Tag Archives: UBC

Café Scientifique Vancouver talk on January 30, 2018 and a couple of February 2018 art/sci events in Toronto

Vancouver

This could be a first for Café Scientifique Vancouver. From a January 28, 2018 Café Scientifique Vancouver announcement (received via email)

This is a reminder that our next café with biotech entrepreneur Dr.Andrew Tait (TUESDAY, JANUARY 30TH [2018] at 7:30PM) in the back room of YAGGER'S DOWNTOWN (433 W Pender).

COMBINING TRADITIONAL NATURAL MEDICINES WITH SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH: UNVEILING THE POTENTIAL OF THE MANDARIN ORANGE PEEL

The orange peel is something most of us may think of as a throw-away compost item, but it is so much more. Travel back in time 9,000 years to China, where orange peel was found in the first fermented alcoholic beverage, and return to today, where mandarin orange peel remains one of China’s top selling herbs that promotes digestion. Now meet Tait Laboratories Inc., a company that was founded based on one chemistry Ph.D. student’s idea, that mandarin orange peel has the potential to reverse incurable neurodegenerative diseases like multiple sclerosis. You will learn about the company’s journey through a scientific lens, from its early days to the present, having developed a mandarin orange peel product sold across Canada in over 1,000 stores including 400 Rexall pharmacies. You will leave with a basic understanding of how herbal products like the company’s mandarin orange peel-based product are developed and brought to market in Canada, and about the science that is required to substantiate health claims on this and other exciting new botanical products.

Bio:

Dr. Andrew Tait is the founder of Tait Laboratories Inc., a company devoted to developing natural medicines from agricultural bi-products. After a B.Sc. in Biochemistry and M.Sc. in Chemistry from Concordia University (Montreal), he completed a Ph.D. in Chemistry at the
University of British Columbia [UBC].

Inspired by his thesis work on multiple sclerosis, he subsequently identified Traditional Chinese Medicines as having potential to treat a wide range of chronic diseases; he founded the company while finishing his graduate studies.

In 2012, he was invited to Ottawa to be awarded the NSERC [{Canada} Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council] Innovation Challenge Award, for successfully translating his Ph.D. research to an entrepreneurial venture. In 2014, he was awarded the BC Food Processors Association “Rising Star” award.

Dr. Tait is a regularly invited speaker on the topics of entrepreneurship and the science supporting natural health products; he was keynote speaker in 2012 at the Annual Symposium of the Boucher Institute of Naturopathic Medicine (Vancouver) and in 2016 at the
Functional Foods and Natural Health Products Graduate Research Symposium (Winnipeg).

Supported by the Futurpreneur Canada, the Bank of Development of Canada, the UBC’s Entrepreneurship@UBC program, and the NSERC  and NRC  [{Canada} National Research Council] Industry Research Assistance Program (IRAP), he works with industrial and academic researchers developing safe, affordable, and clinically proven medicines. He successfully launched MS+ Mandarin Skin PlusÒ, a patent-pending digestive product now on shelf in over 1000 pharmacies and health food stores across Canada, including 400 Rexall pharmacies.

Dr. Tait mentors young companies as an Entrepreneur in Residence at both SFU [Simon Fraser University] Coast Capital Savings Venture Connection and also the Health Tech Innovation Hub and he also volunteers his time to mentor students of the Student Biotechnology Network.

Lest it be forgotten, many drugs and therapeutic agents are based on natural remedies; a fact often ignored in the discussion about drugs and natural remedies. In any event, I am surprised this talk is being hosted by Café Scientifique Vancouver which has tended to more ‘traditional’ (i.e., university academic) presentations without any hint of ‘alternative’ or ‘entrepreneurial’ aspects. I wonder if this is the harbinger of new things to come from the Café Scientifique Vancouver community.

Meanwhile, interested parties can find out more about Tait Laboratories on their company website. They are selling one product at this time (from the MS+ [Mandarin Skin Plus] product webpage,

MS+™ (Mandarin Skin Plus) is a revolutionary natural health product that aids with digestion and promotes gastrointestinal health. It is a patent-pending proprietary extract based on dry-aged mandarin orange peel, an ancient Traditional Chinese Medicine. This remedy has been safely used for centuries to relieve bloating, indigestion, diarrhea, nausea, upset stomach, cough with phlegm. Experience ULTIMATE DIGESTIVE RELIEF and top gastrointestinal health for only about a dollar a day!

Directions: take one capsule twice a day, up to six capsules per day. Swallow capsule directly OR dissolve powder in water.
60 vegan capsules for ~ 1 month supply

I would have liked to have seen a list of research papers and discussion of human clinical trials regarding their ‘digestive’ product. Will Tait be discussing his research and results into what seems to be a new direction (i.e., the use of mandarin skin peel-derived therapeutics for neurodegenerative diseases)?

I don’t think I’m going to make it to the talk but should anyone who attends care to answer the question, please feel free to add a comment.

ArtSci Salon in Toronto

2018 is proving to be an active year for the ArtSci Salon folks in Toronto. They’ve just finished hosting a January 24-25, 2018 workshop and January 26, 2018 panel discussion on the gene-editing tool CRISPR/CAS9 (see my January 10, 2018 posting for a description).

Now they’ve announced another workshop and panel discussion on successive nights in February, the topic being: cells. From a January 29, 2018 ArtSci Salon announcement (received via email), Note: The panel discussion is listed first, then the workshop, then the artists’ biographies,

FROM CELL TO CANVAS: CREATIVE EXPLORATIONS OF THE MICROSCOPIC [panel discussion]

From the complex forms of the cell to the colonies created by the microbiota; from the undetectable chemical reactions activated by enzymes and natural processes to the environmental information captured through data visualization, the five local and international artists presenting tonight have developed a range of very diverse practices all inspired by the invisible, the undetectable and the microscopic.

We invite you to an evening of artist talks and discussion on the creative process of exploring the microscopic and using living organisms in art, on its potentials and implication for science and its popular dissemination, as well as on its ethics.

WITH:
Robyn Crouch
Mellissa Fisher
JULIA KROLIK
SHAVON MADDEN
TOSCA TERAN

FRIDAY, FEB 9, 2018
6:00-8:00 PM
THE FIELDS INSTITUTE
222 COLLEGE STREET,
RM 230

[Go to this page for access to registration]

FROM CELL TO CANVAS: CREATIVE EXPLORATIONS OF THE MICROSCOPIC [workshop]

THE EVENT WILL BE FOLLOWED BY A WORKSHOP BY: MELLISSA FISHER, SHAVON MADDEN AND JULIA KROLIK
FEB. 10, 2018
11:00AM-5:00PM
AT HACKLAB,
1266 Queen St West

[Go to this page for access to registration]

Workshop:

Design My Microbiome

Artist Mellissa Fisher invites participants to mould parts of her body in agar to create their own microbial version of her, alongside producing their own microbial portrait with painting techniques.

