UBC awarded $9 million in grants to develop 10 tech projects

BY GILLIAN SHAW, VANCOUVER SUN JANUARY 10, 2014

 

Researchers work on making wearable electronics at a University of B.C. lab. Nanofibres, below, are stretched across this frame, used to conduct electricity. The fibres will be woven into fabric.

Photograph by: Wayne Leidenfrost, PNG , Vancouver Sun

 

 

Five years from now a cardiac patient leaving a Vancouver hospital could be wearing a shirt that delivers real-time heart monitoring to medical specialists.

If anything goes amiss, an instant alert could warn the patient to head to emergency or summon an ambulance.

It's a future that came one step closer to reality Thursday with the announcement by Greg Rickford, minister of state for science and technology, awarding $9 million in grants for 10 projects at the University of B.C. from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

Funding will be used to further research in a number of areas, including wearable health monitoring and solar power-generating fabric for clothing and curtains.

The UBC projects are among 77 research programs across 23 Canadian universities that received $43 million in grants.

At UBC, researchers are collaborating with companies, including local start-up ReFleX Wireless Inc. – a UBC spinoff founded by three computer engineering grads – in technology they say will provide stretchable, more flexible and less costly solutions to integrating electronics into [more]

ReFleX embraces nanotechnology for its next generation of wireless sensors