Ahmed Hassan and Bram Adams, professors in the School of Computing, have received funding under NSERC’s (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada) Interaction Grants Program. Their research includes examining problems facing software practice and making suggestions to help developers avoid bugs. With the grant, Drs. Hassan and Adams and their teams plan to demonstrate their latest work for SAP software developers in Vancouver. Their goal is to start a long-term collaboration with SAP, the largest software enterprise in Europe and the fourth largest in the world.
Dr. Gabor Fichtinger receives a Research Chair to further cancer research.
Dear all,
I am delighted to announce that Dr. Gabor Fichtinger of the Queen’s School of Computing has been awarded a Level 1 Research Chair in Medical Imaging by Cancer Care Ontario. This award is a recognition of the high quality of Dr. Fichtinger’s contributions in the area of Biomedical Computing. The Research Chair is also the first in health care research to be awarded to a researcher in the Faculty of Arts and Science at Queen’s University by an external organization. Further details in what follows.
Congratulations Gabor and best wishes.
Selim
Cancer Care Ontario Announces 2010 Research Chairs
Dr. Gabor Fichtinger of the Queen’s School of Computing is one of six Ontario researchers to receive funding to further cancer research over the next five years under Cancer Care Ontario’s Research Chairs Program. The Program, funded by the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, is designed to attract new leading scientists to Ontario and support outstanding scientists already working in the province. The Program focuses on quickly turning research findings into improvements in cancer services and clinical care for patients.
Dr. Fichtinger, named a Level 1 Research Chair in Medical Imaging, achieved a worldwide reputation in needle-based interventional oncology system development through his prior work at the Johns Hopkins University, one of the world’s most renowned medical institutions. He was recruited to Queen’s in 2007 and given the mandate of creating an advanced technology development program for interventional oncology. Dr. Fichtinger will work on creating a reusable platform for image-guided and robotic cancer interventions.
In the past two-years, CCO’s Research Chairs program has funded the research of 13 scientists. The 2010 awards will build Ontario’s research capacity in three priority areas – cancer imaging, experimental therapeutics and health services research.
Congratulations to Dave Dove
Dave has reached the incredible milestone of working at Queen’s for 25 years. Here’s to another 25 🙂
Cheers!
Randy Ellis receives funding to improve hip surgery performance
Randy Ellis and his team are working to advance the understanding of hip motion to improve surgical performance for hip replacement.
“Our idea is novel and simple,” says Dr. Ellis. “It is the motion of a patient’s hip, and not the highly variable anatomy, that should guide component placement in hip-replacement surgery. An improved understanding of how an arthritic hip moves may lead to strategies for preventing arthritis, as well as improving surgical treatment.”
Although hip replacement is a common and usually successful surgery for advanced hip arthritis, many secondary surgeries are often required, most often because of failures that can be traced to improper component placement. Dr. Ellis and his team hope to eliminate the need for these revisionary surgeries.
This project is a collaborative effort between Queen’s and Johns Hopkins University.
The funding under the NSERC/CIHR Collaborative Health Research Program (CHRP) will support student research and materials for both projects.
http://www.queensu.ca/news/articles/queens-computer-assisted-surgery-projects-receive-nserc-funding
James Stewart receives funding for knee surgery technique
Dr. Stewart and his team are developing computer-assisted surgical methods that allow surgeons to perform cartilage repair by mapping a damaged knee and pinpointing ideal locations for cartilage removal. To repair damage to the knee, healthy cartilage is removed from a non-load-bearing area of the knee and is transplanted to the damaged area. Surgeons currently do this by eye, often with varied results. The new technology should lead to more consistent and reliable results. Ideally, cartilage repair will reduce the need for total knee replacements, and allow people 50 and under the freedom to remain active despite their injuries.
“It’s a good option because it’s a smaller operation than a total knee replacement and it can treat people earlier,” says Dr. Stewart.
The funding under the NSERC/CIHR Collaborative Health Research Program (CHRP) will support student research and materials for both projects.
http://www.queensu.ca/news/articles/queens-computer-assisted-surgery-projects-receive-nserc-funding
Mohamed Hefny receives a SPIE Scholarship in Optical Science and Engineering
SPIE – The International Society for Optics and Photonics – has awarded Mohamed Hefny a SPIE Scholarship in Optical Science and Engineering for his project “Image-Guided Navigation Systems for Minimally Invasive Surgery”.
Well done Mohamed and best wishes.
Selim
MITACS Elevate / CA Canada Industrial Fellowship for Farhana Zulkernine
This morning we learned Dr. Farhana Zulkernine will be returning to the Queen’s School of Computing this summer as a Postdoctoral Fellow. She was awarded a MITACS Elevate / CA Canada Industrial Fellowship for her research “Decision Support for Database Administrators using Warehouse-as-a-service (DSDAware).”
Congratulations, Farhana and welcome home.
Selim
Zi Ye and Hammad Khalid of the Human Media Lab in New Scientist
TO TRY a new gaming style, grab some plastic and put a chip on your shoulder.
Zi Ye and Hammad Khalid of the Human Media Lab at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, have devised a way of using a shoulder-mounted projector system to display – and play – a game on a bendy A4-sized sliver of plastic. Sensors in the screen allow gameplay to be controlled by bending, shaking or tapping it.
For the full story, click here.
Two NSERC / CIHR Collaborative Health Research Program Awards for Randy Ellis and James Stewart
Congratulations are extended to two of our researchers for their independent recent awards under the NSERC / CIHR Collaborative Health Research Program (CHRP). Competition for these awards is intense; about 10% of applicants are successful.
Dr. Randy Ellis’ research project entitled “Kinematics-based navigation for reconstructive hip surgery,” with co-applicants Drs. Abolmaesumi, Bryant, Rudan and our own Dr. Gabor Fichtinger was funded. Drs. Pichora and Taylor will collaborate on this project.
As well, Dr. James Stewart’s research project entitled “New methods for articular cartilage repair through computer-assisted surgery,” with co-applicants Drs. Bryant, Deluzio, Waldman, Rudan, Fenton and Bardana was funded.
We are very proud to have these nationally recognized biomedical computing experts in our School.
Selim
NSERC Interaction Grant Awarded to Ahmed Hassan and Bram Adams
Congratulations to Dr. Ahmed Hassan and Dr. Bram Adams on their recent receipt of funding under the NSERC Interaction Grants Program for their application entitled “Business Intelligence Platforms for Automated Performance and Reliability Analysis.”
This is a new program, with the briefest of applications and an almost instantaneous response-to-application-time, that funds researchers who identify a company-specific problem they could solve by collaborating in a subsequent research partnership. The program is intended to foster new relationships.
Well done Ahmed and Bram!
Selim