Cooking with the Invasive

Artist Shavon Madden invites participants to discuss invasive species like garlic mustard and cook invasive species whilst exploring, do species which we define and brand as invasive simply have no benefits?

Intoduction to Biological Staining

Artist & Scientist Julia Krolik invites participants to learn about 3 different types of biological staining and have a chance to try staining procedures.

BIOS:

ROBYN CROUCH
The symbolic imagery that comes through Robyn’s work invites one’s gaze inward to the cellular realms. There, one discovers playful depictions of chemical processes; the unseen lattice upon which our macro­cosmic world is constructed. Technological advancements create windows into this molecular realm, and human consciousness acts as the interface between the seen and the unseen worlds. In her functional ceramic work, the influence of Chinese and Japanese tea ceremony encourages contem­plation and appreciation of a quiet
moment. The viewer-participant can lose their train of thought while meandering through geometry and biota, con­nected by strands of double-helical DNA. A flash of recognition, a momentary mirror.

MELLISSA FISHER
Mellissa Fisher is a British Bio Artist based in Kent. Her practice explores the invisible world on our skin by using living organisms and by creating sculptures made with agar to show the public what the surface of our skin really looks like. She is best known for her work with bacteria and works extensively with collaborators in microbiology and immunology. She has exhibited an installation _ “Microbial Me”_with Professor Mark Clements and Dr Richard Harvey at The Eden Project for their permanent exhibition _“The Invisible You: The Human
Microbiome”._The installation included a living portrait in bacteria of the artists face as well as a time-lapse film of the sculpture growing.

JULIA KROLIK
Julia Krolik is a creative director, entrepreneur, scientist and award-winning artist. Her diverse background enables a rare cross-disciplinary empathy, and she continuously advocates for both art and science through several initiatives. Julia is the founder of Art the Science, a non-profit organization dedicated to facilitating artist residencies in scientific research laboratories to foster Canadian science-art culture and expand scientific knowledge communication to benefit the public. Through her consulting agency Pixels and Plans, Julia works with private and public organizations, helping them with strategy, data visualization and knowledge mobilization, often utilizing creative technology and skills-transfer workshops.

SHAVON MADDEN
Shavon Madden is a Brampton based artist, specializing in sculptural, performance and instillation based work exploring the social injustices inflicted on the environment and its creatures. Her work focuses on challenging social-environmental and political ethics, through the embodied experience and feelings of self. She graduated from the University of Toronto Specializing in Art and Art History, along with studies in Environmental Science and will be on her way to Edinburgh for her MFA. Shavon has had works shown at Shelly Peterson, the Burlington Art Gallery and the Art Gallery of Mississauga, among many others. Website: www.greenheartartistry.com [4]

TOSCA TERAN
Working with metal for over 30+ years, Tosca was introduced to glass as an artistic medium in 2004. Through developing bodies of work incorporating metal + glass Tosca has been awarded scholarships at The Corning Museum of Glass, Pilchuck Glass School and The Penland school of Crafts. Her work has been featured at SOFA New York, Culture Canada,
Metalsmith Magazine, The Toronto Design Exchange, and the Memphis Metal Museum. She has been awarded residencies at Gullkistan, Nes, and the Ayatana Research Program. A long-term guest artist instructor at the Ontario Science Centre, Tosca continues to explore materials, code, BioArt, SciArt and teach Metal + Glass courses out of her studio in Toronto.

It seems that these February events and the two events with Marta de Menezes are part of the FACTT (transdisciplinary and transnational festival of art and science) Toronto, from the FACTT Toronto webpage,

FACTT Toronto – Festival of Art & Science posted in: blog, events

The Arte Institute, in partnership with Cultivamos Cultura and ArtSi Salon, has the pleasure to announce FACTT – Festival of Art & Science in Toronto.

The Festival took place in Lisbon, New York, Mexico, Berlin and will continue in Toronto.
Exhibition: The Cabinet Project/ Art Sci Salon / FACTT

Artists:

Andrew Carnie
Elaine Whittaker
Erich Berger
Joana Ricou
Ken Rinaldo
Laura Beloff and Maria Antonia Gonzalez Valerio
Marta de Menezes and Luís Graça
Pedro Cruz

Dates: Jan 26- feb 15 [2018 {sic}]

Where: Meet us on Jan 26 [2018] in the Lobby of the Physics Department, 255 Huron Street
University of Toronto
When: 4:45 PM

You may want to keep an eye on the ArtSci Salon website although I find their posting schedule a bit erratic. Sometimes, I get email notices for events that aren’t yet listed on their website.

2017 proceedings for the Canadian Science Policy Conference

I received (via email) a December 11, 2017 notice from the Canadian Science Policy Centre that the 2017 Proceedings for the ninth annual conference (Nov. 1 – 3, 2017 in Ottawa, Canada) can now be accessed,

The Canadian Science Policy Centre is pleased to present you the Proceedings of CSPC 2017. Check out the reports and takeaways for each panel session, which have been carefully drafted by a group of professional writers. You can also listen to the audio recordings and watch the available videos. The proceedings page will provide you with the opportunity to immerse yourself in all of the discussions at the conference. Feel free to share the ones you like! Also, check out the CSPC 2017 reports, analyses, and stats in the proceedings.

Click here for the CSPC 2017 Proceedings

CSPC 2017 Interviews

Take a look at the 70+ one-on-one interviews with prominent figures of science policy. The interviews were conducted by the great team of CSPC 2017 volunteers. The interviews feature in-depth perspectives about the conference, panels, and new up and coming projects.

Click here for the CSPC 2017 interviews

Amongst many others, you can find a video of Governor General Julie Payette’s notorious remarks made at the opening ceremonies and which I highlighted in my November 3, 2017 posting about this year’s conference.

