducted in collaboration with leaders in the health science industry, including the University Health Network and St. Michael’s Hospital, as well as startup companies, elevating research impact and capabilities.
Among LAB-HA’s initiatives is a smart contact lenses project. With support by the Lassonde Innovation Fund, the lab is working with the Department of Mechanical Engineering to fabricate smart contact lenses – wearable devices that can non-invasively collect patients’ tears and examine the presence of biomarkers – to support the early detection of various eye diseases and improve patient outcomes.
In another project under review by the Alzheimer Society of Canada, LAB-HA is developing smart goggles that can help diagnose and monitor the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.
Though there is currently no gold-standard technique for clinical and non-invasive detection and monitoring of Alzheimer’s disease, electrical activity in the brain, which can be measured using an electroencephalogram (EEG) test, has been associated with the presence of the disease. Less-explored indicators of the disease include various representations of eye and iris movements, which can be examined using eye movement tracker cameras.
The clinical relevance of these eye movements, EEG signals and iris responses in Alzheimer’s disease will be determined in a first-of-its-kind biomarker discovery initiative establishing a correlation between Alzheimer’s disease and these features.
LAB-HA will use this knowledge to develop smart goggles with embedded cameras for eye tracking and iris response measurements as well as extended electrodes for scalp EEG acquisition. Results will be analyzed using machine learning methods and retrieved on a portable device like a mobile phone.
Another research initiative at LAB-HA, currently in its early stages, focuses on the development of wearable devices that detect inflammatory biomarkers associated with cancers and chronic inflammatory conditions. This work, funded by a Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council of Canada Discovery Grant, has the potential to expedite chronic inflammation diagnoses, which are the root cause of many diseases. These research efforts can also help reduce the need for time-consuming investigational procedures.
Pest control spray days at the Keele and Glendon campuses for Food Services-contracted areas will begin on Friday, March 15 at 5 p.m. and end on Sunday, March 17 at 5 p.m.
Work is undertaken using accepted practices and approved materials by Professional PCO Services, which holds an Eco Green Ergonomic Extermination certificate from the Ministry of the Environment. A work permit has been submitted and approved by York University’s Health, Safety & Employee Well-Being office.
Monitoring and treatment of component applications will be carried out in the Food Services locations listed below:
Location
Campus
Building Name
Glendon Campus Marché Cafeteria
Glendon Campus
York Hall
Glendon Campus Tim Hortons
Glendon Campus
York Hall, A Wing
Bergeron Market
Keele Campus
Bergeron Centre for Engineering Excellence
Central Square Cafeteria
Keele Campus
Central Square
Central Square Tim Hortons
Keele Campus
Central Square
Central Square Booster Juice
Keele Campus
Central Square
Central Square Pizza Pizza
Keele Campus
Central Square
Central Square Starbucks
Keele Campus
Central Square
Central Square Subway
Keele Campus
Central Square
Centre for Film & Theatre Starbucks
Keele Campus
Centre for Film & Theatre
Dahdaleh Cafeteria
Keele Campus
Victor Phillip Dahdaleh Building
Dahdaleh Tim Hortons
Keele Campus
Victor Phillip Dahdaleh Building
Lassonde Palgong Tea
Keele Campus
Lassonde Building
Osgoode Hall Bistro
Keele Campus
Ignat Kaneff Building, Osgooge Hall
Stong College Orange Snail
Keele Campus
Stong College
Stong College Cafeteria
Keele Campus
Stong College
William Small Centre Tim Hortons
Keele Campus
William Small Centre
Winters College Country Style
Keele Campus
Winters College
Winters College Cafeteria
Keele Campus
Winters College
Grad Lounge
Keele Campus
Ross Building
Pod
Keele Campus
Curtis Lecture Halls
For further information, contact John Leva, manager of grounds, fleet and waste management, Facilities Services, at jleva@yorku.ca; or Tom Watt, director of food services, Ancillary Services, at watttm@yorku.ca.
Advancing a community-centric approach to safety through collaboration
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This year, York University’s Community Safety Department will be hosting its annual Community Safety Week from March 18 to 21, providing an opportunity to share information about the department’s mission, safety services and offerings while meaningfully engaging with the community about the joint responsibility to ensure safety across York University campuses.
Over the past year, the community safety team has been working to implement the recommendations from the final Security Services Review report. The overarching recommendation, supported by a number of detailed recommended actions, is to transition York away from the current law enforcement model that guides its security services and implement an alternative, community-centric model. To foster greater learning as the University continues this transition, the Community Safety Department is bringing together community leaders and experts for a thoughtful discussion about how to adopt and advance a community-centric approach to safety at a post-secondary institution.
