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UBC Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor Tim Salcudean Receives Canada Foundation for Innovation Funding ($1.3M)
Friday, March 17, 2017Company Profile | Follow Company
Vancouver, BC, March 17, 2017--(T-Net)--UBC Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor Tim Salcudean, together with his colleague Professor Robert Rohling and collaborator Dr. Calum MacAulay, Head, Integrative Oncology, BC Cancer Agency, have received $639,322 in Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) funding, matched by $639,322 from the BC Knowledge Development Fund, in support of their pioneering research on medical imaging.
Salcudean's is one of 27 UBC research projects selected to receive a total of $5.8 million in CFI funding from the federal government.
The support comes in the form of the John R. Evans Leaders Fund (JELF), announced at a UBC ceremony attended by Liberal MP Joyce Murray.
“UBC has developed such an excellent reputation, both in BC and around the world,” Liberal MP Joyce Murray said. “The John R. Evans Leaders Fund helps universities attract and retain top-calibre talent by funding infrastructure needs".
“We're competing on a global scale these days,” explained UBC Vice President, Research, Dr. Helen Burt. “CFI JELFs allow us to make strategic investments in some of the superstars at UBC”.
Evidently, Salcudean is one such superstar. He is C.A. Laszlo Chair of Biomedical Engineering and a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair.
With UBC colleagues Dr. Robert Rohling and Dr. Purang Abolmaesumi, as well as collaborators at hospitals in Vancouver and the BC Cancer Agency, he is working to leverage quantitative imaging for disease diagnosis and therapy, as well as robotic-assisted surgery.
The new CFI-funded infrastructure that they will use will consist of ultrasound machines (which Salcudean says are “the most modern equipment that one can buy”), a supercomputer capable of processing data about 30 times faster than is possible today, and tissue processing equipment that will be able to perform biopsies and automatically analyze specimens.
“This is great news for us,” said Salcudean. “The ultrasound field is undergoing a tremendous revolution. We expect ultrasound - just like computing - to be ubiquitous, and to replace a lot of the more dangerous ways of imaging patients, such as x-rays”. Detection and treatment of common conditions such as prostate cancer, breast cancer, and chronic liver disease could be revolutionized as a result of this paradigm shift. He wants to make ultrasound technology much easier to use, and he hopes to see it in every specialist and family doctor's office in the near future.
“Our research goal is to make medical ultrasound more quantitative,” Salcudean explained, “so in addition to the nice image on the screen, you'll have a set of numbers, improving the way we can screen, diagnose, and treat disease”.
Many students will benefit from this new infrastructure, and so will many alumni: about $500,000 worth of CFI-funded equipment will be purchased from local companies where many UBC-trained engineers work.
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University of British Columbia
Vancouver (Education)
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