The proceedings are organized by day with links to individual pages for each session held that day. Here’s a sample of what is offered on Day 1: Artificial Intelligence and Discovery Science: Playing to Canada’s Strengths,

Artificial Intelligence and Discovery Science: Playing to Canada’s Strengths

Conference Day:
Day 1 – November 1st 2017

Organized by: Friends of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research

Keynote: Alan Bernstein, President and CEO, CIFAR, 2017 Henry G. Friesen International Prizewinner

Speakers: Brenda Andrews, Director, Andrew’s Lab, University of Toronto; Doina Precup, Associate Professor, McGill University; Dr Rémi Quirion, Chief Scientist of Quebec; Linda Rabeneck, Vice President, Prevention and Cancer Control, Cancer Care Ontario; Peter Zandstra, Director, School of Biomedical Engineering, University of British Columbia

Discussants: Henry Friesen, Professor Emeritus, University of Manitoba; Roderick McInnes, Acting President, Canadian Institutes of Health Research and Director, Lady Davis Institute, Jewish General Hospital, McGill University; Duncan J. Stewart, CEO and Scientific Director, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute; Vivek Goel, Vice President, Research and Innovation, University of Toronto

Moderators: Eric Meslin, President & CEO, Council of Canadian Academies; André Picard, Health Reporter and Columnist, The Globe and Mail

Takeaways and recommendations:

The opportunity for Canada

  • The potential impact of artificial intelligence (AI) could be as significant as the industrial revolution of the 19th century.
  • Canada’s global advantage in deep learning (a subset of machine learning) stems from the pioneering work of Geoffrey Hinton and early support from CIFAR and NSERC.
  • AI could mark a turning point in Canada’s innovation performance, fueled by the highest levels of venture capital financing in nearly a decade, and underpinned by publicly funded research at the federal, provincial and institutional levels.
  • The Canadian AI advantage can only be fully realized by developing and importing skilled talent, accessible markets, capital and companies willing to adopt new technologies into existing industries.
  • Canada leads in the combination of functional genomics and machine learning which is proving effective for predicting the functional variation in genomes.
  • AI promises advances in biomedical engineering by connecting chronic diseases – the largest health burden in Canada – to gene regulatory networks by understanding how stem cells make decisions.
  • AI can be effectively deployed to evaluate health and health systems in the general population.

The challenges

  • AI brings potential ethical and economic perils and requires a watchdog to oversee standards, engage in fact-based debate and prepare for the potential backlash over job losses to robots.
  • The ethical, environmental, economic, legal and social (GEL3S) aspects of genomics have been largely marginalized and it’s important not to make the same mistake with AI.
  • AI’s rapid scientific development makes it difficult to keep pace with safeguards and standards.
  • The fields of AI’s and pattern recognition are strongly connected but here is room for improvement.
  • Self-learning algorithms such as Alphaville could lead to the invention of new things that humans currently don’t know how to do. The field is developing rapidly, leading to some concern over the deployment of such systems.

Training future AI professionals

  • Young researchers must be given the oxygen to excel at AI if its potential is to be realized.
  • Students appreciate the breadth of training and additional resources they receive from researchers with ties to both academia and industry.
  • The importance of continuing fundamental research in AI is being challenged by companies such as Facebook, Google and Amazon which are hiring away key talent.
  • The explosion of AI is a powerful illustration of how the importance of fundamental research may only be recognized and exploited after 20 or 30 years. As a result, support for fundamental research, and the students working in areas related to AI, must continue.

A couple comments

To my knowledge, this is the first year the proceedings have been made so easily accessible. In fact, I can’t remember another year where they have been open access. Thank you!

Of course, I have to make a comment about the Day 2 session titled: Does Canada have a Science Culture? The answer is yes and it’s in the province of Ontario. Just take a look at the panel,

Organized by: Kirsten Vanstone, Royal Canadian Institute for Science and Reinhart Reithmeier, Professor, University of Toronto [in Ontario]

Speakers: Chantal Barriault, Director, Science Communication Graduate Program, Laurentian University [in Ontario] and Science North [in Ontario]; Maurice Bitran, CEO, Ontario Science Centre [take a wild guess as to where this institution is located?]; Kelly Bronson, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ottawa [in Ontario]; Marc LePage, President and CEO, Genome Canada [in Ontario]

Moderator: Ivan Semeniuk, Science Reporter, The Globe and Mail [in Ontario]

In fact, all of the institutions are in southern Ontario, even, the oddly named Science North.

I know from bitter experience it’s hard to put together panels but couldn’t someone from another province have participated?

Ah well, here’s hoping for 2018 and for a new location. After Ottawa as the CSPC site for three years in a row, please don’t make it a fourth year in a row.

A jellyfish chat on November 28, 2017 at Café Scientifique Vancouver get together

Café Scientifique Vancouver sent me an announcement (via email) about their upcoming event,

We are pleased to announce our next café which will happen on TUESDAY,
NOVEMBER 28TH at 7:30PM in the back room of YAGGER'S DOWNTOWN (433 W
Pender).

JELLYFISH – FRIEND, FOE, OR FOOD?

Did you know that in addition to stinging swimmers, jellyfish also cause
extensive damage to fisheries and coastal power plants? As threats such
as overfishing, pollution, and climate change alter the marine
environment, recent media reports are proclaiming that jellyfish are
taking over the oceans. Should we hail to our new jellyfish overlords or
do we need to examine the evidence behind these claims? Join Café
Scientifique on Nov. 28, 2017 to learn everything you ever wanted to
know about jellyfish, and find out if jelly burgers are coming soon to a
menu near you.

Our speaker for the evening will be DR. LUCAS BROTZ, a Postdoctoral
Research Fellow with the Sea Around Us at UBC’s Institute for the
Oceans and Fisheries. Lucas has been studying jellyfish for more than a
decade, and has been called “Canada’s foremost jellyfish
researcher” by CBC Nature of Things host Dr. David Suzuki. Lucas has
participated in numerous international scientific collaborations, and
his research has been featured in more than 100 media outlets including
Nature News, The Washington Post, and The New York Times. He recently
received the Michael A. Bigg award for highly significant student
research as part of the Coastal Ocean Awards at the Vancouver Aquarium.

We hope to see you there!

You can find out more about Lucas Brotz here and about Sea Around Us here.

For anyone who’s curious about the jellyfish ‘issue’, there’s a November 8, 2017 Norwegian University of Science and Technology press release on AlphaGallileo or on EurekAlert, which provides insight into the problems and the possibilities,

Jellyfish could be a resource in producing microplastic filters, fertilizer or fish feed. A new 6 million euro project called GoJelly, funded by the EU and coordinated by the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research, Germany and including partners at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNNU) and SINTEF [headquartered in Trondheim, Norway, is the largest independent research organisation in Scandinavia; more about SINTEF in its Wikipedia entry], hopes to turn jellyfish from a nuisance into a useful product.

Global climate change and the human impact on marine ecosystems has led to dramatic decreases in the number of fish in the ocean. It has also had an unforseen side effect: because overfishing decreases the numbers of jellyfish competitors, their blooms are on the rise.

The GoJelly project, coordinated by the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research, Germany, would like to transform problematic jellyfish into a resource that can be used to produce microplastic filter, fertilizer or fish feed. The EU has just approved funding of EUR 6 million over 4 years to support the project through its Horizon 2020 programme.