Join the department for a panel discussion, Building Bridges: Advancing a community-centric approach to safety, on Thursday, March 21 from 1 to 2:30 p.m.
The panel will feature:
David Mitchell, former assistant deputy minister, Youth Justice Division of the Ontario Ministry of Children, Community & Social Services;
Devon Jones, founding director of the Youth Association for Academics, Athletics and Character Education;
Louis March, founder of the Zero Gun Violence Movement; and
Yukimi Henry, executive director of Community Support & Services at York.
Registerto join the informative and engaging discussion. Additional information about activities planned for Community Safety Week will be available in YFile on Monday, March 18.
York campuses offer vaccine clinics throughout March
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Update: New information after publication of this article indicates the March 26 and 27 vaccine clinics have been cancelled. The article has been edited to reflect the change.
To help keep the community safe and combat the spread of these respiratory viruses, York University is offering vaccination clinics throughout the winter season at both its Keele and Glendon campuses. Flu and COVID-19 vaccinations will be available at the following two clinics during the month of March.
Glendon Campus clinic
Tuesday, March 12, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., Centre of Excellence lobby.
Keele Campus clinic
Wednesday, March 13, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., Central Square, Bear Pit.
OHIP is not required at these clinics and vaccines are free of charge. The clinics are walk-in; first come, first served. Free masks and rapid antigen test kits are also available while supplies last. And for those who are curious, yes, it is safe to get both the COVID-19 and influenza vaccines at the same time.
Anyone with new symptoms of illness, or who has recently tested positive for COVID-19, is encouraged to complete the Ontario Ministry of Health’s self-assessment tool for further direction and guidance before visiting a vaccination clinic.
For those with questions regarding respiratory virus protocols, students can contact SCHW@yuoffice.yorku.ca and employees can contact SFCCM@yorku.ca. The hours of operation for these resources are Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Faculty of Health study explores pros and cons of preschoolers in sports
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By Corey Allen, senior manager, research communications
Researchers at York University are leading work to understand the impacts of youth sports on child development, investigating the benefits and risks of organized sports programming for children aged six and under.
Meghan Harlow
In a paper published in Sport in Societyearlier this year, Faculty of Health researchers studied five different types of sports programs for preschoolers, observing several classes and interviewing families over the span of several months. Their findings reveal a research gap regarding how preschoolers experience sport, their parents’ motives, and the effectiveness and uniformity of programming for children under six (U6).
“Our goal for this case study was to learn more about what really is happening in this unexplored demographic of U6 sports, gain insight into the flow of activity in classes, and to examine the kinds of sports-specific and fundamental movement skills being taught,” said lead author Meghan Harlow, a research associate in the School of Kinesiology & Health Science, who co-authored the paper alongside Associate Professor Jessica Fraser-Thomas.
The sports programs involved in Harlow’s research, which began as part of her PhD work, included hockey, rugby, soccer, gymnastics and one multi-sport program. She observed many similarities, including similar training session layouts and a focus on targeted movements like running forwards and backwards, kicking and passing.
Each of the programs also involved some level of competition, which included a formal scrimmage or race. Hockey was the most competitive, being the only sport that involved the children playing structured games on half-ice.
“Current guidelines suggest engaging children in mini challenges with successes and failures, but the question of what is an age-appropriate challenge for U6 sports is unclear and difficult to determine, so it’s a really active area of research for us,” said Harlow. “Within many of these programs, the age range can vary significantly, so you may have a three-year-old playing with a five-year-old, and this complicates how sessions can be run or designed.”
Sport participation in Canada is largely guided by a framework that sports clubs and organizations use called the Long-Term Development in Sport and Physical Activity Model, or LTD Model. This framework outlines the types of skills and training people should learn at different life stages to develop their physical literacy or athletic abilities.
In the model’s Active Start stage, which ranges from zero to six years, the guidelines recommend primarily child-led free play, and structured gymnastics and swimming programs.
Harlow observed the sports programs with this model in mind, finding that the delivery and experiences of these preschooler sport programs sometimes deviated from this framework.
Additionally, in Harlow’s small sample size of 10 families, most of the children had previously participated in sports prior to the programs she observed. The researchers point out in the paper that this pattern of past sport participation contradicts long-standing recommendations by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Canadian Paediatric Society, which advise most children are not ready for sport until around age six.
Harlow says larger and more diverse sample sizes, alongside more evidence, is needed to fully understand the best way for preschoolers to participate and develop in sports long-term, and how to set them up for success as they age.
“There’s the potential for this research to inform future versions of the LTD Model, which has been adopted internationally outside of Canada, and other models like it,” she said.
