[BIC-announce] CREATE-MIA Seminar Schedule: Friday, March 14

[Krys Dudek]

Dear all,

There will be three CREATE-MIA seminars this Friday, March 14. Everyone is cordially invited to attend.



SPEAKER:	Prof. Aaron Fenster, Robarts Research Institute, Western University
TITLE: 		CIMTEC - Accelerating Commercialization by Overcoming Barriers
PLACE:		McConnell Engineering 103
DATE: 		Friday, March 14, 2014
TIME: 		10:00am - noon

ABSTRACT
Over the last 35 years, Canadian Universities and Institutes have developed some of the world’s leading imaging research programs. With substantial funding from granting agencies, these centres have built state-of-the-art facilities and developed a significant cadre of well-trained highly qualified personnel (HQP). In addition to establishing outstanding research programs, investigators at these centres have already embraced the mission of commercialization of innovations generated in their laboratories through licensing and spin-off companies. These efforts have resulted in many imaging-focused companies and more are being proposed. Some of these companies have achieved international sales with staff of over 50 people, but most are small companies with staff of less than 20 people.

Extensive discussions among imaging investigators have clearly revealed that there is significant potential to increase commercialization of innovations from academic centres and to establish a vibrant cluster of imaging companies in partnership with the imaging research laboratories that can supply innovations and HQP. However, these discussions have also revealed some barriers preventing commercialization of innovations.

To address this important issue, the Federal Government has established the Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE), which offers a variety of programs that mobilize Canada’s best research, development and entrepreneurial expertise and focus them on specific issues and strategic areas. The NCE suite includes four national programs, which bring together an appropriate blend of people and organizations to address important issues affecting Canadians.  One of the NCE suites of programs is the Centres of Excellence for Commercialization and Research (CECR). The goal of these Centres is to stimulate new commercialization activities that likely would never have taken place without the CECR program. One of the 21 funded CECRs is focused on medical imaging – the Centre for Imaging Technology Commercialization (CIMTEC).

In this paper, we will describe how CIMTEC provides support along the entire product development continuum of imaging technology, from education about the requirements and steps involved in commercializing a product, developing specific value proposition, assessing freedom-to-operate and the intellectual property and regulatory landscapes, to software and hardware prototype and final commercial product development.

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SPEAKER:	Dr. Kevin Whittingstall, Department of Diagnostic Radiology, University of Sherbrooke
TITLE: 		Neurovascular Coupling in the Human Brain
PLACE:		McConnell Engineering 437
DATE: 		Friday, March 14, 2014
TIME: 		1:15pm - 2:15pm


ABSTRACT
Neurovascular coupling (NVC) is a term used to describe the relationship between electric and hemodynamic signaling in the brain.  While much of our current understanding of NVC stems from studies in animal models, relatively little is known regarding how this mechanism behaves in humans.  Gaining a deeper insight into human NVC is crucial not only for better understanding basic elements of cognitive processing, but also in how we interpret functional maps of brain activity (e.g. fMRI).  For example, can we assume that NVC behaves similarly across individuals, brain areas and/or cognitive state?  In this talk, I will discuss our current understanding of NVC, the methods used for studying non-invasive NVC in humans as well as recent findings from members of my lab.

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SPEAKER:	Prof. Aaron Fenster, Robarts Research Institute, Western University
TITLE: 		Use of 3D Ultrasound imaging in image-guided interventions
PLACE:		McConnell Engineering 12 (ground floor)
DATE: 		Friday, March 14, 2014
TIME: 		2:30pm

ABSTRACT
The last two decades have witnessed unprecedented developments of new image-guided interventional imaging systems making use of 3D visualization. These new technologies provide the clinician with guidance and verification information about the interventional procedure. Although 2D ultrasound (US) has been used for image-guidance, this approach limits our ability to guide therapy, because multiple 2D images must be integrated mentally, resulting in an inefficient procedure, which often leads to variability. Investigators have addressed these limitations by developing 3D US techniques.  In this paper we describe our developments of 3D US imaging instrumentation and techniques for use in image-guided interventions. In our approach the conventional US transducer is scanned mechanically, and the 2D US images are digitized and reconstructed in real-time into a 3D image, which can be viewed and manipulated interactively. Examples will be given for use in 3D US-guided prostate biopsy and brachytherapy as well as 3D US-guided focal liver ablation. Supported in part by grants from CIHR, ORF and OICR.





_________________________________________________________
Krys (Christine) Dudek
Program Administrator, NSERC CREATE Program for Medical Image Analysis
Centre for Intelligent Machines
3480 University Street
McConnell Engineering Building, Room 410
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
H3A 2A7

kdudek at cim.mcgill.ca
514.398.6319

www.cim.mcgill.ca/create-mia

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