Rising water temperatures, ocean acidification and overfishing seem to favour jellyfish blooms. More and more often, they appear in huge numbers that have already destroyed entire fish farms on European coasts and blocked cooling systems of power stations near the coast. A number of jellyfish species are poisonous, while some tropical species are even among the most toxic animals on earth.

“In Europe alone, the imported American comb jelly has a biomass of one billion tons. While we tend to ignore the jellyfish there must be other solutions,” says Jamileh Javidpour of GEOMAR, initiator and coordinator of the GoJelly project, which is a consortium of 15 scientific institutions from eight countries led by the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel.

The project will first entail exploring the life cycle of a number of jellyfish species. A lack of knowledge about life cycles makes it is almost impossible to predict when and why a large jellyfish bloom will occur. “This is what we want to change so that large jellyfish swarms can be caught before they reach the coasts,” says Javidpour.

At the same time, the project partners will also try to answer the question of what to do with jellyfish once they have been caught. One idea is to use the jellyfish to battle another, man-made threat.

“Studies have shown that mucus of jellyfish can bind microplastic. Therefore, we want to test whether biofilters can be produced from jellyfish. These biofilters could then be used in sewage treatment plants or in factories where microplastic is produced,” the GoJelly researchers say.

Jellyfish can also be used as fertilizers for agriculture or as aquaculture feed. “Fish in fish farms are currently fed with captured wild fish, which does not reduce the problem of overfishing, but increases it. Jellyfish as feed would be much more sustainable and would protect natural fish stocks,” says the GoJelly team.

Another option is using jellyfish as food for humans. “In some cultures, jellyfish are already on the menu. As long as the end product is no longer slimy, it could also gain greater general acceptance,” said Javidpour. Finally yet importantly, jellyfish contain collagen, a substance very much sought after in the cosmetics industry.

Project partners from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, led by Nicole Aberle-Malzahn, and SINTEF Ocean, led by Rachel Tiller, will analyse how abiotic (hydrography, temperature), biotic (abundance, biomass, ecology, reproduction) and biochemical parameters (stoichiometry, food quality) affect the initiation of jellyfish blooms.

Based on a comprehensive analysis of triggering mechanisms, origin of seed populations and ecological modelling, the researchers hope to be able to make more reliable predictions on jellyfish bloom formation of specific taxa in the GoJelly target areas. This knowledge will allow sustainable harvesting of jellyfish communities from various Northern and Southern European populations.

This harvest will provide a marine biomass of unknown potential that will be explored by researchers at SINTEF Ocean, among others, to explore the possible ways to use the material.

A team from SINTEF Ocean’s strategic program Clean Ocean will also work with European colleagues on developing a filter from the mucus of the jellyfish that will catch microplastics from household products (which have their source in fleece sweaters, breakdown of plastic products or from cosmetics, for example) and prevent these from entering the marine ecosystem.

Finally, SINTEF Ocean will examine the socio-ecological system and games, where they will explore the potentials of an emerging international management regime for a global effort to mitigate the negative effects of microplastics in the oceans.

“Jellyfish can be used for many purposes. We see this as an opportunity to use the potential of the huge biomass drifting right in front of our front door,” Javidpour said.

You can find out more about GoJelly on their Twitter account.

A cheaper way to make artificial organs

In the quest to develop artificial organs, the University of British Columbia (UBC) is the not the first research institution that comes to my mind. It seems I may need to reevaluate now that UBC (Okanagan) has announced some work on bio-inks and artificial organs in a Sept. 12, 2017 news  release (also on EurekAlert) by Patty Wellborn,,

A new bio-ink that may support a more efficient and inexpensive fabrication of human tissues and organs has been created by researchers at UBC’s Okanagan campus.

Keekyoung Kim, an assistant professor at UBC Okanagan’s School of Engineering, says this development can accelerate advances in regenerative medicine.

Using techniques like 3D printing, scientists are creating bio-material products that function alongside living cells. These products are made using a number of biomaterials including gelatin methacrylate (GelMA), a hydrogel that can serve as a building block in bio-printing. This type of bio-material—called bio-ink—are made of living cells, but can be printed and molded into specific organ or tissue shapes.

The UBC team analyzed the physical and biological properties of three different GelMA hydrogels—porcine skin, cold-water fish skin and cold-soluble gelatin. They found that hydrogel made from cold-soluble gelatin (gelatin which dissolves without heat) was by far the best performer and a strong candidate for future 3D organ printing.

“A big drawback of conventional hydrogel is its thermal instability. Even small changes in temperature cause significant changes in its viscosity or thickness,” says Kim. “This makes it problematic for many room temperature bio-fabrication systems, which are compatible with only a narrow range of hydrogel viscosities and which must generate products that are as uniform as possible if they are to function properly.”

Kim’s team created two new hydrogels—one from fish skin, and one from cold-soluble gelatin—and compared their properties to those of porcine skin GelMA. Although fish skin GelMA had some benefits, cold-soluble GelMA was the top overall performer. Not only could it form healthy tissue scaffolds, allowing cells to successfully grow and adhere to it, but it was also thermally stable at room temperature.

The UBC team also demonstrated that cold-soluble GelMA produces consistently uniform droplets at temperatures, thus making it an excellent choice for use in 3D bio-printing.

“We hope this new bio-ink will help researchers create improved artificial organs and lead to the development of better drugs, tissue engineering and regenerative therapies,” Kim says. “The next step is to investigate whether or not cold-soluble GelMA-based tissue scaffolds are can be used long-term both in the laboratory and in real-world transplants.”

Three times cheaper than porcine skin gelatin, cold-soluble gelatin is used primarily in culinary applications.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Comparative study of gelatin methacrylate hydrogels from different sources for biofabrication applications by Zongjie Wang, Zhenlin Tian, Fredric Menard, and Keekyoung Kim. Biofabrication, Volume 9, Number 4 Special issue on Bioinks https://doi.org/10.1088/1758-5090/aa83cf Published 21 August 2017

© 2017 IOP Publishing Ltd

This paper is behind a paywall.

Ian Wallace show: the frame/box within the frame/box within the frame/box (at the Rennie Gallery in Vancouver, Canada until Sept. 30, 2017)

The opening reception for the Ian Wallace exhibition (Ian Wallace: Collected Works, May 27 to Sept. 30, 2017) at the Rennie Collection was a celebration of both Ian Wallace and Bob Rennie’s donation of 197 art works to the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa marking Canada’s 150th anniversary. Here’s more about the gift from a May 9, 2017 Rennie Collection notice (received via email),

In celebration of Canada’s 150th birthday, we are donating 197 paintings, sculptures and mixed-media pieces made by some of the most well-known and established Canadian and international artists working today to the National Gallery of Canada!