Harlow’s research interests in this field stem from her own experience in competitive gymnastics, first participating in the sport as early as three years old.
“Our early experiences in sport and physical activity shape our habits and perceptions over time,” she said. “Studying the early stages of sport can tell us a lot about sport choices and experiences, dropout, and ways to engage young children and youth in sport that will lead to healthy and happy outcomes.”
Harlow’s research was funded by the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Ontario Graduate Scholarship.
York immunologist’s work recognized as standout achievement in arthritis research
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By Corey Allen, senior manager, research communications
A York University researcher’s work on blocking inflammation in gout has been named one of the most significant advancements in arthritis research in 2023 by Arthritis Society Canada.
Ali Abdul-Sater
Ali Abdul-Sater, an associate professor in the School of Kinesiology & Health Science in the Faculty of Health, alongside his research team, discovered that a protein called TRAF1 can help limit the body’s production of a substance called interleukin-1 beta (IL-1β), which is a main cause of gout.
“It is a great honour to see that our work is recognized for its impact, and all the credit goes to the trainees that did the research,” said Abdul-Sater, who is also a York Research Chair inRegulatory Mechanisms of Inflammation. “In the future, we are developing new methods to target TRAF1 in a way that improves its ability to lower IL-1 β and reduce joint inflammation.”
The research team’s findings were published last year in the Journal of Immunology, detailing how adequate levels of TRAF1 in the body can alleviate the severity of gout.
Gout, a type of inflammatory arthritis, is a disease that typically affects the feet and can include symptoms of joint pain, stiffness and swelling, among others. According to Arthritis Society Canada, six million Canadians – or one in five adults – live with arthritis.
“Given the impact on patients, the health-care system and society at large, research is critical to transforming how arthritis is diagnosed, treated and prevented, and ensuring people receive the best possible care to improve the quality of their lives,” said Siân Bevan, chief science officer at Arthritis Society Canada, who helped fund the work.
For a full list of the top 10 research advances of 2023 recognized by the non-profit organization, visit Arthritis Society Canada’s website.
YSpace startup receives $2M to develop health-care technologies for space travel
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ByDiana Senwasane, student and community engagement coordinator, YSpace
A YSpace-supported startup has been awarded $2 million by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) to develop new health-care technologies designed for astronauts during space flight and for people living in remote communities across the country.
Phyxable, a virtual physical therapy platform, was one of five companies selected earlier this year by the CSA for their Health Beyond Initiative, which aims to develop innovative and sustainable solutions for remote health-care delivery.
The Phyxable Advanced Medical Pod prototype, currently located north of Brampton, Ont.
As space flights go further and become lengthier, access to medical care becomes challenging, with problems such as delays in telecommunication, medical emergencies and restocking supplies proving increasingly difficult.
The CSA initiative is focused on building state-of-the-art medical technologies that can all be contained in a mobile structure, called the Connected Care Medical Module (C²M²). Phyxable’s version of the C²M² prototype, known as an Advanced Medical Pod, is fully autonomous, and uses equipment operated by artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics and more.
Jim Feng
“Our pod is essentially alive,” says Jim Feng, CEO and founder of Phyxable. “It can do extraordinary things remotely, like medical imaging, ultrasounds, live communication via voice and text. We can do it all with data reporting directly into the Phyxable platform.”
Developed with support from its partners, Micron Digital and WizCraft Design, the Advanced Medical Pod uses a core computer system to connect advanced devices and collect medical data.
C²M² is intended to be a plug-and-play system that allows users to independently detect, diagnose, treat and monitor health conditions on site, which can improve the timeliness, quality and cost of transporting patients from remote regions to urban hospital facilities.
“It’s all about empowering the individual to take charge of their own health care, says Feng. “This is exactly what Phyxable was created to do. We want the user to be able to have all the tools to effectively manage their own health, whether it be on Earth or beyond.”
Although the modules will initially be tested and used for the first five years in remote communities, it is anticipated to be used in space in the years to come.
“With applications beyond Earth, we will be able to use our innovative technologies to essentially allow astronauts to manage their own health,” Feng says. “It will be a monumental stride in the way health care is delivered.”
Phyxable’s version of C²M² has completed its testing phase and will be showcased at the Canadian Space Agency.
Since its conception in 2017, Phyxable has been supported by York University’s entrepreneurship and innovation hub YSpace, through mentorship, connections to investors and undergoing an intense, four-month accelerator program designed for technology startups.
The startup has since grown, impacting over 5,600 patients and establishing partnerships with companies like League Insurance, Right at Home and Shoppers Drug Mart.
