Grants and Contributions

Silicon nitride is becoming established as an important nanophotonic platform because of its compatibility with CMOS fabrication and its substantially broader spectral transparency range compared to silicon. Silicon nitride allows CMOS integrated photonics to break into new application areas, in particular sensing in the visible and mid-IR spectral ranges, quantum photonics and nonlinear optics. However, silicon nitride poses some fundamental challenges. The high index contrast, which allows device miniaturization, causes significant optical scattering losses, mode size disparity between optical fiber and on-chip waveguides results in high coupling losses, and fabrication tolerances are tight, making manufacturing yield a major concern. Subwavelength engineering was successfully used to overcome similar challenges in silicon waveguides and we believe that this strategy can also be advantageously implemented in the silicon nitride platform, which has not yet been done. In this proposed New Beginnings project, the benefits of subwavelength metamaterial engineering for the emerging nitride nanophotonic platform will be demonstrated. This can result in major advances in state-of-the-art silicon nitride integrated devices, including new photonic sensors, next generation quantum communications chips and on-chip optical amplifiers for telecom applications.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a serious and growing problem in the treatment of infectious disease. Broadly, the potential to use combat AMR using collateral sensitivity, a phenomenon whereby resistance to one antimicrobial results in sensitivity to other drugs will be examined. The hypothesis that collateral sensitivities can be used to slow the emergence of AMR will be tested. The central premise of this hypothesis is that the use of one drug will select against mutations that confer resistance to a second drug. For example, if streptomycin resistance mutations confer sensitivity to chloramphenicol, then treatment of a sensitive population of bacteria with chloramphenicol should slow the emergence of streptomycin resistance by selecting against specific, collaterally sensitive mutations. The team will test this hypothesis using a combination of conventional mutation rate assays and sequencing. This work will provide crucial tests of the central logic of using collateral sensitivity to fight AMR; such tests have not thus far been carried out.

Delivery of drugs to the central nervous system is hampered by the blood-brain barrier (BBB), a complex structure composed of multiple cells types and tissues that is subjected to forces due to blood flow. Current brain drug development relies on cells in dishes or animal models of the BBB that do not fully mimic human physiology and therefore cannot effectively predict whether a therapeutic will cross the BBB in a patient. Improved BBB models are necessary to overcome these challenges. To this end, we will develop novel microfluidic chips into which laboratory BBB models can 3D bioprinted, grown, and used to test drug compounds in an environment that mimics key aspects of the human BBB. These platforms are expected to improve the drug development pipeline by reducing animal usage and drug development costs while improving the identification of promising drug candidates.

Terahertz (THz) radiation is a form of electromagnetic energy that occupies a broad frequency band between 0.1 and 10 THz, and is non-ionizing. These frequencies coincide with natural dynamics of biological systems, including low-frequency vibrational modes of large molecules (e.g., all proteins, DNA) and the stretching/twisting modes of hydrogen bond networks that are ubiquitous in biological systems. This interaction mechanism is the basis behind existing novel THz diagnostic imaging technologies for which the high sensitivity to molecular/chemical structure provides excellent contrast between diseased and healthy tissue. However, exposure to higher levels of THz radiation can also affect the structure and function of target biomolecules. This project investigates these effects of intense terahertz radiation in proteins, cells, and skin tissue.

The Ultrafast Nanotools lab, houses the source of terahertz radiation and sample chambers that will be used to perform biological exposure studies. This is central to the proposed research, as sufficient radiation sources of the type required for these investigations are not commercially available. The state-of-the-art sources of intense terahertz pulses constructed for research purposes are known to be capable of generating peak electric fields and intensity distributions sufficient to induce significant non-thermal biological effect in target samples, as reported in several academic publications.

The project aims to improve the educational outcomes of more than 16,000 adolescent girls (between the ages of 13 and 15) in the second cycle of basic education in Mali. The project works to: (1) improve access and retention of adolescent girls in targeted schools in the Segou region; and (2) strengthen capacities of the Ministry of National Education to reduce education barriers and promote quality and gender-sensitive education at the national level. Project activities include: (1) providing information sessions and support to adolescent girls and boys to promote girls' right to education and their sexual and reproductive health and rights; (2) providing training and support to parent-teacher associations to promote the reduction of harmful practices that prevent adolescent girls from accessing and staying in school; (3) creating adolescent girls' clubs to enable girls to express their needs safely; (4) providing training and support for staff of the National Directorate of Basic Education in gender-sensitive analysis and programming; and (5) supporting the Ministry of National Education to strengthen its capacity to collect, monitor, analyse and publish reports on girls' enrolment.

This project aims to clear approximately 359,000 square meters of landmine-affected areas in northern Sri-Lanka, in order to allow resettlement and increased security of vulnerable and displaced populations.

Project activities include: 1) clearing landmines from residential areas; 2) repairing infrastructure, such as a water reservoirs and irrigation systems; 3) gender-sensitive employment practices used by the project partner, HALO Trust, including promoting women to supervisory positions in an equitable manner.

Approximately 13,900 people (of which 52% are women and girls) are expected to benefit from the project in the short-term, including over 3,750 long-term internally displaced people who are expected to have increased access to their home areas in the Jaffna, Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu districts in northern Sri Lanka.

The purpose of the Jordan Program Support Facility (JPSF) is to increase the overall quality and effectiveness of development programming in Jordan supported through Canada’s Official Development Assistance (ODA).

Open data – information from governments and other institutions made accessible to all - is becoming a major driver for social change, innovation and development, contributing to increasing trust in institutions, more transparent and accountable governance, more innovative economies, more effective service delivery and more engaged citizens. Through the Open Data for Development (OD4D) program, Canada supports innovative approaches to help realize the full potential of open data to transform governments, civil society and business, to empower women and girls, and to ensure benefits for citizens in developing countries. OD4D supports a coordinated network of initiatives and institutions around the world whose activities include providing training for civil society and government officials; evaluating the impact of open data; creating regional peer networks; and supporting governments to plan and implement open data policies.

This third phase of OD4D seeks to facilitate the use of data to improve inclusion and gender equality, good governance and economic growth, thus ensuring that open data contributes to achieving the 2030 Agenda. OD4D activities include: (1) exploring how data can drive inclusion, better governance and empowerment, including for women, Indigenous and LGBTQI+ people; (2) supporting research on the impact of data use on development outcomes; (3) enhancing southern perspectives in data governance; and (4) further building OD4D regional hubs’ capacity.

This project aims to improve the lives of Lebanese and Syrian women and girls by strengthening the capacity of key national and local government institutions and Lebanon Crisis Response Plan (LCRP) implementing partners to support gender-responsible policy making. The project also works to integrate gender into the LCRP to ensure that development and humanitarian efforts consider the experiences, needs, and contributions of women and girls. Project activities include: (1) providing technical support and capacity building for gender mainstreaming to national institutions, ministries, municipalities and LCRP implementing partners; and (2) developing in-focus briefs and guidance notes to inform advocacy on particular topics from a gender perspective, such as gender-based violence, economic inclusion, empowerment and voices in decision-making, capacities for reconciliation, and conflict resolution.

This project aims to carry out community liaison activities that link local leaders (women and men) to the military demining units assigned to clear mines in their communities. These liaison activities work to contribute to ensuring that the needs and priorities of women and men from local populations are met by fostering the population’s active contributions to mine action identification and prioritization processes. The project also aims to provide mine risk education to vulnerable communities, including women and girls, in order to promote safe behaviors and reduce the incidence of landmine accidents and victims. This includes both communities where demining activities are occurring and communities where there have been recent incidents of landmine accidents but where security situations do not permit demining activities.