This is the largest gift of contemporary art ever received by the National Gallery, with major pieces created by internationally renowned artists, such as Colombian Doris Salcedo, as well as important Vancouver based artists Brian Jungen, Damian Moppett, Rodney Graham, Ian Wallace [emphasis mine], and Geoffrey Farmer, who is Canada’s selection for the 57th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia.

Getting back to the Ian Wallace exhibition,

“The Idea of the University” (1990)  Courtesy: Rennie Collection

The commentary that follows are my impressions of the show, your mileage may vary.

What I found most intriguing was the ‘squareness’ of it all with its prevalence of frames/boxes. For example the image above is framed with red and white (paint on plywood) at the sides and within the image, there’s the window, the calendar, the photograph, a markedly squarish electric typewriter, a box on the desk, the cabinet behind the typist, and the books on the cabinet. One image could be a coincidence but when you’re surrounded by room after room  with these framed/boxed images of more frames and boxes, well, happenstance has to be rejected.

Wallace is a photographer-artist, one of the individuals in Vancouver, Canada, who founded  photoconceptualism (I sometimes mistakenly refer to this as photorealism). As you may have guessed from my parenthesized comment, I’m not a big fan of this movement or school. However, I’ve found that enjoyment or fandom isn’t necessarily the point where contemporary art is concerned. My experience is that contemporary art is largely intellectual rather than sensual. Sculptures, paintings, textiles, etc. are more sensual by nature where many contemporary pieces begin their existence in a machinist’s shop or via a piece of equipment such as a camera or as an algorithm.

To attend an exhibition of contemporary art, explanation is needed and thankfully the Rennie provides a tour guide providing insight into the artist and their work. In Wallace’s case (kudos, by the way, to Sydney who led the tour I attended), he’s a professor of art history whose main means of expression is photography and much of his focus is on the production of art.

For me though, it was all about square edges, frames, and boxes—an obvious association given that you frame your subject (inadvertently or not) when taking a photograph. There are images and pieces that don’t fit into my ‘square’ obsession but the number in this exhibition that did is amazing and dizzying. I got to the point where I was giddy enough to think of each room as yet another box/frame and we were the subjects leading to these questions: who is seeing, who is being seen, and what is being seen?

The fourth question: how we were seeing the images came up in the context of the show, more specifically, when viewing Wallace’s ‘Poverty 1980 – 1984’ series. It’s considered one of Wallace’s earlier works and like many of his pieces is a series of images. According to Sydney, Wallace is critiquing how we view poverty. In his view, poverty and images of poverty are often glamourized and to draw attention to that he had friends dress up as bohemians from an earlier period and pose in some of Vancouver’s dicier streets and alleyways. It’s not easy to see the images as they are indistinct and washed over in one colour or another.

Before commenting on this piece, I’ve got an excerpt from the Rennie Collection’s undated [?} press release,

Rennie Museum is pleased to announce a solo exhibition featuring rarely and never–before seen historic works of renowned Vancouver artist Ian Wallace. Highlighting Wallace’s perennial exploration of social issues, the works presented will also examine the crux of his artistic process: the intersectionality between public and private, personal and universal, process and production, abstraction and representation. The exhibition runs May 27 to September 30, 2017.

Included in the exhibition will be Poverty 1980 – 1984, a multimedia installation comprising of film, painting, and photography. Initially enacted in 1980 as a 16mm film commenting on the tradition of documentary film–making, the Poverty project offers variations on a single theme. By employing friends and colleagues to act out scenes of bohemian scarcity in Vancouver, Wallace creates fictionalized simulacra—an aestheticized model of poverty derived from our collective, often over–embellished, social conscious. [emphasis mine] The film stills are then abstracted through repetition and presented amidst monochromatic colour fields, prompting viewers to review their own cognitive processes.

I think I understand what is being described in the news release and I agree that poverty can be ‘aestheticized’ or made glamourous. In fact, there’s a term for it ‘poverty porn’. I first heard the term in relation to a series of images taken by Lincoln Clarkes and his series, Heroines (from his Wikipedia entry; Note: Links have been removed),

Heroines (Anvil Press) [3] is an epic photographic documentary of 400 addicted women of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, which won the 2003 Vancouver Book Award (in a tie with Stan Douglas), and was the subject of numerous philosophical essays (by Leigh Butler, Margot Leigh Butler, and Paul Ugor, among them). The London Observer said Clarkes’ book offered “beauty in a beastly place.” Globe and Mail called it “intimate, compelling and undeniably unsettling,” while The Toronto Star called it “incredibly powerful.”

Clarkes, who’d been a high end fashion photographer, took photographs of female addicts (hence heroin/heroine) living in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, an area which by then was and still is a national and international disgrace. Within the Downtown Eastside community there was a great deal of controversy over Clarke’s work hence the whispers about ‘poverty porn’.

I gather Clarkes’ initial impulse was to treat the women with respect and kindness and to try framing ‘addicts’ in the same way as he would a high fashion model rather than as one of the ‘wretched of the earth’. Unfortunately as the work evolved, it appeared to become a career stepping stone for him and any other concerns seemed to drop out of view. In the end, I couldn’t escape the impression that these women had been used again as unintentional as it may have been.

Getting back to Wallace, I see his point but I don’t understand how his hard-to-see images of fake bohemians in streets and alleyways that are unrecognizable even to a local make his point about glamourizing poverty. Presumably, Wallace’s images were taken in the Downtown Eastside, which in the 1980s was not nearly in the straits it is today. The social safety net cuts that came in the mid to later 1980s and the diminishment of the federal transfer funds to the provinces weren’t yet the stuff of nightmares for social activists.

In retrospect, Wallace’s images seem weirdly prescient, a kind of ‘fiddling while Rome burns ‘view of the future which is now our present day but, for me, they don’t exactly deglamourize poverty or give us a view of an “… over–embellished, social conscious.” In fact, there’s something a bit odd about seeing this piece in a gallery that is housed in the same building as Rennie’s real estate marketing business in a rapidly gentrifying area just a block or two away from where those ‘poverty images’ were taken. Add in the fact that the tour was made up of a relatively middle class group of people staring at poverty when the reality is block away the whole thing becomes head-spinning as these questions whirl who is seeing, who is being seen, and what is being seen?

The last piece I’m going to mention is the multi-panel “The Idea of the University” (1990). The piece brought back memories as I once worked at the University of British Columbia where Wallace took his images. It was a walk down the lane of ‘old technology’ with microfiche readers, electric typewriters, card catalogues, etc. Sydney Marshall (tour guide Sydney) has written a July 25, 2017 essay about the piece on the Rennie Collection’s website,

Without contest, my favourite artwork by Ian Wallace is The Idea of the University (1990). Installed in Rennie Museum’s monumental four-storey high exhibition space, the sprawling canvasses are almost as immense as their depicted subject: the University of British Columbia. It’s likely that I appreciate it so much because like Wallace, I also studied at U.B.C., sitting in the same lecture hall that he used to teach in. This sentimentality seems to be shared; local visitors will often stop to point out former professors, or remember old buildings that have since been demolished. The piece is an exercise in collective memory. Functioning like a time capsule, it allows viewers to reflect on developments from the past to present. This is, however, just one aspect of a multi-faceted piece. By using the competing technical modes of painting and photography to depict university spaces, Wallace challenges the notion that painting is the only valid form of artistic production within academia. Historically, art production has operated within a technical hierarchy, with painting as the most revered medium due to the artistic labour it necessitates. The 20th century’s shifting social climate ultimately sees a redistribution of this hierarchical power. In response to the increasing corporatization of the university space, anti-institutional dissent permeated universities across the North American continent – U.B.C. included. For Ian Wallace and his contemporaries, this manifested as a desire to dispute traditional designations of painting as the most inherently valuable way to produce art. With his work, Wallace recontextualizes the medium, placing it in direct conversation with its subsidiaries: photography, writing, and thinking. In doing so, he subverts the idea that a technical hierarchy needs exist at all, equating multiple forms of production across a broad spectrum of intellectual and artistic interests.


Ian Wallace
The Idea of the University I-XVI, 1990

 

Conceived for a special exhibition at the U.B.C. Fine Arts Gallery in 1990, the work features sixteen photographs of university spaces and personnel in various states of candidness, each flanked with bars of white and multicoloured monochrome. In its entirety, the work looks cinematic – as if it were a filmstrip of image stills pulled from a promotional clip. This is not to say the images are typically beautiful because, by all accounts, they’re not. The depicted spaces are not inherently exciting. Some photographs are oddly cropped, others slightly out of focus; these formal details are irrelevant to the medium’s intended purpose: its subject. Photography, as a medium, offers to art that which painting cannot. The photograph is able to capture the totality of ‘the everyday’ as it exists in a moment, bringing banality into focus and calling the viewer to engage with it further. Visible beauty no longer designates whether a work is ‘art’ or ‘not art’; instead, it is the depth of concept that provides this justification. The valorization of these images as ‘art’ is additionally supported by their proximity to monochrome painting. The white monochrome acts as grounding, a symbolic representation of the white-walled gallery space typically designating a work of art. The multicoloured inclusions operate similarly. Different on each canvas, the monochrome bars provide an aesthetic and historical reference to modernism that further situates the opposing photographs within an established artistic context. By referencing this history, Wallace is able to push the limit of acceptable artistic production, using the predetermined power of modernism to elevate the comparatively new medium of photography.

It should be noted that a key component of The Idea of the University is missing from its visual representation: Wallace’s catalogue essay. The writing has become a near immovable companion to the work, as it explains precisely why the artist has chosen to explore the subject of the university. In it, Wallace identifies the contemporary university as an abstracted space, caught between its founding principles and modern-day realities. The university is supposed to be a universalizing space, providing equal opportunity to acquire ‘truth’ and knowledge to everyone that passes through its metaphorical gates. Wallace almost immediately invalidates this idea by identifying the discrepancy between this ideal image and its actuality*. Instead of a collective organization united in the unhindered production of knowledge, the contemporary university exists as an ideology-producing institution that services a number of specific political and socioeconomic interests*. For Wallace, the same designation could be given to the discourse of art – a supposedly universal field that relies almost entirely on individual notions of taste and arbitrary economic determinations. The Idea of the University works as an evaluation of both the university and the discourse of art, but Wallace very intentionally leaves the canvasses open-ended. Instead, he presents the failures (or at least, potential failures) of these systems in his writing, using its visual counterpart as a stimulus by which the viewer can judge the validity of his propositions for themselves.


Ian Wallace
The Idea of the University I-XVI, 1990

 

Just as Wallace succeeds in neutrally depicting the university space, so too does he succeed in avoiding a singular narrative of exactly how knowledge is produced. He chooses not to privilege one form of ‘work’ over another, but does show immense regard for practice in general. Some empty and others full, most of the photographed spaces feature a single figure engaging in various forms of intellectual labour: reading, searching the web, or completing administrative tasks. All of these engagements are qualified as ‘work’ that contributes to the ultimate output of the university. This is paralleled by Wallace’s own technical expansions of artistic labour. He challenges traditional perceptions of painting and photography by combining the two, then supplementing the combination with writing. In this sense, it is neither the visual nor the written work that takes precedence, but the idea that all of these productive forms are equally valid. In essence, Wallace’s presentation of simultaneous forms of labour democratizes realms of production within art, decentralizing painting as the foundation upon which art must be based. Not only does artwork not need to be painted, it doesn’t even have to be visual. To Ian Wallace, a radical thought is as legitimate an artistic gesture as a visible brushstroke.

* Wallace, Ian. “The Idea of the University.” UBC Fine Arts Gallery, 1990. Page 23. Print.

The production of art and the production of knowledge would seem to be the dominant themes of this Ian Wallace exhibition and, I suspect, his life.

Anyone interested in seeing the show for themselves, can go here to save a space on one of the tours (for this show they are on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays). It is also possible to book separate tours for groups of eight or more here.

Time traveling at the University of British Columbia

Anyone who dreams of timetraveling is going to have to wait a bit longer as this form of timetraveling is theoretical. From an April 27, 2017 news item on ScienceDaily,

After some serious number crunching, a UBC [University of British Columbia] researcher has come up with a mathematical model for a viable time machine.

Ben Tippett, a mathematics and physics instructor at UBC’s Okanagan campus, recently published a study about the feasibility of time travel. Tippett, whose field of expertise is Einstein’s theory of general relativity, studies black holes and science fiction when he’s not teaching. Using math and physics, he has created a formula that describes a method for time travel.

An April 27, 2017 UBC at Okanagan news release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, elaborates on the work.

“People think of time travel as something fictional,” says Tippett. “And we tend to think it’s not possible because we don’t actually do it. But, mathematically, it is possible.”

Ever since H.G. Wells published his book Time Machine in 1885, people have been curious about time travel—and scientists have worked to solve or disprove the theory. In 1915 Albert Einstein announced his theory of general relativity, stating that gravitational fields are caused by distortions in the fabric of space and time. More than 100 years later, the LIGO Scientific Collaboration—an international team of physics institutes and research groups—announced the detection of gravitational waves generated by colliding black holes billions of light years away, confirming Einstein’s theory.

The division of space into three dimensions, with time in a separate dimension by itself, is incorrect, says Tippett. The four dimensions should be imagined simultaneously, where different directions are connected, as a space-time continuum. Using Einstein’s theory, Tippett explains that the curvature of space-time accounts for the curved orbits of the planets.

In “flat” or uncurved space-time, planets and stars would move in straight lines. In the vicinity of a massive star, space-time geometry becomes curved and the straight trajectories of nearby planets will follow the curvature and bend around the star.

“The time direction of the space-time surface also shows curvature. There is evidence showing the closer to a black hole we get, time moves slower,” says Tippett. “My model of a time machine uses the curved space-time—to bend time into a circle for the passengers, not in a straight line. That circle takes us back in time.”

While it is possible to describe this type of time travel using a mathematical equation, Tippett doubts that anyone will ever build a machine to make it work.

“H.G. Wells popularized the term ‘time machine’ and he left people with the thought that an explorer would need a ‘machine or special box’ to actually accomplish time travel,” Tippett says. “While is it mathematically feasible, it is not yet possible to build a space-time machine because we need materials—which we call exotic matter—to bend space-time in these impossible ways, but they have yet to be discovered.”

For his research, Tippett created a mathematical model of a Traversable Acausal Retrograde Domain in Space-time (TARDIS). He describes it as a bubble of space-time geometry which carries its contents backward and forward through space and time as it tours a large circular path. The bubble moves through space-time at speeds greater than the speed of light at times, allowing it to move backward in time.

“Studying space-time is both fascinating and problematic. And it’s also a fun way to use math and physics,” says Tippett. “Experts in my field have been exploring the possibility of mathematical time machines since 1949. And my research presents a new method for doing it.”

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Traversable acausal retrograde domains in spacetime by Benjamin K Tippett and David Tsang. Classical and Quantum Gravity, Volume 34, Number 9 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6382/aa6549 Published 31 March 2017

© 2017 IOP Publishing Ltd

This paper is behind a paywall.

Inaugural Italian Scientists and Scholars of North America Foundation (ISSNAF) annual meeting

Thanks to a May 17, 2017 announcement I received via email from the ArtSci Salon, I’ve learned of a rather intriguing annual meeting to be held May 19-20, 2017 in Toronto, Ontario,

We are pleased to invite you to attend the Italian Scientists and
Scholars of North America Foundation (ISSNAF) inaugural annual
conference in Canada, which will be held on May 19-20th, 2017 at the
Istituto Italiano di Cultura, Toronto, Ontario.

During the event, the Italian scientific community will meet the
institutions, the industry, academia to discuss breakthrough ideas, to
network, and to award projects of young Italians through the ISSNAF
Young Investigators Awards.

The event is organized under the auspices of H.E. Ambassador CLAUDIO
TAFFURI, Consul General of Italy in Toronto, GIUSEPPE PASTORELLI,
Director of the Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Toronto, ALESSANDRO
RUGGERA and Scientific Attaché of the Italian Embassy in Ottawa, ANNA
GALLUCCIO. This year’s exciting conference will focus on innovation,
exploring innovation as invention and transformation, as well as its
impact on how we live and think.

After an introduction by H.E. Ambassador of Italy, CLAUDIO TAFFURI,
and other representatives of Italian institutions, the event will open
with two prominent speakers: PAOLO MACCARIO, Chief Operating Officer
and General Manager at Silfab Ontario Inc. and FRANCO VACCARINO,
President and Vice-Chancellor of Guelph University, who will discuss
current and future strategies in academia and industry required for
students and workers to deal with the disruptive technologies and the
exponential increase in knowledge.

The later part of the day will feature speakers from different
institutions from all over Canada. CORRADO PAINA, President of the
Italian Chamber of Commerce, will address the importance of innovation
and research from the industry prospective. UMBERTO BERARDI, Associate
Professor, Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, Ryerson
University, will bring his experience as winner of the Franco
Strazzabosco Award for Engineers. Nicola Fameli, Research Associate of
Anesthesiology, Pharmacology and Therapeutics, U. of British Columbia
and Franco Mammarella, Group leader [TRIUMF] Canada’s National Laboratory for
Particle and Nuclear Physics, president and vice-president of ARPICO
(Society of Italian Researchers & Professionals in Western Canada),
will explain the importance of developing a global network amongst
researchers. The day will be closed by GABRIELLA GOBBI, Associate
Professor, Dept. Psychiatry, McGill University on the current status
of the Italian Scientific Community in Quebec.

Day One of ISSNAF’s Annual event will conclude with a reception at the
Istituto. Day Two of the event is dedicated to young Italian
researchers and scientists who will present their work and will
receive the ISSNAF Certificate for Young Investigators. The day will
end with a round table and a discussion directed by the ISSNAF Ontario
chapter Chairs, BARBARA CIFRA, VITO MENNELLA AND LEONARDO SALMENA on
how to build a successful academic network and how ISSNAF can
contribute to the process.

The event is limited to 50 people only [emphasis mine]. Please confirm your presence
by May 17th [2017] by sending an email to: iictoronto@esteri.it

Sorry to be posting this so late in the day (fingers crossed it’s not too late).

I did do some searching and found this description of the event on the ARPICO website,

On May 19-20th SIRO (Society of Italian researcher in Ontario) official Chapter of the Italian Scientists and Scholars of North America Foundation (ISSNAF) will host in cooperation with the Embassy of Italy in Ottawa the inaugural Canadian Annual ISSNAF meeting.

The event is organized under the auspices of H.E. Ambassador Claudio Taffuri, Consul General of Italy in Toronto, Giuseppe Pastorelli, and Director of the Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Toronto, Alessandro Ruggera and Scientific Attache’ of the Italian Embassy in Ottawa, Anna Galluccio. This year’s exciting conference will focus on innovation, exploring innovation as invention and transformation and its impact on how we live and think.

During the event, the italian scientific community meets the institutions, the industry, academia to discuss breakthrough ideas, to network, and to award projects of young Italians through the ISSNAF Young Investigators Awards.

For this year the event will be attended by 60 selected researchers and scholars working in Canada. [emphasis mine]

For more information email issnafontario@gmail.com

Good luck at getting to attend the event whether there are 50 or 60 participants.

3D bioprinting: a conference about the latest trends (May 3 – 5, 2017 at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver)

The University of British Columbia’s (UBC) Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies (PWIAS) is hosting along with local biotech firm, Aspect Biosystems, a May 3 -5, 2017 international research roundtable known as ‘Printing the Future of Therapeutics in 3D‘.

A May 1, 2017 UBC news release (received via email) offers some insight into the field of bioprinting from one of the roundtable organizers,

This week, global experts will gather [4] at the University of British
Columbia to discuss the latest trends in 3D bioprinting—a technology
used to create living tissues and organs.

In this Q&A, UBC chemical and biological engineering professor
Vikramaditya Yadav [5], who is also with the Regenerative Medicine
Cluster Initiative in B.C., explains how bioprinting could potentially
transform healthcare and drug development, and highlights Canadian
innovations in this field.

WHY IS 3D BIOPRINTING SIGNIFICANT?

Bioprinted tissues or organs could allow scientists to predict
beforehand how a drug will interact within the body. For every
life-saving therapeutic drug that makes its way into our medicine
cabinets, Health Canada blocks the entry of nine drugs because they are
proven unsafe or ineffective. Eliminating poor-quality drug candidates
to reduce development costs—and therefore the cost to consumers—has
never been more urgent.

In Canada alone, nearly 4,500 individuals are waiting to be matched with
organ donors. If and when bioprinters evolve to the point where they can
manufacture implantable organs, the concept of an organ transplant
waiting list would cease to exist. And bioprinted tissues and organs
from a patient’s own healthy cells could potentially reduce the risk
of transplant rejection and related challenges.

HOW IS THIS TECHNOLOGY CURRENTLY BEING USED?

Skin, cartilage and bone, and blood vessels are some of the tissue types
that have been successfully constructed using bioprinting. Two of the
most active players are the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative
Medicine in North Carolina, which reports that its bioprinters can make
enough replacement skin to cover a burn with 10 times less healthy
tissue than is usually needed, and California-based Organovo, which
makes its kidney and liver tissue commercially available to
pharmaceutical companies for drug testing.

Beyond medicine, bioprinting has already been commercialized to print
meat and artificial leather. It’s been estimated that the global
bioprinting market will hit $2 billion by 2021.

HOW IS CANADA INVOLVED IN THIS FIELD?

Canada is home to some of the most innovative research clusters and
start-up companies in the field. The UBC spin-off Aspect Biosystems [6]
has pioneered a bioprinting paradigm that rapidly prints on-demand
tissues. It has successfully generated tissues found in human lungs.

Many initiatives at Canadian universities are laying strong foundations
for the translation of bioprinting and tissue engineering into
mainstream medical technologies. These include the Regenerative Medicine
Cluster Initiative in B.C., which is headed by UBC, and the University
of Toronto’s Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering.

WHAT ETHICAL ISSUES DOES BIOPRINTING CREATE?

There are concerns about the quality of the printed tissues. It’s
important to note that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Health
Canada are dedicating entire divisions to regulation of biomanufactured
products and biomedical devices, and the FDA also has a special division
that focuses on regulation of additive manufacturing – another name
for 3D printing.

These regulatory bodies have an impressive track record that should
assuage concerns about the marketing of substandard tissue. But cost and
pricing are arguably much more complex issues.

Some ethicists have also raised questions about whether society is not
too far away from creating Replicants, à la _Blade Runner_. The idea is
fascinating, scary and ethically grey. In theory, if one could replace
the extracellular matrix of bones and muscles with a stronger substitute
and use cells that are viable for longer, it is not too far-fetched to
create bones or muscles that are stronger and more durable than their
natural counterparts.

WILL DOCTORS BE PRINTING REPLACEMENT BODY PARTS IN 20 YEARS’ TIME?

This is still some way off. Optimistically, patients could see the
technology in certain clinical environments within the next decade.
However, some technical challenges must be addressed in order for this
to occur, beginning with faithful replication of the correct 3D
architecture and vascularity of tissues and organs. The bioprinters
themselves need to be improved in order to increase cell viability after
printing.

These developments are happening as we speak. Regulation, though, will
be the biggest challenge for the field in the coming years.

There are some events open to the public (from the international research roundtable homepage),

OPEN EVENTS

You’re invited to attend the open events associated with Printing the Future of Therapeutics in 3D.

Café Scientifique

Thursday, May 4, 2017
Telus World of Science
5:30 – 8:00pm [all tickets have been claimed as of May 2, 2017 at 3:15 pm PT]

3D Bioprinting: Shaping the Future of Health

Imagine a world where drugs are developed without the use of animals, where doctors know how a patient will react to a drug before prescribing it and where patients can have a replacement organ 3D-printed using their own cells, without dealing with long donor waiting lists or organ rejection. 3D bioprinting could enable this world. Join us for lively discussion and dessert as experts in the field discuss the exciting potential of 3D bioprinting and the ethical issues raised when you can print human tissues on demand. This is also a rare opportunity to see a bioprinter live in action!

Open Session

Friday, May 5, 2017
Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies
2:00 – 7:00pm

A Scientific Discussion on the Promise of 3D Bioprinting

The medical industry is struggling to keep our ageing population healthy. Developing effective and safe drugs is too expensive and time-consuming to continue unchanged. We cannot meet the current demand for transplant organs, and people are dying on the donor waiting list every day.  We invite you to join an open session where four of the most influential academic and industry professionals in the field discuss how 3D bioprinting is being used to shape the future of health and what ethical challenges may be involved if you are able to print your own organs.

ROUNDTABLE INFORMATION

The University of British Columbia and the award-winning bioprinting company Aspect Biosystems, are proud to be co-organizing the first “Printing the Future of Therapeutics in 3D” International Research Roundtable. This event will congregate global leaders in tissue engineering research and pharmaceutical industry experts to discuss the rapidly emerging and potentially game-changing technology of 3D-printing living human tissues (bioprinting). The goals are to:

Highlight the state-of-the-art in 3D bioprinting research
Ideate on disruptive innovations that will transform bioprinting from a novel research tool to a broadly adopted systematic practice
Formulate an actionable strategy for industry engagement, clinical translation and societal impact
Present in a public forum, key messages to educate and stimulate discussion on the promises of bioprinting technology

The Roundtable will bring together a unique collection of industry experts and academic leaders to define a guiding vision to efficiently deploy bioprinting technology for the discovery and development of new therapeutics. As the novel technology of 3D bioprinting is more broadly adopted, we envision this Roundtable will become a key annual meeting to help guide the development of the technology both in Canada and globally.

We thank you for your involvement in this ground-breaking event and look forward to you all joining us in Vancouver for this unique research roundtable.

Kind Regards,
The Organizing Committee
Christian Naus, Professor, Cellular & Physiological Sciences, UBC
Vikram Yadav, Assistant Professor, Chemical & Biological Engineering, UBC
Tamer Mohamed, CEO, Aspect Biosystems
Sam Wadsworth, CSO, Aspect Biosystems
Natalie Korenic, Business Coordinator, Aspect Biosystems

I’m glad to see this event is taking place—and with public events too! (Wish I’d seen the Café Scientifique announcement earlier when I first checked for tickets  yesterday. I was hoping there’d been some cancellations today.) Finally, for the interested, you can find Aspect Biosystems here.